UPDATES TO SOME PREVIOUS STORIES - Tom Maloy and Therese Study Porter

I have several new articles for this blog in the hopper but can't proceed with them for some reason or other - mostly because everything (historical societies, university libraries, county clerks, etc.) are all closed due to the pandemic.  Hopefully the quarantine will cease soon.  I have not had a haircut since February and I am starting to look like a refugee from the 1960s.

I have been writing articles for this blog and its predecessor since September of 2011.  Most of the articles I have written have gotten comments - some more than others.  The comments I like the best are from members of the families of people I have written about.  With one exception the comments have always been positive and through this blog I have "met" some very nice people and reconnected with my high school prom date who is as beautiful today as she was in 1974.   

So this month instead of publishing a new article for the blog I will share additional information I received on two of the stories I have written.

Back in August of 2014 I wrote about a man named Tom Maloy and asked if he got away with murder:

https://undereverytombstone.blogspot.com/2014/08/did-he-get-away-with-murder-thomas-maloy.html

Maloy had been suspected of the murder of motion picture projectionist Jack Kaufman in 1931.  Maloy was the head of the Motion Picture Operators Union.  Kaufman's murder was never solved and Maloy ended up being murdered himself in 1935.  Both Kaufman's and Maloy's murders are still on the books as "Unsolved". 

Fast forward to May 18, 2020 when I received this email from Ray in Arizona:

Found this picture hanging in the Chicago Hamburger Company restaurant located at 3749 E Indian School Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85018 whilst enjoying a real Chicago Hotdog (very hard to find by the way as is a Maxwell Street Polish Sausage). 

I did a little research and came across your blog on the subject so I decided to send the pic to you as there are several minor detail discrepancies - which, of course, was common from newspaper-to-newspaper of the era.

I enjoyed your blog and the grave site pictures, thanks for your contributions. 

Ray  

Here are the photos Ray attached to his email:

I told Ray the the Chicago American newspaper was a Hearst paper, so their stories were always more lurid than the staid Chicago Tribune.  Unfortunately I am not aware of any Chicago American archive or I would subscribe to it.  I guess the owners of the Chicago Hamburger Co. felt that Chicagoans would feel more at home if some gangster memorabilia was on display.

But just as important as the memorabilia is the fact that the Chicago Hamburger Co. has Chicago style hot dogs.  Now being from Evanston, I personally feel that no hot dog surpasses the hot dogs served at Bill's Drive-In on Asbury:

But all you snowbirds will be happy to know where you can find a good Chicago hot dog in Phoenix.  

So thank you again to Ray for his kind comments, the photos and the hot dog information.

One of the posts that I did that generated the most comments was the one I wrote in September of 2019 on Therese Study Porter:

https://undereverytombstone.blogspot.com/2019/09/evanston-woman-whose-husband-died-on.html

The original story was that her husband had died on their wedding day and after that, she put his car up on blocks in the driveway of their house and never moved it again.

It turned out that she was a rich eccentric who did put her husband's car up on blocks after he died because she didn't like the local sheriff who had complained to her about it.  But it was not on their wedding day - Albert Porter died sixteen years after he married Therese.  She died extremely wealthy and left her money to the care of animals. (Yay!) That comment was from Gracie the beagle in between naps:

On November 22, 2019 I received this email from Chris McDivitt:

Dear Mr. Craig,

I enjoyed reading your article about Therese Study Porter on your blog.  I have been going through keepsakes from my aunt who passed away about 15 years ago and came across a box containing a note, an old tin type photo, and a personal "business" card with the name "Mrs. Albert Brown Porter, 1024 Lakeshore Dr."  I attached photos of each.  I imagine the tin type is of Therese's father, a young Thomas Jefferson Study -- "Mr. Study" in the small photo attached to the note.

As you could imagine, after reading your article, I'm now even more interested in how these came into my aunt's possession.  My aunt was Emma E. Beaver, born in eastern Rush County in 1913. She moved to Indianapolis in the 1930s where she became a nurse and worked for Methodist Hospital until the 1980s.  Mrs. Porter grew up in an adjacent community to my aunt, so there may be some connection there.  Who knows, though...it may always be a mystery.

I thought you might enjoy seeing some of these items.  It sounds like Mrs. Porter had a fascinating, albeit sad ending to her life.

Best,

Chris McDivitt

Indianapolis, Indiana

Here are the photos Chris sent me:

Very interesting to say the least.  As my dear Mother always used to say, "Watch what you say to people - you never know who knows who."

So, that's it for this month.  By July 1st hopefully the quarantine will be lifted and I will be able to bring you some more of the interesting stories that lie "Under Every Tombstone." 

BY WHOM HIS DEATH WAS DEEPLY MOURNED - Harry Hugh Thomas Reifschneider

Prior to 2020 if you said "worldwide epidemic" you were probably talking about the Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1918-1920.  Many people today are obsessed with the Covid-19 pandemic but it pales in comparison with the Spanish Flu.  Per Wikipedia:

The Spanish flu, also known as the 1918 flu pandemic, was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic. Lasting from January 1918 to December 1920, it infected 500 million people – about a third of the world's population at the time.  

Deaths:  17,000,000–50,000,000+ (estimate)

Confirmed cases:  500 million (estimate) 

The reason the figures were estimates was that the Spanish Flu was worldwide and in 1918-1920 communications with rural and remote areas was almost non-existent.  Anyone doing genealogical research will find people in their tree who died from the Spanish Flu - and mostly young people.  Older people seemed to have an immunity but the Spanish Flu decimated the ranks of the young and (previously) healthy.  And the Spanish Flu could take its victims very quickly.  One could have a slight cough at breakfast and be dead by dinner.  During the almost nine years I have been writing for this blog I have told the story of many people who died from the Spanish Flu:

David and Beatrice Lepavsky

Lt. Norman C. Ernst

Benjamin and Louis Bernstein

Katharine Craig Stewart

Ned S. Schuhan

Leo Edelstein

Wesley Gillette Dempster

I had been working on a very interesting story this month, finding out what happened to one of my relatives we knew little about, but I am unable to finish it.  My research has been hampered because so many municipalities, archives, churches, libraries and even cemeteries are closed because of the "Shelter in Place" order.  So, I'll put that story over to next month and this month I'll tell you the story of another victim of the Spanish Influenza, Harry Hugh Thomas Reifschneider. 

Harry Hugh Thomas Reifschneider was born May 18, 1897 in Temple, Texas.  His parents were George Peter Reifschneider (1867-1927) and Pearl Elizabeth Shipp (1877-1955).  George and Pearl were married on June 22, 1895 in Bell, Texas.  George was a Cotton Broker by trade.  Harry's mother was known by several different names.  When she was first married she went by Pearl Elizabeth Reifschneider.  Then in the 1940s she started going by P. Elizabeth Reifschneider and ultimately by Elizabeth P. Reifschneider.  In addition to Harry, George and Pearl had a daughter, Ada Blanche Reifschneider (1902-????).

Harry's first appearance in official records (other than his birth record) was in the 1900 US Census.  The Reifschneider family was living in Gainesville, Texas.  George was 33 years old and a "Cotton Buyer"; Pearl was 23.  They had been married for five years and had one child, Harry, who was "single" and three years old.  Also living with them was a "cousin-in-law", thirteen year old Earl Knight.

By the 1910 US Census, the Reifschneider family was living in Lawton, Oklahoma, at 804 E Street:

804 E Street, Lawton, Oklahoma

Forty-three year old George was a "Cotton Broker."  Mysteriously the ten year age gap between he and Pearl has now become only three years because Pearl told the census taker she was 40 (she was actually 33).  I always laugh when people use the census as proof of a genealogical "fact."  People lied to the census takers all the time - and I'm sure they still do.  

In addition to 13 year old Harry, the family now includes 8 year old Ada.

We get our first look at a very studious Harry courtesy of the 1914 Lawton (OK) High School Yearbook.  In 1914 he was a sophomore:

In 1915, Harry was a junior:

For whatever reason he does not appear in the 1916 yearbook for Lawton High School.

Records indicate that Harry had graduated from high school in Lawton but he shows up in the 1916 City Directory for Oklahoma City, Oklahoma living at 36 W. 4th Street and working as a "Clerk".  He is not listed in the 1917 Oklahoma City directory.

According to the US Adjutant General Military Records, Harry Hugh Thomas Reifschneider enlisted in the Navy on June 21, 1917 at Chicago, Illinois.  He was sent to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station where he trained from June, 1917 to July, 1918 attached to the Medical Corps, ultimately being promoted to Hospital Apprentice First Class.

Harry Reifschneider did take some time off from his Navy duties to get married as reported in the Chicago Tribune of March 10, 1918:

While Harry was training at Great Lakes, his bride was living with her mother Emma Smithson at 2232 Wesley Avenue in Evanston, Illinois:

2232 Wesley Avenue Evanston, Illinois

Harry Reifschneider was transferred to Newport, Rhode Island where he took sick and on October 2, 1918 he died from pneumonia.  In most cases the Spanish Influenza was not the Cause of Death, although it was a contributing factor.  The flu so weakened the lungs that pneumonia set in and that was that.   

Here is the first mention of Harry's serious illness from the Lawton (OK) Constitution on September 30, 1918:

The same newspaper reported  on October 3, 1918 the sad news of his death:

Harry's death was publicized in Chicago as well.  Here is his Death Notice from the Chicago Tribune of October 4, 1918:

Harry was much loved in Lawton as evidenced by this clip from the Constitution:

No mention was made in the Lawton papers of Harry's marriage.  The Constitution reported that his survivors were his parents and sister.  The person who wrote about Harry's death also assumed that Harry's remains would be returned to Lawton for burial but that was not the case. Harry was actually buried in Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago:

On October 8, 1918 the Lawton (OK) News reported that Harry's remains would be buried in Chicago.  Again, no mention of a wife:

I'm sure that Harry's bride wanted him buried in Chicago, near to her, rather than having him interred 880 miles away in Lawton, Oklahoma.

Tragically, Harry's wife Dorothy S. Smithson Reifschneider died 33 days later on November 4, 1918.  Here is her Death Notice from the Chicago Tribune of November 5, 1918:

She is buried next to him at Rosehill:

She was 20 years old.  As with her husband, Dorothy's Death Notice said she died from pneumonia.  She was buried the very next day after she died, as was the custom during the Spanish Flu epidemic when all public gatherings were cancelled.

Thus ends the story of the short life of Harry Hugh Thomas Reifschneider.  A man with his whole life ahead of him with a new bride and a very bright future - struck down in his prime by a virus.  It brings to mind the old adage:

“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been.”

― John Greenleaf Whittier,

I will end my story of Harry Reifschneider by relating the words his superiors wrote about him:

"Harry Reifschneider won the approbation of his superiors by his efficiency in the performance of his duties, while by his cheerful willing service and winning personality he gained the friendship and admiration of his associates, by whom his death was deeply mourned."

May he rest in peace.