Here’s a trio of odd little stories that probably had tongues clucking for a few days in 1910 Santa Rosa:

A farm family on Occidental Road woke up a few days before Christmas to find some of the windows open, hair scattered everywhere and their little girl nearly bald. Eight year-old Aldora Maria Souza insisted a stranger had crept inside late at night and cut off all her locks, leaving her very frightened. (The Press Democrat story mistakenly identifies her as being two years older and named “Madaline,” although the census and other records show neither could be accurate. These misunderstandings might be explained by the family speaking only Portuguese, with the presumed exception of Aldora who was attending country school.) Authorities took the story seriously and the Deputy Sheriff in Sebastopol organized a posse to search for the deranged man. No one was found, but they heard there was a rumor she told a schoolmate that she was planning to cut off her hair, and supposedly she had once before told a similar story about an attack by a mad barber. The PD reporter, writing rather skillfully in the tone of a parent trying to coax a child into admitting a fib, made it clear everyone believed little Aldora whacked off her own curls and made the crazy story up. Gentle Reader certainly believes the same, I’m sure. But in the next column on that page of the Press Democrat was a story about a Santa Rosa dragnet for Ray Glatfelder, a young criminal who escaped police custody the same night as Aldora’s haircut. An interesting detail about Mr. Glatfelder’s escape: He was wearing handcuffs at the time. Ray Glatfelder (RIGHT: Not long after his escape, the Press Democrat published Ray Glatfelder’s picture in an unusual “wanted criminal” item. As far as can be determined, Glatfelder was never captured.) Ray Glatfelder was certainly more enterprising than the usual dumb clucks who made up Santa Rosa’s criminal class. Two years earlier, when he was 19 or 20, he had escaped from the county jail by digging through the wall of his cell and lowering himself from the second floor by means of knotted bedsheets. Captured a few weeks later, he was sent to the Preston School of Industry, the toughest reform school in the state – literally a San Quentin for children. When he escaped in handcuffs from Santa Rosa police in 1910, he had been recently discharged from Preston and was being arrested for burglary. So it’s surely a coincidence that Glatfelder escaped the same night Aldora’s hair was chopped off a few hours later. It was another coincidence that there would be two simultaneous manhunts in Sonoma County the next day. (Had that ever happened before?) And it’s against all odds that a guy who happened to be a burglar and needed to steal a hacksaw or file would be clever enough to use a little child as a diversion to cover up his theft. The chances were even remote that readers would find any possible connections between the two stories that appeared side by side on the same page of the Press Democrat.

As a bonus oddity, to the right is one of the ads that appeared in the 1910 Santa Rosa papers for Professor Whittier, exhibition roller skater; presumably he’s about to jump over those mismatched kitchen chairs instead of staring them into submission. But what’s with the “coast to death?” His big trick sounds risky yet oddly nonchalant. Perhaps he was imitating another performer who had a stunt called the “roll to doom” or “glide to the grave” or something.

HUNT IN VAIN FOR BAD HAIR CUTTER

Girl’s Story as to Attack By Man Armed With Scissors Believed to Be Fanciful

Did ten year-old Madaline Souza, daughter of a farmer residing some miles from Sebastopol on the old Occidental road take a pair of scissors and cut off her golden tresses or did some mischievous man ruthlessly despoil her flowing head of hair? Is the story she tells fanciful or real?

Madaline says a man, a stranger, who cut off a portion of her locks some time since, returned to her home on Tuesday night and completed the job, leaving her all shorn. Officers and others are inclined to believe that little Madaline, who attends the district school in her neighborhood, fancies all this.

When it comes to the fact that her hair has been cut there is realism beyond peradventure of a doubt in that ocular demonstration is sufficient to prove that part of the case.

At any rate when the girl’s family arose they found some of the windows, shuttered and barred on the previous night, were open Wednesday morning. They found Madaline’a hair strewn about here and there, and were met with the girl’s declaration that during the night a man, the same one who on a previous occasion had cut off a part of her hair, had returned and had broken into the house, finished the hair-cutting, and had departed, leaving her very frightened.

When the news spread through the community Wednesday morning, a posse was formed to find the alleged bad man hair-cutter, and Deputy Sheriff Fred R. Matthews of Sebastopol headed and directed the search among the Occidental hills and dales for the culprit. The search lasted all day and by nightfall the searchers had found nothing and were of the opinion, some of them at least, that Madaline had allowed her imagination, to run rampant, especially when a rumor reached their ears that another school girl had been told by the Souza girl that she intended cutting off her hair.

Things had quieted down a boit in the neighborhood Wednesday night and the earlier rumors of the daytime to the effect that an insane man had cut the girl’s hair were allowed to pass. Inquiry at Sebastopol on Wednesday night elicited the information that the girl was apparently the only one who had seen the strange man with the naughty scissors.

– Press Democrat, December 22, 1910

RAY GLATFELDER STILL AT LIBERTY

Hunt all Day and Night By Officers Fails to Locate Self-Confessed Burglar

Up to an early hour this morning Ray Glatfelder, self-confessed burglar, who on Tuesday night made his escape with handcuffs clasped about his wrists, had not been captured, despite the silly rumors that were afloat as to his death and arrest.

The officers were on the alert all day Wednesday and at night but he could not be found anywhere. He is believed to be hiding somewhere in town.

– Press Democrat, December 22, 1910

MET HIS OWN SUIT WHILE OUT WALKING

Man Prides Himself on His Taste as Dresser When He Sees How Well Another Man Looks–Burglar

Supposing you had a natty suit of clothes hanging in your closet at home, and one day while you were out for a drive you met a stylishly dressed man wearing a suit of the same pattern and cut as your own, and after congratulating yourself on your idea of taste in the selection of clothes you were to return home several hours later to find that during your absence a burglar had ransacked the house and among other things had carried off your new suit, and knowing that you had passed that burglar and suit on the road, wouldn’t it jar you?

In brief this is just what happened to E. H. Johanssen, who resides in the Sonoma Valley, near Sonoma. He recognized a suit of clothes that he could have sworn was his on the anatomy of another man and when he returned home he found that a burglar had visited the house during his absence and had carried off many articles of value including the suit of clothes he had just bought.

The burglar had a good start and though the officers were notified soon after the discovery of the burglary he had made his get-away. If Johanssen meets that suit out walking there will be something doing, though.

– Press Democrat, June 26, 1910

WEIRD SEARCH FOR SUPPOSED CORPSE

Assistant District Attorney Hoyle Called from Bed at Early Morn by Startled Resident

Assistant District Attorney George W. Hoyle was called from his slumbers about 3 o’clock Monday morning and informed that his neighbor, former Police Officer Herman Hankel had shot himself at his home nearby.

An immediate investigation was made by Mr. Hoyle and George Forepaugh, who had given the alarm, but as nothing could be found of the supposed suicide’s body. Forepaugh started to summon the police. He was just in the act when the supposed dead man appeared upon the scene with a gun, and Forepaugh mad his escape with dispatch, declaring afterwards that the doorway was not nearly wide enough for him.

There are various stories regarding the affair, but from them all it would appear that Hankel had been having some trouble over property rights, and finally informed his wife that he would end it all by killing himself. Telling her farewell he took his gun and going outside the house fired the weapon into the air. As Hankel failed to return, Mrs. Hankel feared he had carried out his threat.

Mrs. Hankel called up her sister, Mrs. Georgia Redwine, and informed her of the facts as she understood them. Mrs. Redwine called Forepaugh, who rooms in her lodging house, and asked him to find the body of the suicide. Forepaugh apparently did not relish the job, and so involved the aid of Assistant District Attorney Hoyle. Not being able to find the remains they were looking for, Forepaugh went to the telephone to summon the police and was just calling the number when the supposed dead man made his appearance. This cut short the investigation.

The story was being discussed about the streets last night, but when called upon Mrs. Hankel denied that there was any truth in the report of attempted suicide, and denied that she had heard any shot fired during the night or morning.

Forepaugh, however, tells the story as related above, and Assistant District Attorney Hoyle admits being called by Forepaugh with the statement that Hankel had killed himself, admits that he assisted Forepaugh in the search for Hankel’s dead body and admits he was present when Hankel came back into the house carrying a revolver in his hand.

– Press Democrat, June 22, 1910

ASSAULTED LAST NIGHT ON PUBLIC STREET

Former Police Officer Herman Hankel assaulted George Forepaugh on the public street last night, and was arrested by Officer Yeager and taken to the police station, where he gave bail for his appearance this morning. Hankel is a large man and would make two or three of Forepaugh, but bystanders prevented any serious results. The trouble is said to have grown out of family differences.

Hankel Denies the Report

Former Police Officer Herman Hankel called at the Press Democrat office Thursday night and denied the report that he recently threatened to commit suicide. He maintains that he did not have a gun, and no gun was fired.

– Press Democrat, June 24, 1910

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Reading century-old newspapers is nothing like the experience of reading a newspaper today. There was more of it, for starters; today’s Press Democrat looks positively anemic compared to editions from great-grandpa’s day, when reading the paper cover-to-cover would take the better part of an evening – even though there were no comics or sports or business or lifestyle sections. What was there instead was local news and lots of it. Subscribers knew who was in town for a visit and who was away for a bit, who recently moved into a new home and who hosted a nice card party. There might be a dozen articles just about the preparations for an upcoming rose carnival or parade (more, if the Squeedunks were involved). It probably sounds as if it would be terribly boring to read 100+ years later, and yeah, it often is – but finding the occasional gem is what keeps me turning the microfilmed pages.

Take the five items from 1909 transcribed below. None are particularly funny, tragic, or noteworthy – yet they’re all so damned peculiar that you can’t easily forget them. There’s the “Mystery of the Severed Thumbs,” which was exactly what it sounded like; a kid in Bennett Valley found a pickle jar containing a pair of thumbs preserved in alcohol. As the only thing more unusual than losing thumbs is finding a bottle filled with them, there was some talk around town.

Also intriguing was the announcement of Professor Mitchell’s “walking class,” which was open to “any who wish to learn the correct method of walking and breathing while walking.” Given the restrictive clothing of the day (this corset illustration appeared in an ad from Santa Rosa’s White House Department Store that same year), the breathing lessons alone might have been worth enrollment. A few months later, Mitchell, who called himself a “medical gymnast,” said he intended to open a “Home of Physical Culture” at 925 McDonald, but it appears nothing came of it.

Then there was the situation-comedy misadventure of Percy Hoegeboom, who discovered on the train back to Santa Rosa that a newspaper had declared him dead from suicide. (Longtime readers might recall a similar 1904 mixup where bereaved parents bought a coffin and published an obituary for their daughter after a woman of the same name died in San Francisco.) There was also in 1909 the comic tragedy of Louie Consoli, who found quite a mess when he returned home after several months in the county lockup. It seems that a great many rats settled into his home during his absence and  neighbors did their best to help by laying out poison. The result, reported the Santa Rosa Republican, was “thousands of dead and decomposed rats littering the floor, packing the shelves and filling his very bed itself. Moreover, there was an odor emanating from the premises that the owner and erstwhile occupant intimated words, English or otherwise, were powerless to describe.”

The last item has an appeal I simply can’t explain. A duck hunter had twenty wooden duck decoys in the Laguna carefully painted to look as realistic as possible. Although each was weighted down with rocks, apparently high storm waters unmoored them and “when last seen they were swimming in fleet formation down the Russian river past Ponte Rio,” according to the Press Democrat, “led by the big drake of the flock.”

Now whenever I think of 1909 I imagine two images, unrelated yet inextricably linked. A resident of the Russian River peers out her kitchen window as a procession of curiously wooden-looking ducks bob past; a shopper downtown on an early March evening watches a group of people gliding slowly down Fourth street, all walking and breathing with the most deliberate care. Even then, these were peculiar things to happen.

WALKING CLASS WILL BEGIN STUNTS MONDAY

Professor Mitchell’s walking class will begin its pedestrian stunts on Monday next, and any who wish to learn the correct method of walking and breathing while walking are invited to join the class.

There is absolutely no charge for joining the class and it has nothing in the way of an obligation attached to it in any manner. The class is strictly for the benefit of giving proper exercise to the body, and all who will are invited to join.

George Pool, the boy who was walking on crutches only a few weeks ago and whom Professor Mitchell has caused to walk without the aid of the crutches, will be a member of the walking class. The pace will be slow, so as not to tire anyone, and the distance will not be great. The start will be from the library at Fourth and E streets at 7 o’clock sharp.

– Santa Rosa Republican, March 2, 1909

JAY BOWER’S DUCKS ADRIFT

Last Seen in Fleet Formation Bound to Sea

Jay Bowers, the well known cigarist, has lost twenty fine, full grown ducks. He says he left them safe in the laguna against the rainless day when he would be over there with his gun, and now they are gone for good–no, gone for bad. When last seen they were swimming in fleet formation down the Russian river past Ponte Rio, led by the big drake of the flock.

Last week he went over to the laguna with three pots of paint and gave them a most artistic triple coat of colors. He worked after hours and when he had finished they looked so much like real ducks that he fancied he could hear them “quack.” When he put them in the water to test their buoyancy they tried to paddle away. Then he anchored them securely, each with a bit of rock, intending to return this week and try them out as decoys. The high water broke them from their moorings or some rival hunter cut them adrift, or the thunderstorm scared them away, and they are probably swimming a life on the ocean wave. Now he sadly sings, “Where, oh, where are my wooden ducks gone.”

– Press Democrat, February 8, 1909

PERCY HOGEBOOM AND HIS CARBOLIC ACID

Mrs. R. Hogeboom returned Thursday morning from a trip to Oakland, where she was summoned the previous afternoon by a report published that morning in one of the San Francisco papers to the effect that her son, Percy Hoegeboom, the blacksmith, had attempted suicide by taking carbolic acid.

The report turned out to be erroneous, and started in a somewhat amusing way. It seems that Mr. Hogeboom’s little child was taken sick, and his wife asked him to bring her a bottle of oil from the kitchen as she wished to give the youngster a dose. Hogeboom got what he supposed was the oil bottle, and took the cork out with his teeth. In doing this he burned his lips. The pain was quite severe, and he cried to his wife to get him something to ease it. The landlady’s little boy heard Hogeboom tell his wife “It is carbolic acid,” and ran and told his mother, who immediately summoned a physician. Then somebody told the policeman, and the policeman told the reporter, and or course it was printed in the paper as a case of attempted suicide.

“The first thing Percy heard of his having attempted suicide was while he as on his way back home from work,” said Mrs. Hogeboom yesterday, “when he happened to pick up a paper containing the item. He had just gotten home and was telling his wife about it, when I walked in the door. I went down to bury him, but instead he took us all to the theatre.”

– Press Democrat, April 23, 1909

DEAD RODENTS LITTER HOME

“Gabidaliztic” Rats Make a Sad Home-coming

Louie Consoli, who had been spending several months in the county jail because of inability to furnish a five hundred dollar bond to keep the peace, on account of threats he had made against the person of William Fraser of Duncan’s Mills, got into the world again, and according to his view he found it the same old, ornery place as ever. He found that his house at Occidental had been occupied by rats in his absence and that they had eaten most of what provisions he had left there at the time of his arrest and commitment last spring. And he found worse things yet, for some of his neighbors, charitably inclined, had thought to rid the place of the rodents by means of poison. Now, upon Mr. Consoli’s return thither, there were to take his numerical statement, various thousands of dead and decomposed rats littering the floor, packing the shelves and filling his very bed itself. Moreover, there was an odor emanating from the premises that the owner and erstwhile occupant intimated words, English or otherwise, were powerless to describe. The consumption of his substance by rats and the unpleasant presence of the latter in a very diseased state, Mr. Consoli seemed to somehow or other attribute to the “gabidaliztic” system of society under which he and others live.

– Santa Rosa Republican, August 16, 1909

MYSTERY OF THE SEVERED THUMBS

Asa Brackett Finds a Pickle Bottle the Contents of Which Are Not Classed With the 57 Varieties

Asa Brackett didn’t know just what to do with the thing he found Sunday. He was hunting rabbits, but it wasn’t rabbits he found. It was a little bottle such as generally holds ten cents worth of olives. But its contents were nothing else than two human thumbs pickled in alcohol. He picked the thing up on the Heisel place, adjoining Calvary cemetery, on the Bennett Valley road, about two miles from town. Asa brought the bottle to town and gave it to Sheriff Jack Smith–although he was troubled by doubts as to whether Coroner Frank Blackburn might not have a claim upon it too.

The strange find opens a wild field for investigation and conjecture. Every town has its amateur detectives, and those of Santa Rosa have here a chance at a sensational task that may unfold a situation like unto one of those in “A Study in Scarlet,” “The Sign of the Four,” or the mystery of “The Five Orange Pips.”

Jave kidnappers chopped off some hapless victim’s thumbs in default of ransom? Nobody has been reported missing from this region. Has some wood-chopper met with accident? Such might be the case if only one thumb was present, but two thumbs makes that supposition improbable. Perhaps some wood-chopper has taken too literally the words of the Holy Writ, “If thy hand offend thee, cut it off.” But the hired man who cuts the kindling on the Heisel place exhibits both thumbs entire, and says, “Not guilty.”

So the mystery is in the hands of the Sheriff, the Coroner and the amateur detectives. “The Mystery of the Severed Thumbs” may yet become a classic to rank with Sherlock Holmes’ best.

It is suggested that the local Sherlocks ascertain if there is a medical student who lives in Bennett Valley.

– Press Democrat, December 29, 1909

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