John Blackshoe Sends: Serendipity History – Cat fight!

This is a special edition of Serendipity History to cover up Sarge’s temporary incapacitation.

“Serendipity” is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “the fact of finding interesting or valuable things by chance.” I make no claim that the stuff I find and share are valuable, but hope that most are at least interesting.

Very soon, the Chant will have several posts on “Halloween 1898- Who Stole the Beer?” This required extensive research in various sources, including reading copies of the Lexington, Kentucky Morning Herald from October 1898. Next to a story related to my main topic was the story below.

Women criticizing the appearance of other women, has apparently been going on for a long time, but I was not aware that it reached the level of legally actionable complaints with actual charges filed and juries awarding monetary damages for such catty remarks. There is a lot I don’t know. To wit:

Source: Lexington Herald, October 19, 1898, page2.

Naturally, this aroused curiosity to exactly how hot was this chick looked (with or without alleged enhancements), hopefully to be verified by a photo, perhaps in someone’s Ancestry tree gallery.  Alas, the search was futile, but it did find evidence that the news media is quite incestuous, and kind of like the “Telephone” game, where what is initially said ends up being subtly changed as it is passed along.

In this case, the court case above was also reported in an Iowa paper, both probably based on what we would now call wire service reporting. Haphazardly placed between a story about a suicidal wife beset by domestic troubles whose body was found in a well with $310 in gold and $95 in currency secreted upon her person, and an ad for “Pabst Malt Extract- the best tonic” we read:

Source: Waterloo, Iowa Courier, October 18, 1898, page 2.

In this version, we are told that the accused’s name is “Anna” instead of “Ana” and damages sought were $3,000 instead of $300, and that she was the wife of a leading merchant in Milford.

But, sadly, Milford was the name of three towns in Indiana, and the 1900 census did not provide any promising leads on either the beautiful Mrs. Dietrich, or the jealous Mrs. Menzel, or their husbands. So, our voyeuristic inquiries ceased.

This excursion could have been justified if, serendipitously, either of these families were related to members of the 160th Indiana Volunteer Infantry which were part of the beer theft. But, apparently not.

Such is the life of an historian, often chasing dead ends, but sometimes finding valuable or interesting things.

Hope Sarge feels better soon.