USA > Minnesota > Otter Tail County > History of Otter Tail County, Minnesota: Its People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I > Part 67
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The daughter Annie was a comely girl, well educated, as schooling went then, and was the pride of her father and mother. The parents were getting on in years, and Annie was considered a very desirable match for the Adonis fortunate enough to win her. Near the Craigie home lived a young man by the name of Archie McArthur. He was of good address, industrious, of Scotch descent on his father's side, with a strain of Indian blood derived from his mother. There was very little in his appearance to indicate the Indian taint. He had light hair and blue eyes, and a stranger would never suspect from his looks that the blood of the noble red man was in his veins. He paid his addresses to Annie, who reciprocated his affection, and, against the violent opposition of her parents, they were married. From that time on, Craigie disowned Annie, forbade her his house, and it is not known that she ever "darkened the door" of her parents' home again.
At this time there was living in Otter Tail county a man by the name of John Cromb. He was a Scotchman, and came to this country from the same neighborhood where Craigie used to live. He was married, well educated and afterwards filled important state and national offices. Soon after Annie's marriage a woman from the Craigie home in Scotland came to the Craigie home here. Through some item in the local newspaper which fell into her hands in the old country, she learned the whereabouts of John Cromb, her husband. According to her story, vouched for by the Craigies,
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she was the wife of Cromb, whom he had deserted and come to America with another woman as his wife. After her arrival here she employed counsel to commence proceedings against her husband, but before any legal action was taken all proceedings were terminated by the tragic death of Mr. and Mrs. Craigie and Mrs. Cromb.
Craigie owned a light sailing yacht, and was in the habit of frequently taking his family for a sail on the beautiful lake. One afternoon, when a fine breeze was blowing, he took Mrs. Craigie and Mrs. Cromb out for a sail. They had not been long on the lake before, through some unknown accident or mismanagement, the boat capsized and all were drowned.
James G. Craigie had several brothers and sisters, part of whom lived in Scotland, part in Canada, and one brother in Minnesota at the time of his death. The brother, Alexander M., living in Scotland, came to Min- nesota and applied to the probate court of Otter Tail county for letters of administration of the estate of his deceased brother. This application was resisted by Annie McArthur, who claimed to be the daughter and sole heir of James G. Craigie, deceased, but at the hearing in the probate court Alexander was appointed administrator, and letters were ordered to be issued to him. From such order of appointment, Annie McArthur appealed to the district court of the county. Alexander Craigie, with his brothers and sisters, claimed that Annie McArthur was not the daughter of James G. Craigie, but was the child of one Falkner, living in Scotland. If this claim were established, then the property of the deceased brother descended to his brothers and sisters. On the other hand, if she were the daughter of James G. Craigie, then she was his sole heir and entitled to the whole of the estate.
As may be easily imagined, everybody was interested in the trial, and public sympathy was mostly on the side of Annie McArthur. Eminent counsel from St. Paul represented each side of the controversy and the question submitted to the jury: "Is Annie McArthur, the appellant, the legitimate child of James G. Craigie, deceased." was discussed at every cross- road and place where frontiersmen gathered for gossip.
The brothers and sisters of James were at the trial, some coming from Scotland and others from Canada, and all testified to facts from which it might be inferred that Annie was the daughter of Falkner. The nature of Mrs. McArthur's evidence may be gathered from the court's instructions to the jury. The jury was instructed that if they believed from the testimony that the plaintiff, Annie, was begotten in Scotland; that James G. Craigie and the mother lived at the same time in the same neighborhood; that the mother soon afterwards came over to Canada, and gave birth to the child; that shortly afterwards James G. Craigie came also to Canada and settled
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in the same neighborhood with the mother, and within two or three years after the child's birth married the mother; brought Annie up as his child, calling her by his own name, introduced her as his daughter; wrote her name in books given her by him, as "Annie Craigie"; wrote her letters signing himself "Your affectionate father," and treating her in all respects as his legitimate child; that such facts raised a strong presumption that she is his child, and that such presumption can only be overcome by strong and convincing proof.
The jury promptly answered the question "Yes," thus establishing Annie McArthur's contention that she was the daughter of James G. Craigie, and sole heir to his estate. The finding of the jury was affirmed by the supreme court of Minnesota, and Annie and Arthur lived "happily together ever after."
LUEDKE VS. LUEDKE.
The case of Clara M. Luedke vs. August E. Luedke for divorce pre- sented many features which made it celebrated at the time and worthy of record in the history of Otter Tail county.
The defendant for many years was a wealthy merchant of Perham. The plaintiff was an adventuress. After the death of his first wife, Luedke moved from Perham to Fergus Falls, bought the Picket block and opened therein a large, general store.
About the middle of May, 1899, Clara M. Holderbaum came to Luedke's store, being introduced to him by a traveling man whom Luedke had previously met. Her excuse for calling. she said, was her wish to rent the millinery department of Luedke's store. No agreement for that purpose was made, and Miss Holderbaum returned to Minneapolis, which, she said, was her home. In about two weeks later she wrote Luedke, renewing her application to rent. To this letter Luedke made no answer, and shortly she wrote again asking for a reply to her first letter. At the end of this epistle she added this postscript : "What do you say to opening a corres- pondence?"
From this time on the parties carried on a regular exchange of letters. I never had the pleasure of reading Luedke's letters, but Miss Holderbaum's were love epistles, indeed, burning with the most endearing terms of affec- tion, and very solicitous for Luedke's spiritual welfare. Nearly all pur- ported to have been written just before going to church, prayer meeting, Christian Endeavor gathering, or out on some mission of charity. Luedke called on her several times, when she always insisted that they attend some exercises of a religious nature. Luedke not being noticeably devout, always begged off, and proposed a show, instead, but she did not care for those
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things. Her early training had prejudiced her against such worldly enter- tainments.
Well, this correspondence, with occasional visits, continued along till about the latter part of September, and they were married on the 26th of that month. After marriage they came to Fergus Falls, occupying rooms in the Pickit block, over the store. The warmth of the courtship soon changed to heat of domestic broils. The first serious misunderstanding occurred within a couple of weeks. Mrs. Luedke demanded, as a proof of her husband's affection, that he deed and set over to her a certain portion of his property. She could not have touched a more tender or sensitive chord in Luedke's harmonious make-up.
The woman was not penniless, as she carried quite a store of wealth, concealed about her person. Of what this consisted, will appear later. From the time Luedke refused to deed any property to his wife, life together was not of that ideal harmony supposed to characterize the honeymoon period of marital bliss. Luedke, himself, was no angel, and if his wife were, she surely came from his satanic majesty's dominions. For several days prior to January 11, 1900, she had all her earthly belongings packed in trunks and the trunks locked. On that day she "moved out," and within a few hours thereafter a summons and complaint were served on Luedke demand- ing a divorce on the ground of cruel and inhuman treatment, with perma- nent alimony in the sum of fifty thousand dollars and an allowance for support, expenses of preparing for trial and attorney's fees in the sum of ten thousand dollars. She thought in figures like a Duluth millionaire. C. C. Houpt and Parsons & Brown were her attorneys in the suit.
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Hon. L. L. Baxter was the judge before whom the case would be tried, and his son, Chauncey L. Baxter, was an attorney living in Fergus Falls and practicing before his father. The importance of these facts will appear a little later, and serve to point a moral and help adorn the tale.
Luedke was, of course, perturbed. The figures in the complaint were staggering. He, at once, came to my office to retain me in the case. I read the complaint and heard the story of introduction, courtship and subsequent married life. After going over these, he asked: "Well, what do you think?" I said: "We must retain Chauncey Baxter." To this he objected in strongest terms. Anyone but Chauncey he was willing to consider, but he had no use for him. I told him he probably thought so, but that it struck me entirely different; that if he wanted my services he must rely on my judgment and follow my advice. He finally consented, but with rather poor grace. As soon as that was settled, I stepped to the phone and called for C. L. Baxter at his office, and was told that he had just gone home. Getting him on the line there, I told him that I wanted to retain him for
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Luedke in a suit for divorce which Mrs. Luedke had just commenced. Knowing the defendant's financial ability, he was not slow to accept, and said he would come to my office at once. On his way there he met Mr. Houpt, of counsel for Mrs. Luedke. Houpt told Baxter that he wanted to retain him for Mrs. Luedke in her divorce case. Chauncey told him that he was too late-that he had just been retained by Luedke and was on his way for a consultation. This circumstance shows how much better a phone is than walking when one is in a hurry.
After defendant's answer was served, the plaintiff's attorneys gave notice of an application to the court for an order commanding defendant to pay temporary alimony as demanded in the complaint. Before the day fixed for such hearing, Chauncey had a filial interview with his father.
The motion for temporary alimony came on for hearing, and plain- tiff's counsel made an able and pathetic appeal for liberal allowance in view of the great wealth of defendant. They claimed as reasonble, under the circumstances, one thousand dollars retainer for plaintiff's attorneys; five hundred dollars for preparing for trial, and twenty dollars per week to plain- tiff for maintenance during the pendency of the action.
At the close of their argument, counsel for defendant arose to reply, when the court stopped him and said: "I don't care to hear any argument on this question. I have a rule of my own which I always follow on these applications for temporary alimony, and which I shall follow in this instance. It is hereby ordered that the defendant pay to the attorneys for plaintiff, as retainer in the suit, the sum of fifty dollars; that he pay to the plaintiff the sum of four dollars a week for maintenance during the pendency of the action, and the further sum of twenty-five dollars for expenses in pre- paring for trial." It was easy to see on whom the "wet blanket" fell, and Luedke commenced to feel better about retaining Chauncey.
I felt that we had a hard case to combat. The defendant was not popular. The plaintiff was a good-looking woman, and at that time nothing was known against her here, and an adroit campaign was started to create a prejudice in her favor. Public sentiment was strongly against the defend- ant. I became convinced that, if possible, some compromise should be effected, whereby the plaintiff be allowed to take her divorce, and a reason- able sum paid her, as it was evident money was what she was after. She was not unlike the Irishman who listened to the street free-silver orator who told his hearers how, when we had free coinage of silver, every man would have work. At this the Irishman interrupted with: "To hell wid y'r wor-r-k ; it's money we wa-ant." After much consultation, Luedke finally consented to pay five thousand dollars if such an arrangement could be made.
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I tried to get him to make a little better offer, but he refused. Five thou- sand dollars was all the "blood money" he would pay.
Plaintiff's counsel, on being notified that defendant would like to effect some kind of settlement, came to my office to negotiate. Mr. Houpt and Mr. Parsons were the ones who called. After some talk, I concluded best to violate instructions, as I felt sure they would not accept the amount named by Luedke; so I offered, first, not to oppose the divorce, and, second, to pay Mrs. Luedke six thousand dollars. They stepped into a side room to consider the proposition. Returning shortly, they said my offer was rejected ; that twenty-five thousand dollars was the least sum they would consider, and that if Luedke would not pay that amount, negotiations were ended.
Well, negotiations closed, all right, and I realized that the fight was on. Taking the conduct of the plaintiff as revealed by statements of the defend- ant, and her devout and saintly correspondence preceding the marriage, I became convinced that she was an adventuress and a very different person from what she held herself out to be, but the thing was, how to prove it. Her public conduct here during the fifteen weeks of married life gave no clew to her real character. Information must be sought in Minneapolis, where she formerly lived.
It was agreed to employ the Pinkerton detective agency at St. Paul. For that purpose, I went to see Mr. Vallens, superintendent of the agency there. I laid the whole case, insofar as I had information, before Vallens and succeeded in enlisting his interest and sympathy; but he told me that it was a rule of the Pinkerton agency not to undertake investigations in divorce cases. He said that this case was peculiar, and that if the facts were fully laid before the head office, they might consent to let him under- take it. He then told me that if I would wait over until the next day, he would telegraph a full report to the office in Chicago, and that if they would not let him undertake the work, then he would introduce me to a good, private detective who would. The next day, late in the afternoon, I was called to Vallens' office, when he told me he had permission to investigate the Luedke case.
This investigation went on for two weeks. It disclosed that Miss Holderbaum worked in a store as clerk during the daytime. She had a room, but never received visitors there, and was generally absent from her room evenings. She was never known to attend church or other religious functions. She was frequently in St. Paul at night. There she was traced to a house of illfame on several occasions with different men, but as soon as the proprietress learned what the detective was after, she refused to give any particulars, and said if subpoenaed in the case, she would deny ever having seen the plaintiff.
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At the end of two weeks Vallens wrote that there was no use of spend- ing more time or money in tracing Miss Holderbaum's movements in the Twin Cities, as they could find nothing further than as stated.
The information so gained, while it showed that the plaintiff was a woman of bad character, would be of little use in the trial. About the time this search was abandoned, I incidentally heard that at Grand Forks, North Dakota, where Miss Holderbaum had worked as a dining-room girl in a hotel, she was called the "little widow." This was a small thing, but "Tall oaks from little acorns grow," and Luedke was not in a position where he could afford to overlook anything, however diminutive. Mrs. Luedke had told that her home was in Bucyrus, Ohio, where her folks lived, and had spoken of being in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, once upon a time.
I telegraphed Vallens to continue investigations at those two points, and . in response to this instruction, he sent a man from Chicago to Bucyrus. The detective had not been there a day before he struck the "lead" and the "showing was rich." He there learned that at the time of Mrs. Luedke's marriage her name was Mrs. Clara M. Burris. Her former husband kept a large retail jewelry store at Bucyrus, and that shortly before the plaintiff came to Minneapolis he had obtained a divorce from her on the ground of adultery. Like "favorable" reports came from Pittsburgh.
With this information in hand, I determined to go to those two cities and personally follow up the leads. For this purpose it was necessary to have photographs of Mrs. Luedke, but she had taken all such with her on leaving defendant's "bed and board." Luedke said she had recently had some taken at a studio in Minneapolis. He went there and asked for some photographs of his wife, recently taken, and procured two of cabinet size, one a front, the other a side view. Armed with these and the detective's report, I started for Pittsburgh. It is unnecessary to go into particulars, but at Pittsburgh I was put in communication with a man-a widower-with whom the plaintiff had promised to go to Europe as his wife, and did go with him as far as New York, where she left him, taking with her a trunk of his former wife's clothing and some jewelry. He traced her back to Pittsburgh, recovered his stolen property, but did not prosecute her crim- inally.
When I saw this man he was married again in good faith and in accord- ance with the forms of law. He was a German and about to start on another trip to his native country, but, for a consideration, agreed to defer the journey and come to Minnesota as a witness for Luedke in the divorce suit. In addition to his own expenses, I had to agree to pay those of his
I further found a boarding-house keeper in Allegheny with whom Miss wife, whom he insisted should accompany him.
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Holderbaum lived with a man as her husband for several weeks, and to whom, to prove their respectability, they exhibited their marriage certificate, made, as it afterwards appeared, for the occasion. This woman could not come to Minnesota, and I arranged to have her deposition taken. I found McGonna, the big Irish policeman in Pittsburgh, who had arrested the pious plaintiff for drunkenness on the public streets, and who told me of her having jumped out of the "Black Maria" on the way to jail, and the chase she gave him before he recaptured her. With this information, properly codified, indexed and arranged, I started for Bucyrus, Ohio, to interview her former husband, Mr. Burris.
The next morning after reaching Bucyrus, I called at a large, fine retail jewelry store kept by this man, and inquired if Mr. Burris was in, and was told that it was to him I was talking. After some general con- versation I handed him the photographs and asked if he knew the original. He said he did and asked: "What has she been doing now?"
I told him the story of her history in Minnesota. He called to a good- looking young woman in the farther end of the store and as she came for- ward introduced her as his wife. Handing her the photographs, he said : "That's the woman." Mrs. Burris said nothing, but showed in her face that she was interested, though she did not ask to keep the pictures.
Mr. Burris told me that the original of the photos was his one-time wife, and that he got a divorce from her on the ground of adultery. He said that the man who was witness to the fact was living in Bucyrus and kept a restaurant; that he would introduce me to this man, and to the clerk of the court in whose office the decree of divorce was filed. When I asked him to come to Minnesota as a witness, he stepped back and had a con- sultation with his wife. After that was over he told me that his wife did not want him to go, but that he would give me his deposition and aid me in any way he could.
He said that when Mrs. Luedke left him she stole three gold watches, of the value of one hundred dollars each, and took about one thousand dollars' worth of diamonds, but that he was so glad to be "shut" of her that he had never tried to prosecute her, criminally. These diamonds Mrs. Luedke had with her here and carried them in a chamois skin sack attached to a cord around her neck. He then took me to the clerk of the court, from whom I procured a certified copy of the decree of divorce. That stated the ground on which it was granted. From there he took me to the man who was the eye-witness in his suit for divorce. This man agreed to come to Minnesota as a witness in the case.
My work being finished in Bucyrus, I started for home with grateful feelings towards the Pinkerton detective agency. I reached home Friday
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night and the next day served an amended answer on plaintiff's attorneys, in which was set up in legal form the facts above related. The amended answer demanded a divorce for defendant on the grounds of fraud, decep- tion and adultery, and cruel and inhuman treatment of defendant by the plaintiff.
On the next Saturday, just one week from the time the amended answer was served, the court granted Luedke his divorce, and revoked the former order for temporary alimony and no permanent alimony was allowed plaintiff. The plaintiff did not appear at the hearing, which made it unneces- sary to procure the witnesses from Bucyrus and Pittsburgh. The plaintiff had to be satisfied with what she got out of two thousand five hundred dol- lars, privately agreed to be paid her through the hands of her attorneys.
Thus ended Mrs. Luedke's beautiful dream of thousands. At the request of her attorneys, nothing was said in the papers about the decree till Mrs. Luedke had time to take her departure for fresh fields the next Monday morning.
In about two months after she left I received a letter from a firm of lawyers in Wisconsin, asking me for such information as I could give them about a late resident of Fergus Falls-a Mrs. Luedke. For reply I sent them the documents I had gathered in the case of Luedke vs. Luedke, since when nothing has been heard here of her further adventures in matrimony.
THE LO-CUS (T)-( CALOPTENUS SPRETUS). An entomological talk.
Talk of the "thief that comes in the night"; he is a philanthropist com- pared with the marauder that in an earlier day made his raid on the peace- loving and prosperous grangers of northern Minnesota. The thief comes singly, or, at most, in pairs, and his energies are directed to but few articles of plunder. He will relieve one of his jewels, loose cash, and, if undis- turbed, fill up on the cold provender of the pantry. He has the good quali- ties of courage, and takes chances of apprehension and punishment. He may be provided against and thwarted by a possible state of preparedness, but not so with the Lo-cus that comes in myriads and, unabashed, settles down on a vast expanse of territory and ruthlessly commences depredations on all that supports life of man and beast.
His means of locomotion is a biplane. In the air he is a flyer; on the earth a hopper. His habitat and place of origin is said to be the Rocky mountains; his periodical raid is once in every seventeen years; if he made it every seventeen thousand, "he never would be missed."
If he comes in the night, he is a surprise in the morning. If he comes in the daytime, his invasion is announced by signs in the skies. The sun, shining through his biplanes, as his myriads upon myriads sail through the
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air, seeking a place to conquer, gives the appearance of a snow storm on the mountain as seen from below. His trillions settle on everything green, and overlap on barren wastes; and not long after he lights, everything is barren.
The Lo-cus is most democratic in his tastes. He eats everything green except peas. His piece de resistance is a mixture of radish and onion. Of these he leaves nothing but the holes in the ground where they grew. He chooses only the succulent parts of other vegetation. He makes his drive on a field of wheat, stations five or six on every stem, and the field is cut and destroyed in a few minutes. His rapacious maw is never filled. He fertilizes the ground as he continues to eat, and eats as long as anything green remains. When that is wiped out, he begins on anything and every- thing in reach-board fences, window and door screens, clothing and even the edged tools. After a rain he will eat the fuzz off a weather-beaten fence, making the boards look as though they had just been run through a planer.
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