The man who started me down the genealogy road.

[Kindigger]

I call him "Adam the Ax Murderer". Actually he used a corn knife, but anyway....

We have a local historian who lurks in the library, and infrequently does a newspaper column on juicy, old local stories. I went to my Mom's one day. She's so funny... she was actually embarrassed when she pulled the clipping from its hiding place in a drawer. It went something like this:

"Uhhhh this guy is sort of related to us."
"REALLY? OMG this is sooooo cool! We've got an AXE MURDERER? :) Who are these people? Who was he related to?"
"I'm not really sure, must be one of Grandma's relatives. This was in the paper once before, and your Aunt cut it out, and showed it to me....she told me he was related." :eyes:

I was off and running to the library. "I need the original of the March 10, 1881 HawkEye please." A week of front page, full length, and width detailed gore had been reduced to something about as long as this is right now, in the historian's synopsis. I took out my camera, and started clicking.

Adam was a cranky old German immigrant. He was described as "short of stature, swarthy, and of ill temper. His wife couldn't stand him anymore, and was now living with her son Julius. Julius, and his brother Henry were making it big in the cattle business.

Right down the road lived William, his wife Caroline, and their children Ida 11, Bertha 9, an unnamed child of 2, and a newborn baby. Being the eldest son with a sense of duty, and over his wife's objections, he took in his father. After all, he had loaned them $200 toward their little farm.

William was busily farming his heart out trying to pay him back. Although Adam had slept under their roof, and ate at their table for several years, the $200 was mentioned almost daily. (I get the feeling that if Adam had the $200, he would have headed to the dock, and jumped a slow boat back to the Homeland.)

One morning William was down the road helping his good neighbor in his field. Caroline was at the sink washing breakfast dishes, while the girls played in another room. Adam sat quietly at the kitchen table.

Without warning he rose from his chair. The corn knife was already in his hand, having gone unnoticed under the table. Before Caroline could turn around, he brought it down on her head. As she began screaming, he continued to hack away. She crawled toward the next room, yelling for the girls to run to the woods.

She made it to the back door, "her head cleaved nearly in two, one hand hanging by a thread". She began to crawl across the field toward her husband. She had not gone far, when William turned, and noticed his house was on fire. He found his wife as he ran toward the homestead, the neighbors not far behind. They stopped to help the poor woman, as William continued on toward the house, which by then was a total loss.

He frantically began looking for the children, and realized the babies were in the house. Ida and Bertha emerged from the woods, and he started his search for the old man.

William entered the barn, and found the dog hacked to pieces. Lying nearby was a corn knife. The horse had been shot dead. Lying nearby was a shotgun, its stock broken as if cracked over a knee. He slowly climbed into the loft. It wasn't high enough to stand upright. He could see the old man on his knees. The rope over the beam, and a noose around his neck, he had leaned forward until he strangled to death.

The coroner's report showed the babies had not perished by fire. They had been hacked to pieces where they slept. The whole township showed up for the funeral of the two babies. The jumble of bones was placed in a box, and buried under a tree in the township cemetery.
Adam was not allowed to be buried there, and was taken to Potter's Field.

There was a huge outpouring of generosity. There were weeks of newspaper updates on the amount of money raised for the family, and the joint efforts of the community to build them a new house. There were also frequent updates on Caroline, who was being tended to at a neighboring farm. Last reports had her "expected to make a full recovery, sans the use of her hand."

{Caroline then drops from the picture. No obituary, no nothing. Three years later, William is remarried, raising the surviving daughters. Adam's funeral was a circus. He lay in the back room of the funeral home for some time. The morbidly curious lined up for blocks to catch a glimpse of "the horrid fiend". Bids were placed, and money paid for pieces of clothing, locks of hair, and fingernails. :think:

A double stone marks the burial of William, and to the right his second wife. To the left is a tree. Next to it is the grave of the babies, and I believe, the unmarked grave of Caroline, next to her husband.)

Bertha went on to marry my Great Grandfather, my Grandma Hazel being one of their four children.

Sort of related?