"Illustrated Police News," January 8, 1887, via Newspapers.com

All right, kids, you get three guesses what Aunt Undine is recommending you not do this Christmas Eve.  Let’s start with this item from the “Los Angeles Times,” December 20, 1998:

A 24-year-old man holiday caroling with his church youth group was shot and killed and a second man seriously wounded in a drive-by attack near Compton. Heder Faamausili and about a dozen friends had dropped a holiday basket at the door of two elderly women Friday night, and had finished singing "Silent Night," when the crackle of at least seven shots sent the carolers diving for cover. Faamausili, however, had nowhere to escape on the grassy center median of South Castlegate Avenue, where he had left the group briefly to talk to a neighborhood friend, Ben Leilua, 25. An older gold Cadillac pulled alongside the pair. The driver, saying nothing, leveled a pistol and fired at least seven shots, witnesses said.

Faamausili died three hours later at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood. Leilua was recovering at the same hospital Saturday with three gunshot wounds.

The “Miami Herald,” December 26, 1978:

A guitar-strumming Christmas caroler was shot and killed early Monday by a man who crashed a holiday celebration. 

Jesús Gabriel Pagán, 22, was shot in the right temple at such close range that powder burns were left all over his face, police said.  

Pagán died at the scene.  His assailant is still at large.

A rather gruesome example of what happens when you mix Christmas carolers and World War II appeared in the “Buffalo Courier Express,” December 26, 1944:

Raiding Japanese planes interrupted Christmas eve carolers singing “Silent Night” at Gen. MacArthur's headquarters.

Three warning blasts of the air raid alert system failed to halt the singers but they were stilled when the heavy ack-ack batteries opened a torrent of fire.

A cross beam of searchlights caught one enemy plane and illuminated him as bright as tinsel.  Shortly thereafter the intruder burst into flames in mid-air and seemed to hang an instant in the moonlight like the Star of Bethlehem.  Then he dropped into the sea.

Hundreds of GIs watching the sky performance let out a roaring cheer.

Then the imperturbable Wac and GI choristers resumed their caroling, this time with “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.”

“You can’t beat people like that,” remarked one soldier.

The “Jackson Citizen Patriot,” December 23, 1956:

Royal Oak police Saturday questioned several suspects in the shooting of a 14-year-old girl caroler who was walking with a friend when she was shot in the back.

Cindy Estes, a high school freshman, was described as in good condition at William Beaumont hospital after removal of the bullet. Police suspected a boy or young man may have been the assailant, although they said it was probably no one who knew the girl. A young man who had fired a pistol twice in an alley earlier was still sought.

The girl was walking home from a drugstore, singing Christmas carols with a friend, Virginia Wright, 15, when the shot was fired. The bullet missed Cindy's spine by an inch. 

"Oh, Ginny, I've been shot," she told her friend. Then the girls walked two blocks to Cindy's home before help was summoned.

The “Coshocton Tribune,” December 24, 1974:

CANTON, Ohio (UP) -Judy Lombardi, 10, Canton, was shot in the shoulder by an elderly woman Monday night while Christmas caroling on the city's southeast side. 

Police said the woman had had her purse snatched a couple of weeks ago and apparently mistook the group for vandals. 

The girl, who was on the woman's porch with other youngsters when the shooting occurred, was listed in guarded condition at Aultman Hospital.

Just to show that at least some people had some Christmas common sense (or sense of self-preservation,) I’ll end with this item from the “Illustrated Police News,” December 29, 1888:

Happy Evesham!  In the great city of Birmingham, householders, tormented before their time by hordes of so-called carol singers, have found no comfort but in grumbling and writing to the papers.  But the Mayor of Prince Henry’s little borough has a short way of dealing with such premature celebrations.  He has sharply issued an edict prohibiting out-door carol singing within his jurisdiction until Christmas Eve.  We believe that from time immemorial the Mayor of Evesham has been autocratic in these matters.  To blow a trumpet in any public thoroughfare as a preliminary to giving or receiving of alms, or to mercenarily conduct one’s family devotions at the corners of the streets in distorted versions of Sankey’s hymns, without the express permission of his worship, is an offence for which the offenders may be and are incontinently locked-up or seen over the borough boundary.  We do not know whether such a power resides in the head of a mushroom municipality like Birmingham.  We are afraid if every gutter tootler and proprietor--for so much a head per diem--of a family of squalling ragamuffins had to wait personally upon his worship before commencing operations the mayoralty itself would soon go a-begging.

Merry Christmas, gang!

Just let someone else sing.  And dodge bullets.

Via Newspapers.com

What’s the Christmas season without a ghost or two?  The “Bristol Mercury,” January 13, 1823:

To the Editor of the Bristol Mercury. 

Sir--In my present excursions in this country, 

Through land of leeks, with Welshmen sped, 

From Afon Gwy to Dewi's Head, 

I may be enabled to send you some occasional communications if you think proper to find a corner in your Demi Cambrian Paper. 

A most extraordinary sensation has been lately excited in the village of Llandoga, midway between Chepstow and Monmonth. 

"The windows shake, the drawers crack, 

Each thinks that Nick's behind his back,

And hitches to the fire.”

On the 31st Dec. last, the house of Wm. Edwards, formerly a local preacher in the Wesleyan connexion, but now estranged from that society, was beset by some (as it is said) invisible spirit, which so violently disturbed the man and his family, by demolishing his earthen-ware, and breaking his glasses, in such unfriendly and unneighbourly manner, that he was obliged to remove to another house, farther up the village, when lo! this crockery-destroying demon pursued his victim to the new residence, and as he had acted on the last day of 1822, so he commenced on the first day of 1823 by kicking the remainder of the perishable furniture down the stairs, and other strange whims, almost too comical for the old gentleman or his imps to enact. On my passing through this village on Tuesday last, I endeavoured to catch the floating opinions of men's minds, of which the following is an epitome.

1. Mr. Edwards is of the opinion that it is the buffeting of Satan, on his determination to become a new man, and to enter again into a state of warfare with that enemy of mankind. 

2. A native of the diocese of St. David's will have it, that the preacher has sometime or other promised a ghost or sprite to meet it, in order to the discovery of hidden treasure, and that he has omitted, or forgotten his appointment. 

3. But some respectable informants there, are convinced that this affair forms a fit sequel to, or a triad with that of Ann Moore, the Tetbury Fasting Impostor, and Scratching Fanny, the Cocklane Ghost. 

An inquiring and well-informed public expects that Mr. Edwards will illustrate, if he can, for it certainly is a scandalous imposition of someone, but I will not say who, for fear of mistakes.

Mr. Editor, you will please to observe these are not the crudities of Tom Coryate, but of real events occurring in the travels of your old correspondent. 

THOMAS TICKLE. Jan. 9, 1825.

Via Newspapers.com

This startling story--which sounds like something out of a Christmas-themed horror movie--appeared in the “Lichfield Mercury,” January 4, 1907:

A Belfast schoolboy, named Samuel Atchison, has had a terrible Christmas experience, which he is likely to remember to the end of his days.

On Christmas Eve the lad went out to gather holly for the decoration of his heme, and was lost from that hour until Sunday night, when he was found in the attic of an untenanted house, at the point of death and wasted to a skeleton. All through the heavy snowstorms of the last few days the police and bands of searchers had dragged ponds, swamps, and rivers for his body without result, and the circumstances of the disappearance and recovery of the boy are so remarkable as to lead the police to the belief that it is a case of kidnapping. No sounds had been heard by the occupants of the house on either side of that in which the lad was found until Friday last, on which day both neighbours recall they heard what they took to be a faint knocking. No attention, however, was paid until Sunday, when the rapping became so persistent that one of the nextdoor neighbours scaled the yard wall and entered the house, he searched every room without result until he came to the attic, the door of which was closed and the handle had been removed. The neighbour forced open the door and, entering, found the room in darkness, the snow having covered the skylight.

Striking a match he saw the figure of a lad lying unconscious on the floor. Nearby lay his coat, torn to rags, and his waistcoat and trousers were likewise in shreds, the latter, in fact, having only the upper part whole. The searcher, who had read the accounts of Atchison’s disappearance, immediately concluded that this was the missing boy, and he sent at once for the father. The latter hastened to the empty house and, stripping off his coat, wrapped up the lad and rushed home through the binding snowstorm. Two doctors were speedily in attendance.

All their unremitting care and attention have been so far successful that, though the poor boy is still in grave danger, there is, however, some slight hope of his ultimate recovery.  On Monday morning the police made a thorough examination of the attic, and found the inside of the door all clawed where the boy, in the agonies of starvation, had sought to tear through the panels with his nails, and even with his teeth. A correspondent who saw the boy says as he lay moaning and tossing in bed he cried out again and again to imaginary assailants to have pity on him, but there was nothing coherent in his speech, the only person he seemed to recognise being his mother. How the boy came to be in that house, why the handle should have been removed from the lock, whether the interval from Monday until Friday had been entirely spent inside the room, and whether it was a case of kidnapping are all questions which are greatly puzzling the police. The doctors stated on Monday that in a very short time—a matter of minutes, in fact—the boy would have been a corpse, and it is probable that his mind will be permanently affected by his terrible experience.  It is hoped, however, that when he recovers consciousness some light will be thrown on the mystery.

What adds to the strangeness of this case is the fact that I haven’t been able to find any published resolution.  By the end of January, the story seemed to have disappeared from the newspapers.  I am unable to say if Samuel fully recovered from his ordeal, or if the puzzle of his Christmas imprisonment was ever solved.

A family named Sodder once lived in Fayetteville, West Virginia.  It was a large household:  The parents, Jenny and George, and nine of their ten children.  (Their eldest son was away serving in the military.)  Their life was, as far as is known, a perfectly ordinary one until Christmas Eve 1945, when their routine middle-class existence suddenly morphed into something out of the most chilling psychological horror story.

On that night, as the family prepared to go to bed, five of the younger Sodders--Maurice, Martha, Louis, Jennie, and Betty--asked to be allowed to remain downstairs to play with their presents.  Their parents indulgently agreed, and went upstairs to retire for the night.  It was the last time they would see these children again.

The Sodders did not notice anything amiss until around midnight, when Jenny Sodder was awakened by a phone call.  She noticed that lights were still on in the house, the shades were up, and the doors unlocked.  The house was quiet, and she assumed everyone was now asleep.  When she picked up the receiver, an unfamiliar female voice asked to speak to a name Jenny did not recognize.  In the background of the other end of the line, she could hear wild laughter and glasses clinking.  Before she could respond, the caller hung up.  Shrugging it off as a prank, she went back to sleep.  Some time later, she thought she heard a noise on their roof.  Not long after that--around 1:30 a.m.--she smelled smoke.  The house was on fire.

Jenny began screaming for everyone to get out of the house.  Once they were outside, Jenny and George saw that five of their children were still missing--the same five that had stayed downstairs past their bedtime.  Mr. Sodder went for a ladder he always kept by the house, so he could climb up to the bedrooms, but it was gone.  It was later found in an embankment some distance away.  He tried to drive off for help, but his trucks--which had worked perfectly the previous day--now refused to start.

By the time the fire department arrived--in this small town, with primitive communications and equipment, it took them seven hours--the house was a mass of smoldering ashes.  In less than an hour, it had completely burned to the ground.  Officials assumed bad wiring was to blame for the conflagration, but that seemed questionable, considering that lights in the home were still on after the fire started.  Besides, just a few months before, the local power company had inspected their wiring.  We simply do not know for sure why the home was destroyed.

Whatever the cause of the blaze may have been, the most important question was, where were the five Sodder children?  Some newspapers reported that some fragmentary bones and flesh were found in the ruins, but other accounts say that not a single trace of human remains were ever found on the site.

Despite the eerie events preceding the fire--not to mention the fact that telephone line had been cut just before or after the flames erupted--the authorities shrugged the incident off as a tragic accident and ignored the Sodders' pleas for an investigation.

The many peculiar circumstances surrounding the fire, coupled with the lack of remains, increasingly convinced the Sodders that their missing children had not died in the fire, but were kidnapped.  Searches of the site in the years after the fire eventually turned up a few stray pieces of bone, but a pathologist working with the Sodders noted that it was highly unusual not to find more of the children's bodies.  The fire simply did not burn long enough to completely incinerate bodies.  Another oddity is that these bones were not fire damaged, leading pathologists from the Smithsonian to theorize that the  fragments were in the dirt George Sodder used to bury the site of the fire.  And was it anything more than coincidence that the children who were allowed to stay up late were the only family members to disappear?  No one could say.  

"Calgary Albertan," October 6, 1953, via Newspapers.com

George Sodder--who was, like his wife, Italian-born--had been very vocal about his dislike of Mussolini.  This had made him very unpopular in their Italian-American community, leading the family to harbor the fear that the tragedy had been some horrendous payback for his political views.  This may well have been merely paranoia, but unless they found some definitive answers, it was a paranoia they could never shake.

The Sodders lived through years of painful uncertainty about the fate of their children.  The events of that Christmas Eve seemed just too strange to be an ordinary accident, but, on the other hand, the idea of some maniacs singling them out and torching their house in order to spirit off their children was too weird to even contemplate.  George and Jenny did everything in their power to publicize the mystery--they even rented a billboard with photos of the missing children that stood for forty years--but no one came forward with any information.  The private detectives they hired to chase every possible lead, every "sighting" of the missing children, came up with nothing.  The remaining family members were left in a nightmarish limbo.

Life went on, with no concrete developments in the case until 1968, when the Sodders were anonymously mailed a photograph of a man who looked to be in his mid-twenties.  On the back of the photo someone had written, "Louis Sodder," "I love brother Frankie," "ilil Boys," and the cryptic "A90132 or 35."

The Sodders were convinced the young man in the photo was their son Louis, who was nine when he disappeared.  No one can say for sure if they were correct, or if the mailing was merely a sick prank by some unknown creep.

That unsettlingly enigmatic photo is the last word to date on the Sodder mystery.  George Sodder died in 1969 and his wife twenty years later.  Sylvia, the last living Sodder child, (that we know of, at any rate,) was only two when disaster struck.  She passed away in 2021, still haunted by what had befallen her family.  She believed her siblings did not die in the fire, but she had no more luck than her parents in finding evidence of that theory.  The story of what really happened that Christmas Eve remains as baffling as ever.

Via Newspapers.com

What’s Christmas without a ghost story?  This rather sweet example of the genre--complete with a happy ending!--appeared in the “Somerset County Herald,” December 18, 1948:

Mr. Henry Transom, M.A.. came to Taunton in 1730 to teach classics at the local Grammar School.  The same year arrived the newly-appointed Headmaster, the Rev. James Upton. M.A., an Editor of Classical Texts, who came from the rectory of Monksilver, and in later years served the Parish Church of Bishop's Hull.

Taunton then was a small town with a population of about 5.000. Many of the old thatched houses in East-street and East Reach had been destroyed by fire during the three sieges, when the town was defended by Robert Blake. Henry Transom was a bachelor, aged 40, and rented two rooms in a charming Tudor gabled house in East-street, practically opposite the present County Hotel.  This old house has gone. 

Henry was a robust Christian, and regularly attended the services at St. Mary's Church. His friends spoke of him respectfully as "Inasmuch."

The craze for drinking quantities of cheap spirit was as common in Taunton as in other towns. This unpleasant habit spread rapidly among the poor of that period, owing to a bad mistake on the part of the government. Farmers complained that they could not sell their grain, and the government thought of a very stupid way to help them.

It encouraged the manufacture and sale of spirits, specially gin, by canceling the heavy tax on its production and the need for a licence to sell it. The distillers now bought up all the grain the farmers could let them have, but the effects of the crude, badly-made spirit on the health and character of many poor people were disastrous. Insanitary houses, bad drinking water and dirty streets encouraged the spread of small-pox and cholera. The death mortality of children was very high.

All this Henry Transom noted with pain and deep concern. He was well up in the history of the ancient Greek physicians, who gave freely to the poor and to the stranger, not only of their skill but also of their substance. In therapeutics the school of Hippocrates waited vigilantly upon Nature: it used physical means such as diet, medicinal herbs and waters, fresh air and gymnastics: it did not interfere violently by bleedings or by drugs. Surgery, by this direct and natural study of facts, attained a degree of positive excellence. whereas in the early 18th century England rough operations were still performed by barbers and apothecaries.

A City company, the Barber Surgeons, would cut your hair, corns or throat in the same establishment. To Transom familiar were the legends about Aesculapius, the Greek father of physicians, who in statues was represented sitting on a throne, with one hand holding a rod entwined with snakes, and the other leaning on a serpent's head, suggesting his power over evil. This study of Greek medicine had a powerful influence over his outlook on life.

Thomas Guy had given a large portion of the huge fortune he had made out of heavy investments in South Sea Company stock to found Guy's Hospital In 1722. Other London hospitals were soon built.

Transom, out of his meagre salary, sent a handsome gift to the St. George's Hospital, founded in 1733. How he did hope that Taunton would follow the example of London!  

One evening Henry, a keen Bible student, pondered long over a sentence that lit up the sacred page:--"I was sick, and ye visited me." Henceforth, his ministrations to the sick, his benefactions to the infirm, including a regular order every Christmas for seven parcels of delicacies to be sent anonymously to convalescents, won him a niche in the hearts of many of the poorest of the poor. He believed that fifty per cent of sick persons needed prayer more than pills, meditation more than medication.

He took many risks in visiting sick people, and eventually contracted small-pox from which he died in 1759, a year of severe drought. Friends who knew Transom well spoke of his spirit of goodwill and graciousness that seemed to impregnate the very bricks of his rooms. Later Tenants reported that the warmth of his personality seemed to survive in the rooms.

A corn merchant. Mr. George Marshall, bought the house in 1801. His only child was Henry, aged 10, who was a scholar at the Taunton Grammar School. This was the year when the Headmaster, the Rev. John Townsend, confined the boys one day to the School premises, so that the curious could not see nine men hanged at Stone Gallows, Rumwell, for bread stealing. in 1802, not long before Christmas.

Henry was laid low with a severe attack of pneumonia. Fortunately, the father was able to call in a nurse very different from the "Sairey Gamp" type of that period. The night of the crisis, which was Christmas eve, when she was fighting to save the boy's life (in Transom's bedroom) she declared two extraordinary phenomena happened. A luminous patch appeared on the bedroom wall on which she distinctly saw the outline of a rod and a serpent, and a man's figure glided past her, placed a gentle hand on the boy's forehead, and a voice spoke quietly: "I was sick and ye visited me." The visitor vanished seemingly through the wall. The room seemed filled with a gracious Presence, there was nothing frightening about the experience. From that moment the patient was on the road to recovery, a welcome Christmas gift indeed!

Those who were told the story and remembered Henry Transom had explanations to offer. Two rooms now apparently became the focus of kindly poltergeist activity. On one occasion a roll of bandages appeared from nowhere, at another time the family Bible was paranormally opened at St. Matthew, chapter xxv.  Pencil markings appeared spontaneously at times on the walls. One marking, iatros, written in Greek characters, was deciphered as the Greek word for "physician.'' Sometimes the house seemed filled with the fragrance of medicinal herbs.

On the 11th of April, 1810, the foundation stone of the Taunton and Somerset Hospital was laid, and everything became normal again in Henry Transom's old home in East-street. His spirit was now at rest.

Merry Christmas to the benevolent spirit of Mr. Transom, and all my readers!

Via Newspapers.com

Bring on the Christmas ghosts!  The "London Sunday Mirror," December 23, 1923:

What would Christmas be without its ghost stories? The children love them.

A Christmas " ghost " has arrived almost opportunely one might say. But it has not chosen a big city like London for its appearance. Cities are probably too dull, unromantic and unbelieving. These things are done better in the country. This year's ghost has chosen a Devonshire village near Taunton as its theatre of operations.

Moreover, Monkton Heathfield, the name of the village, has quite a ghostly sound about it. But the unearthly visitant does not seem to be a monk. It is quite up to date in the sense that, instead of choosing an ivy-clad castle for its operations, it has ensconced itself in a newly-built house. The residence in question was erected for his own occupation by a Mr. Gardiner, a jobbing builder, and during the last few days articles of furniture have been moved about the house without apparent human agency.  So uncanny has the situation become that Mr. Gardiner and his son no longer sleep there.

The trouble began when an extraordinary noise was heard, and Mr. Gardiner was struck on the back of the neck by an orange which a moment before had been reposing on a plate on the dresser.

Other inexplicable occurrences are related by neighbours, who were interviewed yesterday by a Press representative. 

A chair jumped from the floor on to the table, and a matchbox, which was on the table in the kitchen, suddenly rose several feet into the air and then fell to the ground. 

A pair of boots emerged backwards from the cupboard. 

Two Prayer-books and a large postcard album flew from a bookshelf to the opposite side of the room. 

The climax was reached when amazed witnesses saw a lamp rise from the table and gracefully volplane to the kitchen floor.

These things have happened not only at night, but during midday meals, when knives have moved from one end of the table to the other. 

The pepper-box has taken to walking. 

So far no explanation has been found for the phenomena.

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

This week's Link Dump kicks off with the last of our Christmas Cats!

The "ghost ship" Baltimore.

The "rendel cruisers" of the Imperial Chinese Navy.

The origins of the phrase "pomp and circumstance."

The boy who claims he is a reincarnated Hollywood agent.

So maybe Attila the Hun had an excuse for attacking pretty much everybody.

Some of 2022's best mysteries.

A look back to when January 1 wasn't the first day of the year.

The physiognomy of Christmas.

The anomaly that wouldn't go away.

A look at the grandmother of Jesus.

A possible serial killer in Florida.

Edward Snow, the "Flying Santa."

The child soldiers of the American Civil War.

An 1858 catalog of Christmas books.

A possible explanation of Spontaneous Human Combustion that, believe it or not, makes it seem even creepier.

The Christmas Punchinello.

The island of Christmas tree sodas.

The sort of thing that could happen to anyone.

A "lost" London neighborhood.

Christmas in 1960s Japan.

Graham Hancock and the Archaeology Wars.

Britain's last witch.

Post-war housing estates in Britain and France.

A light-fingered clerk.

This is not Dracula's house.

Sailing the Mediterranean half-a-million years ago. 

Medieval female self-portraits.

The grave of the Potato King.

A history of Christmas markets.

The Jersey Witching Cats.

The Snyder-Harman murder.

A brief history of Christmas trees.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at an unusual Welsh ghost story.  In the meantime, I hope you all have a very merry Christmas, however you choose to observe the day.

Via Newspapers.com

This year, I am doing something a bit different with my annual roundup of Christmas clippings: instead of a number of assorted news items, I am focusing on one story.  Because, honestly, I can’t imagine anyone who personifies the Strange Company Yuletide Spirit better than Sarah Childs, of Denham Springs, Louisiana.  No one can say she didn’t give her neighbors a Christmas to remember.  The “Daily Review,” January 8, 2013:

BATON ROUGE (AP) — The holidays may be over, but a Louisiana woman wants to keep a light display on her roof extending a middle finger to her neighbors. 

U.S. District Judge James Brady heard testimony Monday about whether Sarah Childs should be granted a preliminary injunction, barring the city of Denham Springs and police from requiring her to remove the display. The judge didn’t rule and the hearing will continue next week. 

Childs said she put up the roof message in November because she believed a neighbor stole her dog. She said police threatened her with fines and arrest because of the lights. She and the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana sued the city, its mayor and police. 

Lawyers for Denham Springs and police say officials didn’t threaten Childs and the case has no merit. But they also argue the display isn’t protected speech under the U.S. Constitution because the extended finger is designed to attack her neighbor. 

The judge issued a temporary restraining order in mid-December, prohibiting city officials from interfering with the lights and saying efforts to take down the display would violate her rights to free speech and due process. 

With the Christmas holidays wrapped up and many people packing up their holiday lights, the federal judge asked Monday if the lawsuit still was needed. “Is this matter now moot? Are the lights still up?” he asked. 

“The lights are still up,” said Justin Harrison, an ACLU lawyer representing Childs. 

“And she intends to keep them up?” Brady asked. 

“I think she intends to keep them up, your honor,” Harrison replied. 

According to the lawsuit, Childs removed the lights twice: once after a police officer told her she could be fined and again after another officer threatened to arrest her. But she has reinstalled them, after getting representation from the ACLU and the judge’s temporary order in her favor. 

In Monday’s testimony, Denham Springs police officer Jared Kreamer described two visits to Childs’home in response to complaints from Childs that her neighbors were harassing her. Under initial questioning from Childs’ lawyer, Kreamer said he didn’t recall if he told her to take down the light display or told her she could go to jail because of it. He said he found the lights offensive and thought it could be considered disturbing the peace. 

“I remember telling her if she didn’t take it down, it could lead to trouble,” the police officer said. 

Then, Childs’ lawyers played a partial recording that Childs had made with her cell phone during one conversation with Kreamer in which he told her she could end up in jail because of the lights. Kreamer said he wasn’t threatening her, but was just advising her that she could run into a complaint by her neighbors accusing her of disturbing the peace.

As a side note, we are also told that Childs' version of Christmas caroling was to stand in her driveway singing obscene songs about her neighbors.  The conclusion to this unusual legal fracas was reported in the Opelousas “Daily World” on March 3, 2013:

A lawsuit over a Denham Springs woman's light display, which extended a middle finger to her neighbors, has been settled. Final dismissal documents were filed in Baton Rouge-based federal court this week. 

Sarah Childs said she put up the roof message in November because she believed a neighbor stole her dog. She said police threatened her with fines and arrest because of the lights. She and the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana sued the city, its mayor and police. ACLU of Louisiana Executive Director Marjorie Esman described the final settlement as allowing Childs to keep the lights up without harassment and requiring the city to make a payment to the ACLU to cover legal costs. 

"The city agreed to leave her alone and paid $15,000 in attorney's fees," Esman said Friday. 

Lawyer Brad Myers, representing Denham Springs, said the city's insurance company covered the cost, and he said city officials continue to deny any harassment ever happened. 

"The city agreed not to do what it had not done in the first place," Myers said in an email. 

Esman said Childs moved out of the house a few weeks ago. When she left, she kept the lights on the roof.

I’d love to know if the next residents of her house left the lights up.  You must admit, they make a striking display.  

Via Dailymail.com

Via Newspapers.com

This odd little story--a holiday tale that’s anything but festive--was published in the British paper “The Norwood News” on December 24, 1954:

It was Christmas. and when the party picked on me I knew they wanted again the real ghost story I was mixed up in about 20 years ago. 

It's all very well to say that the old red-bricked house is no more. The Germans blasted it out of existence with their bombs in 1944. 

So the haunted house isn't there any longer. There is a large block of luxury flats in its place now. 

Twenty years ago I was asked to report on the mysterious death of a family. They had been out for their Christmas Eve celebration: mother, father and their grownup son and two daughters. The daily maid had left them their supper and gone home, leaving a “Merry Christmas" message and saying she would be in good time in the morning. 

And when she came they were sprawled over the supper table--dead. 

I was just thinking of my own Christmas dinner when a crowd of Fleet-street reporters arrived. I was the best man, they said, to tell them about it. 

But all I knew was where the house was. It was the first I heard of what later proved to be a family suicide pact. By the time we had got the details, Christmas Day was anything but a happy, restful one for us.

I lived quite close to that house. Year after year it stood empty, and I noticed that time took down the curtains; decay made the shutters rattle on windy nights as I passed; and the owls from Streatham Common seemed to like the place. 

As the years passed. and the place got more neglected, the memory of that tragedy faded. The "To Let'' board had long been replaced by one "For Sale.” Then one day that went, too.

Then neighbours heard that a family, recently returned from South Africa, were to move in. 

Within a few hours of the Marchby’s arriving I was on that doorstep again. As a newspaper man I thought there may be a story about South Africa. 

Hugo Marchby, as I presently found the husband’s name to be, showed me into the room on the right…the very room where, years ago, I had described that first tragedy.

So I met the wife, and presently there were the girls, Yolanda and Edis. Things were looking much the same as in the old days . . . and when they told me that Denny, their son, had gone to London, but would be back in time for dinner, I gave a silent “Phew," but whispered not a word. It was just like that other family) dead round the table in that very room so many years ago. Only now there was no table, tables had gone out when dining-rooms became lounges.

All I hoped was that no one would ever tell them what had happened and dare not tell them.

But somebody did. 

Yes, they got to know all about it. 

And the ghost story begins there. For them the place was haunted, as it had been for me in all those years, although I saw no ghost. 

They did. 

In a few weeks I saw the faces of the girls blanch and their eyes lose that "home again” expression which delights us when people come back from abroad. 

They were not missing South Africa. I knew that.  They had learned—discovered something. 

Something…something. But what? 

Nobody will ever know.  All I know is that the past did not bury the dead for them.  Edis was the first to go.  I followed her in the last carriage to the crematorium.  Not many months after Yolanda went out of her mind.  I never knew what became of her.  Then the mother died.

For the boy there was another end…And the bomb on that fateful November night in 1944 killed the father.

Funny how things happen on our own doorstep and we think nothing of them until we piece the bits of the jig-saw together at Christmas, when the wind blows eerily, the fire sparkles up and dies down again, and it’s an early time for bed.

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

It's the Link Dump Before Christmas!

And the Strange Company Santa Claus is almost here!

The "Coleford sensation."

One of early 19th century America's most famous murders.

A restaurant with some of the most repulsive-looking food I've ever seen gets the treatment it deserves.

The world's first octopus farm is about to open.  Not everyone is happy about that.

Decoding Dickens' "mystery texts."

In which we learn that there are professional ham sniffers.

Harold Lloyd's year-round Christmas tree.  I love Christmas trees as much as anyone, but I think his was a bit over-the-top.

The discarded Yule Goat.

The fall of Antony and Cleopatra.

DNA and ancient mass migration.

A terrible winter in Colonial New England.

Some Christmas gift ideas from 1873.

Some Christmas jokes from 1910.

And here is a morbid Christmas poem.

The boy who inspired "The Exorcist."

A 16th century female pirate.

The London Beer Flood.

Did the mass-suicide at Masada really happen?

How an Estonian boulder became famous.

18th century shopping.

The man who invented cat litter.

A lost palace under Brussels.

A look at 18th century British governments.

Some Christmas burglars.

Supply chain problems in ancient Rome.

A brief history of eggnog.  You're still not getting me to drink it.

Christmas in 19th century Mexico.

A ring with one of the earliest depictions of Christ has been found.

Victorians and their seances.

The latest on the Antikythera mechanism.

That time Australia lost a war to emus.

An aristocratic antiquary.

A look at stork lore.

The oldest surviving photo of the Moon.

More on the famed Ratcliffe Highway murders.

Why humane societies threw Christmas parties for horses.  I wouldn't mind seeing those make a comeback.

The Christmas Cheer Club.

Some holiday hero cats.

How to make Aphra Behn's favorite cocktail.  And Charles Dickens' favorite punch.

Two Soviet space dogs.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll meet a particularly unpleasant vampire.  In the meantime, here's one of my favorite Christmas carols.

It’s very nearly Christmas, so for the benefit of last-minute shoppers, I present the Strange Company Gift List, courtesy of that popular friend of this blog, the Santa Claus of Death!

[All clippings via Newspapers.com]

Our first story illustrates why I always advise against Homeowner’s Associations: exorbitant fees, capricious regulations, and a strong chance of finding turkey feet under the tree.  The “Tacoma News Tribune,” December 28, 1992:

A Spanaway man found a rather gruesome "gift” in a size-7 shoe box near his yard Christmas morning, sheriff’s deputies reported. 

The package--wrapped in teddy-bear Christmas wrapping and purportedly “From Santa"--contained no shoes, but rather two freshly severed turkey feet. 

The man told deputies he’s had ongoing feuds with a local developer and his neighborhood association and believed either may be responsible for the "present."

One would think that nothing expresses Christmas cheer like a memorial of a mass execution, but I suppose Colonel Mosby was just a spoilsport.  The “Staunton Spectator,” December 16, 1897:

Col. John S. Mosby, who is the guest of his son in-law, Mr. Robert R. Campbell, received last week by express a limb from the walnut tree in the vicinity of Front Royal, from which Custer hung ten of his scouts. By mail the same day came a letter from Mr. Charlie Dear, in which he presents the wood, with his compliments, and expresses a wish that the Colonel have a cane made from it. In speaking of the incident, Colonel Mosby said: "I was much vexed with Charlie Dear, who was one of my best soldiers, at sending me a memento of such a ghastly episode. I wrote him in answer that I would not design to handle his gift with a fork or a pair of tongs and would have preferred something that would make me forget rather than remember the dread affair."

Stumped for Christmas entertainment?  Bring on the dead monkeys!  The “Brooklyn Times Union,” December 29, 1897:

STONY BROOK, Dec. 29. Stony Brook possesses a disciple of Aesculapius who has a particular fondness for playing practical jokes, always of a harmless nature, upon his best friends.  This physician is no other than popular Dr. J. Alvin Squire, allround athlete, crack shot with rifle, gun or pistol, judge of trotters and practical politicians. Numerous attempts have been made to catch the wily chirurgeon in some trap or another, but in vain. He could never be caught napping. All practical jokes attempted at his expense acted like an Australian boomerang thrown by an amateur--they hurt the jokers most. “All things come to him who waits,” said Napoleon. The doctors cronies waited. They had their reward last Christmas Day. 

The doctor had been out late and found his house in darkness when he came home. He entered his office, feeling his way in the dark for the match-box. He nearly broke his neck when he stumbled over something that should not have been on the floor, and the genial doctor said something very mildly. He soon got a light and looked for the cause of his fall. “Great Scott!” he exclaimed, "What's this!” It was a coffin-shaped box and was addressed to himself. The doctor scratched his head and pinched himself. He got down and opened the box. “Now! By the great Jupiter and cornstarched Halifax!” He yelled, "What is this? Am I dreaming?" He pinched himself again. Than he paid a visit to a cupboard and took a few drops of medicine. Again he got down on his knees. He examined the strange object before him most attentively. He did not hear smothered snickering in the next room. He was too deeply interested in the object before him. He put down his hand and lifted a tiny arm covered with an unnatural growth of hair. A sudden thought struck the man of medicine. He pulled down the thick veil that concealed the face. 

"Great Scott! It’s a monkey!” he cried out, as a look of abject disgust and fierce scorn covered his visage. “Ah,” he muttered, "that's one on me! Thought I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a baby and a monkey, eh? Well, now, I guess they're not so smart as they thought they were. Good thing they didn't see me fooled, though, or they'd never stop chaffing me. Guess I know what I’ll do! I'll put the monkey to bed alongside of my wife, and then wake her up! I'll be even with someone." 

With these remarks the astute doctor began to very carefully take what be believed to be a dead monkey out of its coffin. No sooner had he got it in his arms than a look of blank dismay filled his eyes; his mouth opened wide and he seemed to be sick.  “My Heavens!” he exclaimed, "it's only a stuffed one!" and he threw it angrily on the floor as a flood of light lit up the next room, showing the doctor's wife and several friends convulsed with laughter. Tableau vivant!

And now we come to several suggestions for adding a body count to your “Secret Santa” exchange.  First up is this item from the “Billings Gazette,” December 27, 1905:

Albany, N.Y., Dec. 26. Miss Elsie Smith, who was "Queen Titania" in the Albany Halloween carnival of 1904, today reported to the police that she received through the mail yesterday a box of candy containing poison. Chocolate drops in the box had been opened and the poison spread within. A druggist, who analyzed the contents, declares that the candy contained enough paris green and other poisons to kill the whole family. 

Miss Smith professes entire ignorance of any one who would desire to injure her, but believes the poison was sent by a girl. The police and post office authorities are investigating.

This next story proves that paris green was quite a popular holiday shopping item back in the day.  The “Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette,” December 19, 1904:

PRINCETON. N. J., Dec. 18. (Special.) William Lutz, a businessman of this place, received through the mail yesterday a neatly wrapped package and a letter bearing the Princeton postmark, which read as follows: "Friend Will--Accept this little token as a Christmas present, hoping you will enjoy it, with greetings.” The letter was unsigned. Lutz found the tobacco contained 18 grains of arsenic and 13 grains of paris green.

Even in recent years, there are those gift givers who really want to start Christmas off with a bang.  The “Philadelphia Daily News,” December 23, 1992:

A British soldier on duty in Northern Ireland was given a potentially deadly Christmas gift of a booby-trapped tin of chocolates yesterday, police said. A motorist he stopped at a checkpoint presented him with the package, they said. Suspicions were aroused when he returned to base in the town with the gift and army experts found and defused a two-pound Semtex bomb hidden among the candies inside.

And so ends this year’s tribute to the Yuletide season!  I sincerely hope all of you have a very happy holiday, and if you have the sort of relatives who leave coffined monkeys in your path, at least now you know what to put in their chocolates and tobacco.

"Pottstown Mercury," July 11, 1967, via Newspapers.com

In 1963, 68-year-old widow Pearl Keim and her son Douglas (whom everyone called “Dougie”) were living a quiet, unremarkable existence in Pottstown, Pennsylvania.  Although Douglas was aged 42, mentally, he remained a child of seven.  However, he was fortunate enough to be a cheerful, affectionate, trusting soul who was well liked in the town.  Neighbors described Douglas as “a most happy child,” and “friendly as a puppy.”  He enjoyed spending his evenings in a local diner, with a newspaper spread out in front of him.  He was completely unable to read it, but pretending he could appeared to give him a sense of being part of the adult world he was destined to never enter.  Douglas had two great loves: his mother and fire engines.  He often visited the local firehouses, where he would spend hours gazing in wonder at the vivid red trucks with their startlingly loud bells, or browsing through stores, admiring the toy trucks on display.

The Keims spent Christmas Eve 1963 alone together.  As a result, we will never know for sure why it proved to be their last Yuletide.  Three days after Christmas, neighbors, who were concerned that no one had seen mother or son since December 24, phoned police to check on the pair.  Officers found the Keim home had all the doors locked, although they were the type which could be locked from the outside.  One window was open.  When the policemen got no response to their repeated knocks on the front door, they broke inside.

What they found was a bloodbath.  Mrs. Keim was found in her bedroom, dead of multiple stab wounds to her neck.  A knife blade was still embedded in her throat, but the handle was missing.  Douglas’ corpse was in the living room.  Lying near his body was his Christmas present--a brightly wrapped toy fire engine--and the handle from the knife which had killed his mother.  Douglas had died in a particularly bizarre fashion: a metal stove poker had been twisted tightly around his neck, strangling him.

This gruesome tragedy was one of those cases where investigators scarcely knew what to say.  The Keims did not have anything approaching an enemy, and they lived too modestly to be worth robbing.  There was no sign of anyone but the Keims having been in the home.  After a bit of floundering helplessly, the authorities announced their conclusion: murder/suicide.  Montgomery County DA Richard Lowe theorized that on Christmas Eve, Douglas had wanted to open his present early.  When his mother refused, he went into a fit of uncontrollable rage and stabbed Pearl to death.  Then, when he realized the enormity of what he had done, he broke down completely and wrapped the poker around his throat.

There were obvious problems with this scenario.  For one thing, Douglas was regarded as a gentle, sweet-natured man who had never shown any signs of violence.  He adored his mother, who was all he had in the world.  Also, Douglas was a small, slight man.  Would he even have the strength to kill himself in such a physically demanding fashion?   And what caused the several bruises found on his head?

Many people were uneasy about the “solution” to the mystery.  However, law enforcement had come up with a quick and easy way to get this troublesome case off their hands, and they stuck with it.  In my true-crime readings, I’ve come across many tragedies that defy any easy explanation, so investigators simply invent one, just to be able to say “case closed,” and move on.  I fear the deaths of Pearl and Douglas Keim may well be among them.

[Note: One would assume that dusting the knife and poker for fingerprints would most likely answer the question of whether Douglas was a murderer or a murder victim.  However, none of the newspaper stories I've found about the case state whether or not this was done.  Very strange.]

 

"Brooklyn Eagle," December 24, 1931.  (All clippings via Newspapers.com)

Yes, indeed, it's time for Strange Company's annual look at the worst and weirdest the Christmas season has to offer!  

This item from the "Los Angeles Citizen News" for December 24, 1951, shows one sure-fire way to get coal in your stocking:

Dijon, France, Dec. 24--Santa Claus was burned in effigy on the steps of Dijon cathedral yesterday.  Two hundred and fifty children watched--and cheered.

A figure twice as large as life, wearing the traditional red costume and white beard, was hoisted to the wrought-iron grille at the door of the great Gothic church.

A young man in a top hat called out:

"Does Santa Claus deserve death?"

"Yes, yes!" roared the children and pelted Santa with orange peels.

A fire was set and Santa Claus perished in the flames.  Only his gloves remained.

Several French Catholic prelates, including Jules-Geraud, Cardinal Salinge of Toulouse, recently have denounced the "paganization" of Christmas, specifically assailing Santa Claus.

In other news, your Christmas tree wants you dead.  "The Guardian," January 19, 1971:

A housewife died from blood poisoning after she trod on a Christmas tree needle, but the cause of the poisoning was still unknown at an inquest in Stoke-on-Trent yesterday.  Mrs. Mary Allbut, aged 54, of Heath Street, Chesterton, Stoke-on-Trent, was treated by her 16-year-old daughter after she cut her foot on a pine needle from the family Christmas tree

Several days later her condition worsened and she was rushed to hospital where she later died.  At the inquest Dr. Charles Knappett, the pathologist, said she died from blood poisoning, but he was unable to pinpoint the cause until he had made further investigations.

He said he would study photographs of the infected parts of the body to try to establish the reason for the poisoning.  The city coroner, Mr. Frederic Halls, adjourned the inquest until the beginning of next month to allow investigations to continue.

Another killer tree appeared in the "New York World," February 16, 1909:

William W. Babbington, expert stenographer for Cord Meyer, former Democratic State Chairman, died today in the Long Island City Hospital from an infection of the left hand received while decorating a tree last Christmas.  His wife, Martha, is critically ill, and only awaits her husband's funeral, when she will be removed to the institution for treatment for the same affliction.

Babbington got his fingers covered with a chemical sprinkled over the tree.  Weeks after he noticed the injury had developed a felon.  An operation followed in which the bone of the diseased finger was removed.  Then came the blood poisoning.  Babbington courageously fought off his fate, and when his wife took ill he disregarded his own trouble and insisted on remaining at the side of Mrs. Babbington.

He was twenty-six years old and leaves three children.  He took part in several contests for stenographers and won several medals for his speed and accuracy.

I believe that nothing sums up my Yuletide posts better than those magic words, "Christmas tree detonator."  The Spokane "Spokesman-Review," December 23, 1946:

Pittsburgh, Dec. 22.--A small electrical attachment, believed to be a detonator, exploded while the Clarence Berich family was trimming a Christmas tree last night, seriously injuring 16-year-old Ronald Berich.

The boy suffered the loss of several fingers on each hand, and chest and abdomen wounds.  The father was burned slightly.

County detectives said the detonator, a copper tube with wires attached, had been about the Berich home for years ever since the father had brought it from a factory in which he formerly worked.  He said he didn't know what it was.

The father said he obtained the device when his son needed a heavier wire than he had at hand.  The explosion came when the boy connected a wire to the house electrical system.

The cards are out to get you, too.  The "Seattle Star," January 20, 1913:

New York, Jan 20--A Christmas postal card coated with mica and colored tinsel was declared today by Dr. Thomas F. Nevins of No. 249 Cumberland street, Brooklyn, to be responsible for the illness of Lewis D. Ryno, a letter carrier attached to the Flatbush branch postoffice.  It has been necessary to cut away part of the inside of one of Ryno's hands where infection had spread.

And sometimes, people spread lethal Christmas cheer in the direct, old-fashioned manner.  The "Sacramento Bee," December 25, 1916: 

Deming (N.M.) December 25--A Christmas card with the name "Shorty" on it was the only clue to the identity of the person who sent a bottle of poisoned whisky to Private George Mosley of Company M, Second Arkansas Infantry, encamped here.  Private Mosley died at the base hospital yesterday and Sergeant Byron Montgomery of Company K of the same regiment was critically ill at the base hospital after taking a drink from the same bottle, according to officers here.

[Note: as far as I can find, this murder was never solved.]

...And the "Sheffield Independent," January 7, 1871:

The family of Mr. Harrison, butcher, Cambridge were all seized with illness after partaking of a turkey on Christmas day, and it was discovered that the food contained poison.  Mr. Geo. Harrison and one of the Misses Harrison lies in a dangerous state, and others are more or less seriously affected. 

Pennsylvania, celebrated the Christmas of 1899 in an energetic and exciting fashion.  The "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette," December 27:

A strange accident happened in Donegal township, Butler county, on Christmas eve.  John Donlew, who lives near his son-in-law, William Grimes, undertook to play Santa Claus for his grandchildren, and all the presents that were to be made in the two families were to be hauled to the Grimes house early yesterday morning.  The mock heads of two reindeer which had been used at a church entertainment were rigged up over the heads of the horses, the bundles were put into a light wagon and Mr. Donlew started on his trip.  He was dressed as Santa Claus and was wrapped in a heavy blanket.

Two of his nephews about 3 o'clock in the morning started from their home near by to go hunting, and as they drew near the Grimes homestead they saw the strange looking rig coming up the lane that led to the house.  They forgot all about Christmas night, but as there had been several robberies in that neighborhood they at once supposed that the man in the rig intended to break into their uncle's granary.  One of the boys fired his shotgun, which was loaded with bird shot, at the wagon, and the next minute there was a shriek and the two horses went up the lane at the top of their speed.  They finally ran into a fence, smashed the rig, and the bogus Santa Claus was thrown out. 

As soon as possible the two nephews, who by this time had recognized their uncle's voice, reached his side and he was picked up for dead.  As it was he had one leg broken and his back was full of bird shot, while there were several shot sticking in the sides of the horses.  The man was carried into his son-in-law's house and his injuries attended to.

Not half an hour after this occurrence Willie Manifrew, son of a farmer, came running to the Grimes house with the information that his brother Johnny, a boy of ten years, had rolled off the roof of their two-story house and that they wanted some of the Grimes boys to go for a doctor.  He said that about 4 o'clock he and Johnny awoke and had gone downstairs to see if Santa Claus had brought anything, but he had not.  The two then talked it over and Willie and his brother decided that Santa Claus was sure to come between that hour and daylight.  They then made up their minds to get out on the roof and see Santa come down the chimney.  They had only been there a few minutes when Johnny yelled, "Thee he comes," and in his excitement slipped on the icy roof and rolled to the ground.  When the doctor reached the house he found that no bones were broken, but that the boy had had the wind knocked out of him and was badly jarred, and that there was no reason to fear that he would suffer any serious consequences.

I'd say it's about time for a romantic interlude.  A Christmas wedding!  What could be more "Hallmark holiday movie" than that?  "The Day Book," December 26, 1912.

Taylorsville, Ill., Dec. 26.--John Belder, a carpenter, got on a Christmas drunk. Then went to the wedding of his stepdaughter, Miss Elsie Bates Ora Redfern, and started shooting up the place to satisfy a grudge against his wife. Chased wife out of the house, wounding her as she ran. Then returned, to "get" the bride and groom. Shot and seriously, wounded Mrs. Emma Fisher, then shot through door of room where bride and groom hid themselves. Did not kill them.  Police surrounded the house and Belder was seriously wounded by a bullet from one of the cops. Arrested. Both of the wounded may die. 

Miss Redfern was married shortly after the interruption. 

"The interruption." 

Some people dislike family holiday gatherings.  A few people really dislike them.  The "Larimer County Independent," December 27, 1912:

A rather bizarre break and entry took place at Robert Hargens' residence at Country Side Mobile Home Park.

While the Hargens were sleeping someone entered their trailer, opened all the gifts under the Christmas tree and put them all in a row.

The intruder then took all the gift wrapping and left.

RCMP investigations continued and four juvenile girls have been implicated in the incident.

Apparently the gifts were taken from the trailer and then returned.

RCMP are unsure if there will be charges laid.

On a final note, you've got to admire any kid bold enough to try an extortion racket on Santa.

"Richmond Dispatch," December 6, 1900

 I wish all of you a happy Christmas, however you choose to spend December 25.  God knows, these are strange times we're living in, but if we manage to refrain from poisoned cards, exploding trees, and filling Santa with buckshot, we may at least get out of the holiday season alive.

One of history's innumerable small, quickly-forgotten, yet oddly haunting mysteries took place over England's Christmas holidays of 1916.  On December 25, at Southwark Cathedral, a carman from Bermondsey, George Stephen Carter, married his sweetheart, 22-year-old Alice Elizabeth.  (Her maiden name was never mentioned in any of the newspaper accounts.)  After the wedding, the newlyweds went to her mother's home, where they celebrated with what was described as a "honeymoon party."  They spent their wedding night there.

The following evening, the couple prepared to leave for George's home.  Right before they were to depart, Alice left the room, saying she was going to put on her hat and coat, a task that her husband naturally assumed would only take her a couple of minutes.  She seemed as calm and happy as you would expect any bride to be.  Alice's mother saw her walk out the front door.  She was without her hat and coat, so her mother assumed she merely went to exchange a few more goodbyes with their departing guests.

That was the last George ever saw of his new wife.  She never returned.  In fact, as far as anyone could tell, she simply vanished.  Her husband, family, and friends searched the area with increasing panic, but could find no trace of where she had gone.  Finally, they went to the police, but could give the authorities no clue about what had happened.  They all insisted that when last seen, Alice was sober, cheerful, and looking forward to her married life.  She had not quarreled with George, or anyone else so far as her loved ones knew.

Alice's whereabouts remained a complete mystery until January 26, when her body was fished from the Thames.  It was presumed she had drowned, but I found no mention of an autopsy.

"Sheffield Telegraph," January 29, 1917

The only possible clue in the mystery of Alice Elizabeth Carter's death came in a letter received by the Southwark police station on January 11, from someone claiming to be a Corporal in the Royal Canadian Regiment.  It read:

Sir--Regarding the missing woman Mrs. George Stephen Carter, late of Noah's Ark Alley and married at Southwark Cathedral on December 25 1916.  I was on leave from France for Christmas and was in the named woman's company before and after her marriage.  Knowing Bermondsey well, I spent a good part of my time around there.  What has happened to Mrs. Carter since I will not say in the letter--it is enough when I say I know all.

The note gave a return address, but letters posted to that direction received no reply.  Neither George nor Alice's mother recognized the handwriting or the address given.  They never had reason to think Alice knew anyone matching the writer's description.  The jury at Alice's inquest did the only thing possible in such murky circumstances and returned an open verdict.

Sadly, the puzzle of Alice's death is fated to remain "open."  Was this letter, as George Carter believed, a hoax?   If it was genuine, what did this man--who apparently was never traced--know about her end?  Did Alice, torn between two men, commit suicide?  Or did she secretly go to meet this man, and he murdered her?

I have no idea about George Stephen Carter's subsequent history, but I'm guessing that for the rest of his life, Christmas was his least favorite holiday.

Via Newspapers.com

Usually, my annual Christmas clipping post contains an array of varying horrors. However, this year features one story: a holiday tragedy that at one point, looked as if it had a happy ending...only to revert back to tragedy. And enduring mystery.  The “Boston Globe,” December 25, 1999:

GLOBE CORRESPONDENT HOBART, Okla. - For nearly a half-century, the owners of this town's newspaper have known the truth about Lewis Edens' missing daughter and never reported it. Joe Hancock honored his father's request to keep the story out of the paper, to keep it a secret. Now, however, on the 75th anniversary of the Babbs Switch schoolhouse fire that killed 26 people, Hancock says the full story should be told.

The Dec. 24 fire at the one-room schoolhouse at Babbs Switch, a small community about 5 miles south of the county seat of Hobart, is one of the state's worst tragedies. The story is known throughout Oklahoma for several reasons: So many people died; it occurred on Christmas Eve; and little Mary Edens was never found.

For years, people speculated on Mary's fate. Then one day in 1957, a woman who said she was Mary arrived in Hobart. And that led to the tale Joe Hancock refused to tell until this week.

The story began on Christmas Eve 1924, when more than 100 parents and students crowded into the 26-foot-by-36-foot school-house. The dirt highway was slick with a light frosting of snow. Those who drove their Model Ts drained the water from their radiators to keep them from freezing.

The program began at 8 p.m. By 8:30, Dow Bolding, 16, was handing out presents. He gave a doll to 4-year-old Lillie Biggers Braun; the doll nearly was as big as she was. He gave mechanical tarantulas to Edward and Gene Bolding, his kid brothers who shared a double desk in the front row. As Dow reached for a sack of candy tied to a limb of the Christmas tree, he caused a candle on the tree to ignite the dry, brittle cedar.

Gene Bolding, 81, is one of three survivors of the fire still living. He said he remembers that as his older brother and others tried to put out the fire, they knocked over the tree, which in turn knocked over a kerosene lamp, which exploded. At that point, Bolding said, a farmer escorted him and Edward outside. But Edward had left his new spider on the desk and dashed back in for it. He never came out.

Braun was with her mother, who dropped her during the rush for the door. "Mama started out with me," she said. "I got knocked down from her, and couldn't get up. I was crawling out, going one way, toward the door. I remember the screaming above me. It was the teacher, and she was going the other way."

The teacher, Florence Terry Hill, died that night. Braun became famous as the little girl who dragged her doll to safety. But two of her brothers died in the fire. Gene Bolding lost his brothers Dow and Edward and his sister Maggie. But it was the story of Mary Edens that most intrigued those who know about the fire.

Mary, who was 3, was with her aunt, Alice Noah. Noah escaped, but died several days later from smoke inhalation. Before she died, however, she told Mary's parents that she had carried Mary to safety and handed her to someone. In the years that followed, Lewis and Ethel Edens nurtured the hope that Mary was alive.

In January 1957, a man in California began writing to a fellow Lion's Club member in Hobart. Elmont Place had seen a story about Mary, and thought a friend of his might be the missing child. After many letters, telephone calls, and a blood test, most were convinced that Grace Reynolds of Barstow, Calif, was the Edens' long-lost daughter.

Reynolds and her newly adopted infant son arrived in Hobart on Feb. 9, 1957, to a great welcome. News of the reunion made papers from California to North Dakota to Michigan. Reynolds and the Edens appeared on Art Linkletter's "House Party" television program.

Back in California, however, someone who claimed to be a sister of Reynolds telephoned a reporter at the Stockton (Calif.) Record. Dorothy Link had seen an Associated Press photo of Reynolds with her newfound parents and told the reporter she was an impostor.

The reporter sent a telegram to the Hobart Democrat-Chief, which began its own investigation. By May, the Stockton reporter had a notarized statement from Goldie More saying that she was Reynolds's birth mother. (Reynolds was Grace's married name, and she was separated from her husband when she went to Hobart.) When the reporter confronted Reynolds and asked whether she persisted in her claim, she said she was not claiming anything yet and that she was going to hire an attorney. At that point, Ransom Hancock, owner of the Democrat-Chief, took his evidence to Lewis Edens. Joe Hancock, 70, who now owns who now owns the newspaper, remembers the day well. "Dad took all this information, met with Lewis at his house, maybe in the yard," Hancock said. "Dad was really shook up having to tell him, and Lewis went through the trauma of finding out" Then Edens asked his friend for a consideration, a favor that has kept the full story about Reynolds out of the newspaper until this week.

Lewis Edens said to Ransom Hancock: “Look, my wife believes this girl, she believes she's found her daughter.” He asked that the story be withheld until his wife's death. Hancock, the editor, agreed. "Dad said, 'I just can't run that' And he didn't" Joe Hancock said.

The story remained a secret until yesterday. The Democrat-Chief published it simultaneously with the Daily Oklahoman. Hancock shared the long-secret letters and telegrams with a reporter for that paper. "We decided that now is the time to tell it" Hancock said. "Some of the people here through the years have questioned Grace's story and are suspicious of it. It's time to get that missing-baby deal put to rest; it's over. Now everybody will know for sure."

Hancock said he believes his father's decision reflects a sense of humanity and compassion that has been lost in modern journalism. "I know good and well he was right, and I don't know if I would have had the wisdom to do that" Hancock said.

"I hope we don't get away from having some feeling for the survivors," he said. "Mr. Edens knew she was a hoax. Mrs. Edens believed the story and accepted her for her daughter. I'm sure that gave her a peace that she never would have gotten."

Reynolds lived with members of the Edens family for a couple of years, then moved to Idaho and later West Yellowstone Park, where she ran a series of restaurants. Lewis Edens died in 1978 at 81, and Ethel Edens died in 1984 at 88, never learning of the secret.

Reynolds eventually remarried and today is named Mary Edens Grossnickle. Now 78 and living in northeastern Colorado, she still says she is Mary Edens and isn't bothered by the doubters. "I really don't care what they think," she said. "It just bounces off of me.” Of the notarized statement by More, Grossnickle wasn't surprised she signed it. "She was scared," Grossnickle said. "If she wasn't my birth mother, then she was a kidnapper."

Etta Henderson, who lives in Oklahoma City, is one of the Edens' daughters. Like everyone else, she believed they had found their sister in 1957. But she learned about the suppressed newspaper story sometime in the 1970s. Grossnickle's son, Lee, still contacts Henderson occasionally, and still calls her aunt.

That's fine with her; she likes Lee. She has no illusions, however, about Grossnickle. "My daddy figured it out real quick, but we did not want to hurt our mother," said Henderson, 76. "I am not saying she is an impostor. I wouldn't. But I am saying she is not my sister."

Mary Grossnickle died in 2008, insisting to the last that she was Mary Edens.  A DNA test would have resolved the dispute over her identity, but as far as I know that was never done. I suppose it suited everyone involved to let sleeping genes lie.