The Girls of Murder City (45 page)

Woollcott = Watkins, Maurine (1708-1712), letters to Alexander Woollcott; Correspondence: Woollcott, Alexander, 1887-1943, Houghton Library, Harvard College Library, Harvard University.

ISA: O’Brien =
In the Matter of W. W. O’Brien (1939),
Illinois State Archives, Supreme Court of Illinois, vault no. 48400-52602.

Note: In many instances, to make the notes more accessible and to save space, multiple discrete citations for an event or scene have been pulled together into a larger group citation. To see the comprehensive, page-by-page source notes, along with supplementary research information, go to
www.douglasperry.net
.

Prologue

1
The radio said so:
“Mrs. Nitti Consoles Beulah: ‘Lady Slayer’ Told Not to Worry for ‘Beauty Will Win,’ ”
CEA,
Apr. 5, 1924.

1
Beulah Annan peered through the bars:
The cell number is given in
CEA,
Apr. 5, 1924.

1
But that was when she was the undisputed:
“Beulah Annan Sobs Regret for Life She Took,”
CDT,
Apr. 6, 1924.

1
Beulah never joined them:
CEA,
Apr. 5, 1924.

2
The next day, she sat sidesaddle:
Chicago Daily News
negatives collection, DN-0076751, Chicago History Museum.

2
This was the woman who:
“Sleuths Sleuth on Sleuths in Domestic Row,”
CEP,
Apr. 9, 1920; “Why the ‘Cave-girl’ Wants a Third Divorce From Hubby,”
Fresno Bee,
Sept. 19, 1926.

2
“I’m feeling very well”:
“Never Threatened Law, Says Divorcee,”
CDN,
Mar. 13, 1924.

2
Faith would see her through this ordeal:
“Mrs. Gaertner Leads Jailed Women in Song,”
CDJ,
Mar. 14, 1924.

3
“Here, Mrs. Gaertner”:
“Mrs. Gaertner Lies—Mrs. Law,”
CDJ,
Mar. 13, 1924.
CDN
of the same day had Katherine Malm’s quote slightly different: “Just pretend it’s a beefsteak or a roast chicken, dearie. It makes it easy to swallow.”

3
Then there was Mrs. Elizabeth Unkafer:
“Jail Colony of Women in Chicago Grows,”
Danville (VA) Bee,
Apr. 24, 1924.

3 And Mary Wezenak—“Moonshine Mary”: “Woman on Trial For Moonshine Death,”
CDN,
Mar. 11, 1924. Newspapers sometimes spelled her name “Wozemak.”

3
After the police had trundled:
“Feminism Leads Them to Kill, Dean Holds,”
Danville (VA) Bee,
Apr. 17, 1924.

4
Motor cars were so plentiful:
Aylesworth and Aylesworth, 25.

4
“I am staggered by this state of
affairs”
:
Sullivan,
Rattling the Cup on Chicago Crime,
27.

4
Even Oak Park high school girls:
“Mothers Fasten Oak Park Orgies Upon Vamp of 16,”
CDT,
Jan. 26, 1923.

5
Belva, the “queen of the Loop cabarets”:
“Why the ‘Cave-girl’ Wants a Third Divorce From Hubby,”
Fresno Bee,
Sept. 19, 1926.

5
And now that she had grown accustomed to “jail java”:
CEP
photo caption, Mar. 13, 1924.

5
“How can they?”:
“Beulah Annan Sobs Regret for Life She Took,”
CDT,
Apr. 6, 1924.

5
The bare stone walls:
See Lane,
Cook County Jail: Its Physical Characteristics and Living Conditions.

5
She took no food and confessed no more:
CEA,
Apr. 5, 1924.

6
At one point Sabella
Nitti: Ibid.

6
“The writer who visits these prisoners week after week”:
Danville (VA) Bee,
Apr. 24, 1924.

6
Once Beulah’s wistful gaze:
“What Life Finally Did to ‘the Girl With the Man-Taming Eyes’,”
Hamilton (OH) Evening Journal,
May 5, 1928; “Mrs. Annan Has Lonesome Day Behind the Bars,”
CDT,
Apr. 7, 1924.

6 “Sorry? Who wouldn’t be?”
:
CEA,
Apr. 5, 1924; also “Mrs. Annan Sorry She Won Race for Pistol,”
CDN,
Apr. 5, 1924.

7 Beulah couldn’t bear it: “False Colors of Bohemia Lead to Nowhere—Wanda Stopa Learns Too Late,”
CEA,
Apr. 28, 1924.

7
“Another Chicago girl went gunning”:
Quinby, 216.

Chapter 1: A Grand Object Lesson

11
Out in the hallway:
Robert St. John, who started at the
Chicago Daily News
within weeks of Maurine Watkins joining the
Tribune,
noted that if you dared ask for a raise, your editor would tell you to go take a look at the “fifty or a hundred eager-looking young men and women” waiting out in the corridor every day, hoping to get a chance. “I can hire the best of them for ten dollars a week,” the editor would say. See St. John’s
This Was My World,
175. This waiting ritual among wannabe reporters hadn’t changed in a generation. In the early 1890s, Theodore Dreiser stood around in the halls of Chicago newspapers for hours at a time, day after day, hoping to be noticed or tapped for an assignment on a busy day. See Dreiser’s
Newspaper Days,
45-47.

11
It was the first day of February:
“Murder She Wrote: Tribune Reporter Maurine Watkins Achieved Her Greatest Fame with ‘Chicago,’ a Play Based on Two Sensational Local Crimes,”
CDT,
July 16, 1997; “Women Who’ve Won: Maurine Watkins,”
Syracuse (NY) Herald,
June 26, 1928.

11
The company had fifteen operators:
WGN,
289-90.

12
The
Tribune
received hundreds of want-ad orders:
For the paper’s want-ad operation, see
WGN,
180-85; Butcher, 109; Wendt, 365.

12
But Maurine, at twenty-seven years of age:
Watkins, Maurine: Radcliffe College Student Files, 1890-1985, Radcliffe College Archives, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University. On her graduate-school application, Watkins lists her birthday as July 27, 1896.

12
Its six stories rose up:
WGN,
123. Austin Avenue is now Hubbard Street. After the straightening of the Chicago River, it no longer intersects with St. Clair.

12
Railroad tracks ran along:
WGN,
102-3, 114, 124.

13
In front of it, facing Michigan Avenue:
Wendt, 488.

13
“Most of them—the great ones—were ornate”:
Dreiser, 5-6.

14
The
Tribune
’s
local room hummed:
WGN,
102.

14
Edward “Teddy” Beck was a Kansan:
Butcher, 40-41; Rascoe,
Before I Forget,
235.

14
She had written a letter:
CDT,
July 16, 1997. See Sullivan,
Chicago Surrenders,
102, for more information on Robert Lee.

15
Most of the women who wanted to work:
Ross, 543. Ross described Watkins’s colleague at the
Tribune,
Maureen McKernan, as “large and commanding.”

15
Maurine, on the other hand, was tiny:
“Pistol Fire Lights Up ‘Chicago’; or, Telling It to the Maurine,”
NYW,
Jan. 16, 1927.

15
Her shyness was palpable:
Syracuse (NY) Herald,
June 26, 1928.

15
No, she had never been a reporter before:
Ibid.

15
“Had any newspaper experience at
all?”: “The Author of ‘Chicago,’ ”
NYT,
Jan. 2, 1927.

15
She was too frightened to answer:
Syracuse (NY) Herald,
June 26, 1928.

15
A
Tribune
reporter had famously tracked:
Rascoe,
Before I Forget,
233.

16
“I don’t believe you’ll like newspaper work”:
NYT,
Jan. 2, 1927.

16
Lee told her she was hired:
NYW,
Jan. 16, 1927.

16
The typical job seeker, standing around:
Dreiser, 17.

16
That was what Maurine liked about it:
NYW,
Jan. 16, 1927.

16
Indeed, reporters often impersonated officers:
McPhaul, 8-9, 12.

16
Or they first proved themselves as picture chasers:
MacAdams, 13-14.

17
Almost all of the women to be found in newsrooms:
Downs, 27.

17
The number of killings committed by women:
Adler, “ ‘I Loved Joe, but I Had to Shoot Him’: Homicide by Women in Turn-of-the-Century Chicago,” 867-78.

17
Another, far more popular one held that:
Ibid.

18
They were overwhelmed by alcohol:
Murray, 309.

18
Hearst hired “sob sisters” like:
Ross, 548. Ross identified Dougherty as Princess Pat.

18
“It’s a grand object lesson”:
Gilman,
Sob Sister,
38.

18
“I shot him,” she wailed:
Lesy, 33-46.

18
She wasn’t a girl from the neighborhood:
Steiner and Gray, 9.

19
“If more people knew the Greek”:
John Elliott, “Tearing Up the Pages,”
Portland Review
29, no. 1, 1983. This article about Maurine Watkins includes an excerpt of correspondence from Dorotha Watkins Jacobsen to Elliott.
Portland Review
is a Portland (Oregon) State University student publication; back issues can be found at the university’s Branford P. Millar Library (LH1.P66).

19
Maurine intended to get an advanced degree:
NYW,
Jan. 16, 1927.

19
Walking to and from classes on
Radcliffe’s
verdant campus:
Ibid.

19
During her high school years and into college, she enjoyed:
“A Roads Scholar Pedals Passionately Into the Past,”
CDT,
Apr. 7, 1986.

19
Maurine had always felt easily overwhelmed:
In the 1920s, in a letter to her friend Alexander Woollcott, she wrote about her social anxiety, insisting that she was “by nature a recluse.” See Woollcott.

20
Living on the East Coast for the first time:
Letter from Maurine Watkins to W. R. Smith, Dec. 7, 1959, William Roy Smith: Vice President of Abilene Christian College, 1940-1962 (MS9), Milliken Special Collections, Abilene Christian University Library.

20
She was convinced “the only thing that will cure”:
NYW,
Jan. 16, 1927.

20
Art was an obligation, Baker told her:
Kinne, xiv.

20
He advocated finding out about “your great”:
Kinne, 99.

20
Once that seed had been planted:
Another reason Chicago called to her was that the celebrated stage actor Leo Ditrichstein, with whom Maurine sought to place a play, was there. Ditrichstein apparently showed some interest in working with her, but he soon left the city for Europe, abandoning the idea. See
NYT,
Jan. 2, 1927.

20
It was a city, Theodore Dreiser wrote:
Dreiser, 3.

20
She picked out an apartment to rent:
CDT,
July 16, 1997.

21
St.
Chrysostom’s
was a gem:
Author’s visit.

21
She needed a murder:
NYW,
Jan. 16, 1927.

21
“Being a conscientious person I never prayed”:
Ibid.

Chapter 2: The Variable Feminine Mechanism

The narrative for Walter Law and Belva Gaertner’s last night together—and Belva’s subsequent arrest—draws from the following key sources: “Bootlegger Had No Pints,”
Iowa City Press Citizen,
Mar. 15, 1924; “One-Gun Duel Tragedy Told By Woman,”
CDN,
Mar. 12, 1924; “Never Threatened Law, Says Divorcee,”
CDN,
Mar. 13, 1924; “Mystery Victim Is Robert Law; Hold Divorcee,”
CDT,
Mar. 12, 1924; “Hold Divorcee as Slayer of Auto Salesman,”
CDT,
Mar. 13, 1924; “Mrs. Gaertner Lies—Mrs. Law,”
CDJ,
Mar. 13, 1924; “Mrs. Gaertner in Cell for Slaying Is No Longer Gay,”
CEP,
Mar. 13, 1924; “Gamble with Death Excuse for Killing,”
NYT,
Mar. 13, 1924. Descriptions of the neighborhood are derived from Holt and Pacyga, 8-9, 133.

23
Later, she realized the quart:
CEP,
Mar. 13, 1924; Sullivan,
Rattling the Cup on Chicago Crime,
91-92.

23
The orchestra had been playing:
“Jury Holds Belva’s Fate,”
CDN,
June 5, 1924.

23
She stared at the blood-soaked clothes:
Lesy, 199.

23
The caracul coat bothered her:
“Belle Bemoans Ruined Coat,”
CDJ,
Mar. 13, 1924.

24
Belva had never been able to count on:
Illinois Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphans’ Home Records, 1900 (255.004-008), Illinois State Archives, Margaret Cross Norton Bldg., Springfield, Illinois. Belva’s mother deposited her two children in the state orphanage when times got tough for her. Belva’s father died when Belva was four years old.

24
He had just won the Franklin Institute Gold Medal:
“Here and There,”
Scientific American,
Apr. 1924.