RENO COUNTY, KANSAS
RENO COUNTY, KANSAS
FOUR PERSONS HURT IN CRASH NEAR NICKERSON
Four persons were hurt and two cars were demolished in a crash at 6 o'clock last night at the Strickler corner on K-96, four miles east of Nickerson.
Autos driven by Earl Bozeman, 16, son of E. P. Bozeman, Nickerson and J. E. Machel, Chase oil field worker, collided head-on.
Bozeman's sisters, Gayle, 14, and Glenna 11, suffered deep cuts and were taken to Grace hospital by Vern Wagoner, who arrived soon after the accident. Lesser injuries were sustained by Bozeman and Machel who were given first-aid treatment.
Undersheriff George Salmon said Machel told him he was rounding the curve too fast and on the wrong side. Bozeman was returning home from Hutchinson. (Hutchinson News Herald, December 12, 1937, page 4)
PEARL BASS WANTED A BIG CHRISTMAS TOO
Everyone else was buying such lovely things, Pearl Bass just couldn't help it.
She bought a car at the A. D. Rayl Motor Co., and ordered a big holiday dinner of the grocer. A white attorney she said would pay the bills.
But the merchants lacked the Christmas spirit of the 38 year old Negro. They wouldn't deliver the goods. Pearl told her troubles to her mother, "Aunt" Belle Williams who sadly signed an insanity complaint.
Still believing in the white folk's Santa Claus, Pearl was waiting in the county jail for the attorney to rescue her. (Hutchinson News Herald, December 12, 1937, page 4)
BUHLER'S TRAGIC MYSTERY SOLVED AS YOUTH TAKEN FROM PARENTS QUARTER CENTURY AGO IS FOUND
Stern Grandfather Gives Clue in Deathbed Confession
By Fred Henney
Buhler - After a quarter century of heart-break and futile search, the mystery of the little son of Mrs. Anna Nachtigal has been solved.
Keeping a promise made to a sorrow-stricken old man on his death bed, Mrs. Lena Koop, a sister-in-law, has found the missing child, now a man of 25.
Robert Yanke, Follett, Tex., oil field worker, learns today for the first time who he really is.
Woven into this true dramatic story is the virtual kidnapping of a young bride, her isolation in a hospital, the suicide of her husband upon its steps, the removal of her baby and as a tragic finale, the incarceration of the spiritually broken widow in an insane asylum 2,000 miles away.
Repents on Death Bed
The tragedy came to light when a lonely grandfather, repenting in his dying hours, sought to find the grandson, cast among strangers, and restore him to his mother.
Jacob Koop, farmer of the Buhler community was a stern father. He loved his family. But his word was as law. So, when Anna Koop fell in love with a man he disapproved and defied the father's authority by marrying the man of her choice, the hand of parental justice fell heavily on the unhappy girl.
Anna's sweetheart was Pete Nachtigal a young farm hand. He was poor, but she loved him. They were married at Syracuse, and soon after located on a tenant farm near Pawnee Rock.
Spirited Away
Then came the time when Anna returned home to have her baby. The stern father took Anna away to a secret place and when the young husband sought her whereabouts he was refused information. Other members of the family did not know where Anna had been taken.
It was in a hospital in Enid, Okla., that Anna's baby was born. She wanted her husband. She did not understand she really had been kidnapped. She mourned because she thought he did not care.
Then one evening in June, 1913, Pete Nachtigal arrived at the Enid hospital to get his wife and child. Someone who knew where Anna was had informed him.
Suicide in Hospital
His wife was there and the baby. But strict orders had been given the hospital not to permit him to see them, nor to allow her to leave with him. He was turned from the door.
That night they found Pete Nachtigal's body in the hospital hall. He had taken his life.
That same night the child was taken from its mother and the nurses. Her father was determined the child should never enter his home.
The young mother did not know where the baby was taken. From that day to this according to relatives, Mrs. Nachtigal has never seen her child has never known what became of him.
She was kept at the hospital. After her physical recovery she continued to work there. Why she did not leave the hospital, report to authorities, raise heaven and earth as most mothers would to find her child, nobody understands. Perhaps she was led to think the babe had died.
"We do not know all about it," explained Mrs. Lena Koop, the sister-in-law. "Much that took place we never did understand. It has only been recently that we have learned the story of what took place and there is much yet to be learned."
Mother to Insane Asylum
After a time Jacob Koop left Buhler and moved to Reedley, Calif., and he took his daughter, Anna from Enid to California with him. Broken in spirit grieving for her husband who she thought had deserted her for she never knew the real facts mourning for the babe she perhaps thought had died, her mind gave way. Ten years ago she was incarcerated in an insane asylum at Stockton, Calif. She is there today.
Jacob Koop, an aged broken man lived alone on his farm near Reedley. One day he wrote his daughter-in-law Mrs. Lena Koop in Buhler, asking that she come to see him saying he had something to tell her.
To her he confessed the whole tragic story. He told her how he had taken Anna's baby to a family eight miles from Enid. But that was the last he knew of the boy's whereabouts.
Starts Search for Son
"We must find that baby," the old man
said. "He must know about his mother and where she is. I am sick I am going to die. We must find the baby
before it is too late. Promise me you will search for him."
Mrs. Koop promised. She had little, indeed to work on. All she knew was that a baby first name Robert, the son
of Mrs. Anna Nachtigal patient at a hospital in Enid, Oklahoma had been taken to a farm home eight miles from Enid
some 25 years ago.
She did not even know the name of the family where the baby had been taken, nor which direction from Enid.
She began her search at the Enid Hospital. But after 25 years there was not much she could learn there. No one around Enid knew any Robert Nachtigal.
A Persistent Hunt
She carried advertisements in newspapers throughout Oklahoma and Texas. She wrote letters addressed to Robert Nachtigal to town after town in those states. Letter after letter returned unclaimed. But she kept up the search.
And then, a few weeks ago her persistence was rewarded. Someone at Enid remembered a family near there named Yanke, had adopted a baby boy. They had moved away but their boy, now a young man was working somewhere in the Texas oil fields. The sheriff and other authorities at Enid and at Oklahoma had helped locate the family and whereabouts of the long missing boy.
Located in Texas
About a week ago Mrs. Koop received a letter from Robert Yanke at Follett, Tex. He is married and has two children. He enclosed a photograph of himself and children.
In a few days Mrs. Koop will attend a conference at Enid, Okla., Robert Yanke will be there, from Texas. Court officials of Oklahoma will be there.
The purpose of the conference is to ascertain definitely and establish legally, if possible that Robert Yanke is really Robert Nachtigal.
Incidentally, the Oklahoma authorities are trying to find out now, a quarter century later, how such a terrible thing could have happened as this tragedy of 25 years ago at Enid.
Take Him to His mother
Then Anna Nachtigal's son will be taken to California to the stone walled iron barred room where his mother now nearly 60 years old is enduring a living death.
Maybe it's just a hope, but maybe the restoration of her son to the mother may restore her mind. For they say she has never ceased calling for her baby - the babe taken from her 25 years ago at Enid.
But all the mystery of this strange case of Jacob Koop is not yet at an end. There's the matter of what became of the hidden treasure on the Koop premises near Reedley, Calif.
The Buried Treasure
When Mrs. Lena Koop visited her aged father-in-law some time before his death he told her when he exacted from her the promise to find his missing grandson that he had ample means to take care of him.
He showed her a galvanized pipe which the eccentric old man was using as a magnified coin bank. Apparently containing gold coins. He told her there was plenty of money hidden where no thief could find it and that he would let her know sometime where it was to see that his grandson had it.
But he never divulged to her or anyone else it seems where this supposed fortune was concealed.
Eighty six years old he died last March. With him when he died and shortly before he passed away were some of the people of the Mennonite church at Reedley.
Revealed Through Prayer
A letter received by Mr. and Mrs. Koop in Buhler from B. B. Reimer clerk of the Mennonite Brethren church at Reedley says:
"Mrs. Reimer was all alone with him and while
she sat his bedside she prayed God to reveal to her where the money of his could possibly be and the Spirit told
her to go and see in the sewing machine drawer.
She looked and found it there. She immediately took it to our house and had it kept in the original wrappers and
deposited in the bank at Reedley.
Later the Mennonite church official added, the pastor of the church was called in and also officials of the welfare board aat Fresno.
Mrs. Reimer got some others and they counted the money and kept all the original wrappers and immediately deposited the money in the bank here at Reedley.
How much there was, the letter did not state. No reference was made to finding any other money. Nothing was said of the galvanized pipe and its coins. Perhaps that has not been found.
There is still much to be unraveled of this strange quarter century old drama of "The Family of Jacob Koop." (Hutchinson News Herald, February 6, 1938, page 4)
Police Believe Hutchinson Man Attempted Suicide
Reportedly despondent over an extended illness and moody with thoughts of his wife who took her own life by fire eight years ago, George Hantz, 57, 229 West D. allegedly attempted suicide about 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon by shooting himself in the chest.
He was taken to the St. Elizabeth's hospital where his condition late last night was reported "good." Attendants said they had not determined if the shot had punctured his lung. However, they believed it had not. He is believed to have a good chance to recover.
C. R. Briggs, of Pratt, an old friend of the Hantz family and Mrs. Pearl Tracy, 625 West Sixth, who reportedly has been keeping house for Hantz during his illness were witnesses to the shooting.
Grabbed Gun Suddenly
"I was reading a magazine, Doc Briggs was sitting on the foot of the bed, Mrs. Tracy told police. All of a sudden he grabbed the gun from beneath his pillow. I yelled, but he pulled the trigger before either of us could get to him."
Briggs told officers that he asked Hantz, "What did you do that for?" and that Hantz replied, "I wanted to end it all, I'd do it over again."
Police said Mrs. Tracy told them Hantz owned $50,000 a few years ago, but recently had mortgaged his furniture for $30. Officers found four pints of alleged whiskey in the blankets of Hant's bed and an additional 18 pints in a cabinet.
Four Pints A Day
"Hantz has been drunk for six weeks," Mrs. Tracy told officers, they said. "He has been drinking about four pints a day."
Mrs. Tracy said Hantz had threatened to kill himself on previous occasions.
Last night, she said he was telling me how his wife doused kerosene on her clothing and set fire to herself several years ago. He said he believed he would kill himself too, and wanted to know if I would take care of Duke, his dog. He said Duke had ilved in that same house with him for 16 years and should be left there. I told him to quit worrying about it.
Mrs. Edith Halley, South Hutchinson, told police she had taken a gun away from Hantz several months ago and hid it after hearing him talk of taking his own life. (Hutchinson News Herald, April 24, 1938, page 4)
Changed the Name.- Independence Band is now known as McCray's Concert Band.
The band at Independence, Kans., which has been known as the Independence Concert band for a long time, and which has been under the directorship of Walter McCray, is in the future to be known as McCray's Concert band. Mr. McCray was formerly a band director at Nickerson and Hutchinson and is well known here. His friends are pleased to see him progressing. (Hutchinson Daily News Hutchinson, Reno County, Kansas Thursday, August 1, 1907 page - 5 *** column - 6 submitted by Rose Stout)
Mrs. J. E. McNair of Haven is the guest of her sister
Mrs. J. E. McNair of Haven is the guest of her sister, Mrs. J. E. Foltz. (Hutchinson Daily News Hutchinson, Reno County, Kansas Thursday, August 1, 1907 page - 6 *** column - 3 submitted by Rose Stout)
Mrs. H. P. Lyon and daughter, Pearl of Fort Madison, IA are here visiting
Mrs. H. P. Lyon and daughter, Pearl of Fort Madison,
Ia., are here visiting with Mrs. J. W. Blanpled and other friends. (Hutchinson Daily News Hutchinson, Reno County,
Kansas Thursday, August 1, 1907
page - 6 column - 3 submitted by Rose Stout)
Wednesday was the 40th anniversary of the birth of C. W. Astle and in the evening his relatives came in and gave him a birthday surprise supper. Mr. Astle went home awfully tired and terribly hungry at about the usual supper hour, only to find that no preparations to appease his inner craving had been made. He bore the unusual condition with patience for awhile and then dropped a hint tot he effect that it seemed a little odd that four women couldn't rustle anything for a hungry man's supper.
On this earnest declaration Mrs. Astle tried to
make him some oyster soup,, bur managed scorch it so that he couldn't quite eat it. Then Charlie begun to study
up some thing sarcastic, about hiring a cook and the like, when the door opened and in came the whole connection,
with loaded baskets, and soon the big table, sixteen feet long, showed the 40-yearling that it wasn't the intention
to let him starve, even though his wife couldn't cook oysters sometimes. (The Haven Weekly Item Haven, Reno County,
Kansas November 24, 1894 page - 3 *** column - 3 submitted by Rose Stout)