If you’ve followed me long enough you know I have an obsession with collections. Taxidermy, dolls, tarot cards, books, pulp fiction, art, Hagen-Renakers, buttons, and more. Victor collects books and Japanese swords, and we both collect comics but I collect them to read them over and over until they fall apart and Victor collects them to seal them hermetically away from the world. Our latest favorite thing is having a drink while watching Facebook live auctions because it’s all the fun of going antiquing while never leaving your house, but we’ve sort of become those people watching QVC at midnight except instead of buying gold coins of Presidents we’re buying Victorian funeral paraphernalia and skeleton keys and, recently a giant collection of coverless comic books that I had to have because they were so cheap and because vodka exists.
Apparently when comics didn’t sell the shop could just mail back the cover to get credit so I guess this is all the unpopular stock from a shop that closed in 50+ years ago. I currently have 5 full long boxes of basically the same 15 coverless comics and I plan on wallpapering the entire bathroom of Nowhere Bookshop with a box of campy romance comics and leaving all the rest on a table outside for fellow hoarders, comic lovers, crafters. (I’ll keep you posted.)
But for every possible miss there is a glorious hit like the one I got this week.
I collect B&W vintage photos and create books with them. Some are artistic. Some are sad. One entire book is just vintage snaps victor and I have been captioning for our own amusement since we met in the 90s:
So when a giant collection of photography was being auctioned I bid on this enormous tintype (like 6 times bigger than the normal tintype) that had this glittery background because it was beautiful and I’d never seen anything like it. And I won! And then another 3 giant tintypes of people from the same family came up and I was like, “That’s a lot” but the other bidders were like, “THIS FAMILY HAS BEEN TOGETHER FOR 150 YEARS AND THAT CAN’T END NOW” so I adopted the entire family. Most of the time tintypes aren’t labeled because they’re printed on black metal you can’t write on but two of these had some identifying info and my favorite thing is to try to identify the people so that I can find their descendants and send copies of the the images. (More than once I’ve been gifted with this myself and it is magical. Genealogists are angels.) And I was especially interested because this lot came from a larger set labeled “MURDER VICTIMS”.
Tintypes and murder? Yes, please.
(Don’t judge me. This is not me saying I like murder. I just like old stories. Especially the murdery ones. Okay, you can judge me a little.)
The two daughters had their maiden names and “Kent, Connecticut” written in yellowed paper taped to the back. The parents only had the tape, but between Ancestry, Newspapers.com, The Kent Historical Association, genealogy death records, and Find-a-grave, I was able to find them, their history, their fascinating past and their (now long gone) possibly haunted house.
Why would you want to hear a story about perfect strangers who I adopted from photographs? If you are asking yourself that you should stop here because you probably wouldn’t. If you are saying, “SHUT UP AND GET TO THE MURDER” then I am here for you and let’s do this.
(Marge, curator of the Kent Historical is verifying my work so I may update things but I think this is all accurate.)
The Benedict Family of Kent Connecticut – pictures from 1880s, probably
This is German Benedict, the father, who died not long after this photo was taken (can’t find a cause of death).
And this is Flora Louise Benedict, his wife.
Flora had a daughter (Frankie) when she was 19 but didn’t marry German until she was 25 so Frankie was either born out of wedlock or to a previous husband. When Frankie died at age 12 (can’t find causes) her gravestone only listed her as the “daughter of Flora”, so it could be the first although that’s really unusual for the time. Frankie died before these photos were taken.
This is their daughter, Sarah Belle Benedict Bigelow, who got married but didn’t have children and died at 49. (This is the picture I originally bid on.)
And this is youngest daughter, Cora Elnora Benedict Page, who also married but had no children so the family line will die out with her.
This is usually about as far as I can take things and I’ll publish them to Ancestry so people can find them but then I came across this story:
Here is that story. So basically Flora was widowed and then Sarah died, and then Cora was widowed and Flora’s sister was widowed too so Flora, Cora and the sister decided they’d just live together with girl power in their old age and run their farm with the help of two hired hands, until one of them, Sidney Ward, ruined everything.
This is Sidney Ward, total dick.
Sidney was constantly getting drunk and acting the fool so Flora and Cora fired him and he got mad and started shooting his pistol into their window and was like, “Are you ready to die?” and they were like, “Uh, no” but the cops apparently didn’t take it seriously I guess because they were women and their hysterical wombs made them unreliable or something so he came back again with a rifle this time and waited until Flora went out to feed the chickens and killed her. Cora woke up as Sidney barged into her bedroom but Cora was like, “NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER” and beat the shit out of him and pushed him down the stairs and when she screamed for help he left, but turns out he was just lying in wait outside where he’d staged Flora’s body (creepily crossing her arms like you did to bodies back then) and when Cora and the other hired hand found her he shot Cora (but just in the arm) and shot at the other guy but missed. Then he went to their neighbors house with his rifle to ask for tobacco and was like, “I killed two this morning and there’ll be more soon” and the neighbor was like, “Okay, drunkie” and assumed he meant deer or something and shrugged it off. Then he took off into the woods and a bunch of people were like, “Oh, that bastard’s gonna kill me too,” including his brother, and that same brother’s son spotted Sidney out in the woods at the house of the lady who sold everyone moonshine, who was known only as (I shit you not) “old one-eyed John’s wife”. So the nephew tells the posse that are out looking for him and when they find him he tries to grab his gun but they shoot him in the foot and he gives up and is like, “Ow. My foot. Y’all want some moonshine?” and they share a “quart” which seems like a lot of alcohol to share with a wanna-be serial killer but you do you, I guess.
Sidney is taken to jail and a Harvard “alienist” (what shrinks were before they were shrinks) comes to see him because Sidney wants to plead insanity but the alienist is like, “Nah, you’re just a dick” and so Sidney is all, “Fuck it. I did it. No regrets, mother fucker.” (I’m paraphrasing all this, btw.) And the judge sentences him to life in prison and cuts his leg off. (The judge didn’t cut his leg off but when he got to prison they were like, “This leg is gross” and that’s pretty much the only treatment for medically gross legs 100 years ago, but they did say they were going to make him a wooden leg and that seems pretty progressive at the time. But then it gets weird because he’s sentenced to life in jail at Wethersfield State Prison but according to their records he never went there and then he just disappears.
Cora lives on, relatively alone it seems, for another 50 years at the same house where she dies age 99. She was known for sitting on her porch and after she died children would bring sleeping bags and camp in her abandoned house (ah, the 80s) and hear ghosts (that their parents told them were probably just loose cattle) until finally the house was demolished.
And that is the story of the Benedict family.
I love that someone else in the world is obsessed with weird true crime. This made my morning!
Um… I’m here for the adopt a murdered family now… I need to get into the photos my husband’s family has and look into them on ancestry because I am fascinated with old photos.
I’m just sad that no one has ever recognized that I have stolen the nomenclature of a ginger kitty from my favorite books as a child.
Every. Freaking. Time. I think I can’t adore you more, you have a story like this. We should be friends!
What an incredible story! I didn’t know there were auctions on FB and I feel like I need to get in on that.
I feel like this is something you could turn into a series on Netflix. You recreating the storyline from stuff bought at auction. Probably win awards for it!
Just love a story with a happy ending…
Oh–on to my REading List goes this.
Hysterical wombs!! 😂🤣
That is so fucking cool. I would love to buy something like that. I also love ancestry. Like I found out that in the early 1900s on my husband’s family there were a set of twin boys. They stole matches out of mom’s purse and the one boy caught the other ones clothes. Wool clothes on fire. He suffered burns that led to the boys death. Mom went crazy. Refused to leave funeral home. Got the body out of the casket and everything. She was sent away to Transallegany lunatic asylum and she died there. History is so cool
(I wonder if these stories are so fascinating to us because they are so foreign to us. So many stories stick with us because they wouldn’t happen in the same way today. ~ Jenny)
I SO want to be remembered for something as cool as “old one-eyed John’s wife” yet I’m not married to John, and alas, the husband I have still has both eyes. GOALS!
(SAME. ~ Jenny)
WOW! I love your persistence in finding out this story! That is SO cool – truth really is stranger than fiction, huh?
I an literally unable to quantify how much more I love you after reading this!
You have resurrected this families story. Stories like this should never be lost to time.
My womb was so hysterical that “they” took it out! Probably wandering around in Texas looking for something to kill. I love your improvised dialogue! Write a book about your found treasures ( sort of a Ransom Riggs for adults)!
I’ve been to Kent, CT. It has a great chocolate shop and a park with a cool waterfall. And now I find that it had Murder! Mayhem! Excitement!!!.
What an amazing story you’ve teased out from the past.
So I made it to the Nowhere Bookstore and got to stand in the middle of Nowhere. Bought an autographed You are Here and a note book with dots to keep my lines straight. Loved San Antonio and I will be back.
(Yay! ~ Jenny)
Wow. Day = Made.
Thank you for Being You and Thank you even more for Sharing You with Me!
Wow. That’s some story! Thank you for sharing. This family may have received their 15 minutes of fame postmortem, but I think it still counts!
Facinating story, and I love your paraphrasing! I wonder if Sydney didn’t survive his de-legging, and that’s why he never showed up at the prison.
(I was thinking that as well. It still seems like his record would be there, but if he went straight from jail to the hospital and never got to the prison then maybe? I would have expected a story on it though. They even had a full story in the paper for each of his operations. Then he just disappears aside from references to “The Ward case” whenever a violent murder happened in the same area. ~ Jenny)
Free giveaways when certain items are sold by the bookstore!!! I LOVE YOU!
So awesome.
Love the story, but please change “ancestors” to “descendants.” 🙂
(Fixed! Thanks! ~ Jenny)
I think this should be the origin story of the new superhero Cora the avenging ghost! Seriously Jenny time to start a comic book series of your own with vintage photos as the backgrounds!
This made my day! I love true crime and fascinating stories… and you told this one so well. Thank you! 💙
Wow! And all this started with cocktails and TV. Another reason not to drink and shop. Or maybe a good reason to really drink and shop. My family is wacky, but this group is so much better. Now, if removing offending body parts was the “norm” now, I would be just a head on a box. Spider veins-off with the legs! Saggy arm skin-off with the arms! Poochy tummy-torso has to go! Boobs-not bad but-let’s take ‘em too! Shit. I really need a drink now. I have thin hair so maybe the head has to go too. Make mine a double….
Love all of this!
You do have a way of telling a great story! Love you!
I often buy old family photos at estate sales to rescue them. I try to make sure remaining family know I have their photos and would like to return them. I always think, “SOMEbody WANTS these,” but they never do. I have someone’s maiden aunt’s 1902 baby book, for heaven’s sake. Ah, well. I’ve started using them in my art.
(SAME. I can’t imagine wanting to get rid of family photos, and I always ask if there’s someone else in the family that wants them. I guess different people are attached to different things but it feels baffling when things so personal are sold. Then again, when I die I’m sure all of these will go up for auction or an estate sale because Hailey isn’t into them and they’ll once again be looking for a new home. We all keep the stories only for a moment. ~ Jenny)
I loved the murder story…but back to the comics…wallpapering the bathroom is genius. Its the first thing I thought of too. Another option for the comics though is to bundle them up in packs and sell them with all proceeds going to the Christmas Miracle – basically I just want to see the comics and read them and enjoy them too.
Now THAT was as wild ride. Cora was a fucking badass.
10/10 would watch the movie.
Also I had no idea FB auctions are a thing. Take my money!
This is like a Ransom Riggs book for adults, and it’s absolutely wild (and apropos) that it’s true crime. I love this hobby for you.
1- This was like ‘Drunk History’, except sober and about murder, so way better. More like Paul Harvey’s ‘The Rest Of The Story’, but with “fuck”s.
2- I am going to need the story on the rest of the file of “Murder Photos”.
(Best compliment ever. I bought several more small tintypes at the same auction but none were labeled so I don’t know their story. I just know that I liked their faces. Another piece in the auction (a cabinet card) that I didn’t buy was a young girl labeled with a very old newspaper article that identified her as a murder victim of the Belfry killer but I did a deep dive onto that and couldn’t confirm it and it was out of my price range. They also had a lot of Victorian-era postmortem photos but I didn’t buy any because I’m a little superstitious, although I do think they’re beautiful and fascinating. There’s a great book called “Beyond the Veil” that goes into detail on those sorts of photos. I did win a cabinet card of Tom Thumb, Lavinia Warren and their make believe baby that they rented (so many fascinating books on them) and now I’m trying to identify where it comes from since it’s a pose that doesn’t show up when I search for it. They had tons of photos made that they sold (or that Barnum sold for them) so there are lots of photos but this one is interesting because it’s so unique. ~ Jenny)
I would 100% watch a series of reenactments of murders based off of old photos, as long as the scripts were your versions of what was said
I used to live about 10 miles from Kent so this is a tad creepy to me. Good story though.
This is amazing, but also I can’t believe you didn’t make a bigger deal of the fact that Flora had a daughter and named her Cora Elnora.
The next time someone asks what it was like living in Connecticut, I’m just going to link them here and say it was Exactly like this.
So…. This is a fascinating read. If you pitch a book with murder families with pics and such, and your publisher loves the idea… Wouldn’t that make the pics deductable/a business expense? Because I think we might need more of this in our lives and I’m all for unlimited resources for your eBay picture hunts!!!
Love all your collections! When I take photos, I seem to always get a stranger in the shot. I always make up stories about who they are and why they were in the picture. Great that you have a photo book, would love to read it as a publication. Also, kuddos for keeping those people’s stories alive.
Haha-I’m with Julie! Flora and Cora Elnora!
I love finding/buying/rescuing old pictures! ESPECIALLY if they are of creepy victorian children. I am just waiting for one of them to haunt me. If I came across a story of murder I would be THRILLED!
Oh myyyyy…I have 3 old Daguerreotypes that came from a friend’s relative’s house but even knowing the family doesn’t always help identify people. No interest at all from the descendants. That’s what has come of the digital photo age. Everyone hoards digital photos, no one looks at them or tells their stories. Then Google cloud eats them. 🙁
I think everyone would love to read your captioned picture albums!
I was going through family photos with my mother a year or two ago and we came across a photo of her mother’s sister. My mother said, “Oh, you remember Aunt Billy. This was her when she was younger. Just before she moved to Philly and became a prostitute for the mob.”
Me: “Wait, what??! I’m…WHAT???!”
Mother: “Oh, did I never mention that?”
Me: “No. No you never mentioned that.”
Every purchase from Nowhere gets a free comic! 🙂
My genealogist/true crime fan heart is so warm right now.
My Dad died when I was a baby and my Mom was only 20. A few months after, my grandmother mistakenly gave their wedding album to Goodwill. A great uncle was in Goodwill and recognized the people in the album and my mom got the album back. This was about 58 years ago. Best family story ever.
“What a story…everything but the hounds nippin’ at her rear end!” Loved this and am SO GLAD I’m off FB or I’d be doing these auctions.
As for the comics – they make GREAT wrapping paper! Like maybe…wrapping up BOOKS. The best chocolate shop in Paris, A L’Etoile d’Or, packs you up a box of chocolates you’ve picked and the owner wraps it in French comics. So fun…we still have the comics! (But the chocolates are long gone…alas.)
LOLOLOLOL! I’m still laughing at your masterful storytelling while imagining One-Leg Sidney running through the woods with a jug of whiskey.
Facebook Live Auctions?! Why am I just now hearing of this?! To drink and judge people’s stuff is what dreams are made of. And to get just tipsy enough to bid your life savings on a 25 year-old stuffed hippo owned by a man who mysteriously disappeared after a solar eclipse.. I need more info on how to enter this magical world ASAP.
This post was a ride. and I’m HERE FOR IT.
Two things:
There is a guy who has started the Rescued Film Project whereby he buys or gets sent undeveloped film from old cameras, develops them and scans and posts them in an attempt to find the people in the photos.
Also:
My son found an old photo rolled up and stuck into a crack in a brick wall. Attached to it was a typed note explaining that this girl’s Uncle Stanley had died and she was left to clear out his apartment. She wondered what to do with 100’s of photographs he had taken of holidays etc. It left her with an existential desire to know what memories are when the one they meant something to are gone.
Anyhow, she distributed a whole bunch of them around Toronto, hidden in places with an attached note. #stanleyspictures
That story desperately needs to be in a podcast.
That was a f$&@ing good story!! And that guy was a giant dick I swear some people *insert eye roll
Oh goodie! A horror thriller movie or tv series in the making! Seriously, Netflix should do a series on old time family photos and the stories behind them. Our history is way more twisted than we know. I would so watch it! Especially with commentary like yours on the show about the discovery of the story behind the photos. Kind of like true crime podcasts meets Finding Your Roots on PBS, meets Drunk History on Comedy Central.
For the comic books, you could donate them to nursing homes, senior centers or after school programs or other places where seniors and underprivileged children need reading material. They would simply adore the gift of comic books from a sweeter, simpler time in comics.
I’m reading this while watching a true crime CSI show and hunting through estate sales on my area looking for good stuff. So I get it. Cool to find all that out; I’m always curious about the people in old photos.
Also, do you go to estate sales? They’re AWESOME. Estatesales.net is my go-to resource.
Jenny, you totally left out the part about his shooting the cat. You never even mentioned the cat. Though, honestly, if you had, I would have been hollering “What about the cat? Was the cat OK??” Because that’s what I do when murders are happening.
Thank you for sharing this with us! I love it all: old murder stories, old photos of olden times and of old, dead people.
This is totally awesome! Umm… not murder but how you came to have these photos and learn the story. The photos are beautiful and I’ve never seen anything like them. You find the coolest stuff and I love how you keep digging to learn more and bring their memories alive (so to speak).
I’m all for this and I want more! Your story telling is intriguing. As for the comics, you could make paper flowers out of the pages. I think it would be great decor for your bookstore!
I was in Kent yesterday! Nobody shot me and I still have both of my legs. (Although I got my booster shot before driving to Kent, it doesn’t really count.)
I recently signed up for your blog and am so glad. You write wonderfully and this is some excellent, weird true crime.
I once bought an old school autographs book. The kind you get all of your friends and favorite teachers to sign.
It’s belonged to Hattie E. ( and I can’t read the last name. such small writing) Maybe Townsend?!
She once lived/stayed Providence RI. and Harlem NY.
Several relatives signed her book and some school friends?! One also put “Our Class of ‘72.” The only school I’ve seen referenced is Brown University.
All of these are from the 1860s to early 1870s.
I once contacted Brown to ask if they kept records back to then and if they could check. But they said they had no records of Hattie E. Townsend.
I’ll try to post some photos on fb.
-E
The way you wrote this story, I was imagining an episode of Drunk History.
This sounds like an insane case that the Wine and Crime gals would cover. They’d love your paraphrasing.
This is an amazing story! I, too, love old photographs and can get lost for hours in finding their story. For example, for as long as I can remember there has been a picture of a soldier on my grandparent’s wall. I found out that no one in my family knows who he is – not even my grandparents. I have spent days, weeks, months looking for information on him. I vow to someday to know his name.
Jenny! This has GOT to be a podcast!!!!
You should draw covers for some of the comics. I adore you so much. I am listing you as a humor resource at a grant writing webinar I’m speaking at. You help me make it through. Thank you for being a strangely amazing human being.
Flora looks like a female David Duchovny.
Girl!! I am ALWAYS here for the murder!!!!!!
OMG, you need to write ALL the stories of old-timey murders. (The Taliesin mass murder, anyone?) Complete with made-up dialogue.
Oh, Majorbedhead, your story reminds me of the one I heard all my life. Some relative of my mom’s went to the movies by herself and was “kidnapped into white slavery.” I don’t know if she was ever seen again by her family. I never even heard a name for her.
Your vintage photo book with Victor remindes me of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, if you haven’t read it yet you should!
I need to see this acted out “Drunk History” style.
holy Cowgirls
Best paraphrased storytelling since that guy in antman.
Love the paraphrasing so much! I found a bunch of skeleton keys while cleaning out my MIL’s house & thought someone might want them. Let me know where to send them if you do. Have a good weekend!
everyone in book club gets a faceless comic! or make some dresses 🙂
I loved this story with my whole weird little heart. So happy right now
Oh my God that is just too fabulous for words!!!!!!! 😍
Why are you not working with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark on an episode of “My Favorite Murder”? Your version of this story is wonderful!
@2 Punk Dogs, I’d LOVE any old skeleton keys!!! Lmk how to get in touch with you so I can get you the shipping costs!
My favorite part? Third to last paragraph… “But then it gets weird.” I was already rapt in the weirdness by that point!!
A number of years ago my husband gave a box of old comics to a friend of ours. He and his son had a great time going through them together and then the ones they didn’t want to keep were handed out at Halloween. He told us that he received compliments and appreciation from the neighbors for some time because the fathers all sat down and read the comics with their kids, shared their childhood experiences about comics and a few even started buying and reading new comics together. It was a bonding experience for many. Also, everyone agreed it was a nice candy alternative.
I am wondering if you have read “The Seasons of Grace” by Dave O. Dodge. It is about Grace Metalious (author of Peyton Place.) It is fiction but based on fact.
There is a true murder story in it….and you know a little about it if you read Peyton Place.
Sarah Belle Benedict married a Bigelow? I wonder if anyone in the Bigelow Tea Company would be interested. It’s Connecticut company founded long after your tintypes were made. (Best cup of Earl Grey tea this side of Captain Picard’s Enterprise.)
The reply you inserted into an earlier comment … what a title this would make:
“We all keep the stories only for a moment.”
Always had a weird family story involving a murder of a cheating wife and brother-in-law. Brushed it off. Then you get talked into 23 and me testing by a cousin on the OTHER side of the family and damn it, that family story comes easing out through the plaster cracks that no amount of comic book wallpaper can hold back. Be careful out there, kiddos. That’s all I need to say.
Please publish your B&W book pdf photos with captions!
German Benedict looks so much like Paolo Garbanzo the RenFaire performer!
Every story tells a picture. Wait.
Lifetime movie screenwriters ain’t got nothing on you!
As for the comics, I saw something on Pinterest years ago where somebody used comic clippings to sort of papier-mâché a pair of shoes. But you’d have to make a lot of decorated shoes to get through those comics, I guess. Maybe you can find some tutorials for making fancy paper flowers out of them?
I would love a blog that’s just you “paraphrasing” old crime stories
Sending yet another “Best Paraphrasing” award! Find-a-Grave is my favorite resource for my work on ancestry.com. A few years ago, a total stranger who collects old photos from thrift shops & the like sent me a photo of my great-great aunt, from her youth. She was married to a brother of my maternal great-grandfather, who had a photography studio in Watertown, SD. I’d met her briefly when I was quite young, and was delighted to see that in the 1930 census, her occupation was listed as “Photographer.” In the photo, taken in about 1905, though she’s wearing high-necked Edwardian attire, her posture in the ornate chair where she’s seated must be described as “saucy”. She is relaxed and confident, not typical of so many women of her time. I’m SUCH a fan of yours, and hope you’ll continue to write historic reconstructions. ♥
However much you paid was worth it. That story is gold.
Wow! This makes my life boring. But in a good way.
What a fun post to read. First, there’s comic books, and all the same and a plea for what to do with them. I thought the post was finished, but contined to read about old tintypes and a murder! Made my day!
Anyway, you can do a lot with the comics. A simple Google or Pinterest inquiry brings a ton of ideas. Basically, use the pages as decopage and cover whatever you like. Cover earrings, bracelets, planters, shoes, walls, etc. Imagine covering the bathroom wall with it! I saw one idea of making a “puppet show” for the kids to play with tthat could work in the sotre. Another I really liked was turn the pages into garlands, that could be strung over the childrens section of the store. Think of it as “patterned paper” and use it however you want. Oh, I forgot, origami could be interesting in comic pages, lol.
I do want to see what you do with them!
This is amazing!! If your blog turned into an old photos and ancestry murder storytelling page I am in!!
How did I not know Facebook Live Auctions were a thing? I am so checking those out!
There’s a Facebook group dedicated to reuniting old photos with descendants. “From Shrubs to Trees – A ‘Pay It Forward’ Genealogy Group” tries to find a descendant when there’s a name on an old photo. It’s companion Facebook group, “The Nameless Bunch” is for posting old photos of unknown people.
Cheer up! You didn’t just buy cover less comic books… you bought security from COVID toilet paper!
Love this post and the comments are so entertaining. My family is huge and has a few weird stories…my great-gf had 7 wives and 63 children, my grandma being the 63rd. One uncle had 3 sets of teeth, another all molars. Everyone in the county was related and things like that happen when you marry your cousin.
Just purchased Broken. Love it! Oh, and todays post, priceless 🙂
How did you never do an episode of Drunk History? You would have SO rocked it.
Too bad they tore the house down. I’d like to hear the loose cattle ghost sounds.
Amazing! share more stories from your photos!
There is a “Connecticut State Prison, 1930 Index of Prisoners” online that has Sidney Ward listed (born 1888). Meaning he would have been 33 or 34 years old at the time of the murder and survived at least 8 years in prison. The data were taken from the 1930 census.
The Connecticut State Archives Archival Record Group Wethersfield Prison Records only go up to 1903.
(That might be him! But he looks like he’s in his 60s in the picture. Maybe those were city miles. ~ Jenny)
The term “medically gross” had me rolling on the floor. Thank you, Jenny, for that magic you do! Also, I think Sarah especially, but likely also Flora and Cora, could use the head full of rollers treatment.
This is awesome! I went to prep school in Kent, (The Kent School) and lived on top of the mountain when that is where the Girls’ Campus was. Creepy stuff!!
I have a suggestion for the comics. They are a great collage item to add to paintings (or other art I guess). I use old sewing patterns and book pages sometimes. The pictures and the writing show through in portions of the art and add texture.
That is the Best. Story. Ever. I mean, really, great job, very well done! Cracked me up, horrified me and made me glad that was NOT my life= WOW!
Amazing. I would probably read more murder stories if all authors wrote like you.
It was reported on October 12th 1922 that Ward was taken to the prison by Sheriff Turkington. Though more prominence was given to the story of Mrs C. Bonfiel who had grown a crookneck squash that exactly resembled a duck.
Norwich Bulletin (Volume LXVI) October 12 1922 Page 5
So, Sidney Ward did arrive at the Wethersfield State Prison, as that was where he had his leg removed.
Ward’s left leg was amputated below the knee as blood poisoning had set in. The surgeon was Dr. Donald Welles and it was done at the state prison hospital.
Connecticut Western News (Volume LII) November 23 1922 Front Page
The Chronicling America website is a great resource for historical investigations.
I am not sure why this comment never appeared when I posted it before the other one.
How do I love thee; let me count the ways….
I’ve been super busy for a few weeks, building my social and work life back after caring for my parents for three years. Mom died in August 20, 21 and dad died January 22, 22 and I am SUPER sad. And I am SUPER sad. I have to work today, I didn’t plan on it, but gotta get in the hours. So my mood today wasn’t great. Until I found this. And now I am happy because I love a good paraphrased murder story with a lot of motherfuckers thrown in. Thanks for making me smile.
“Zer” is my daughter, or even “Xer” is my daughter … NOT “They’re” my daughter. The former pronouns were already invented for the non-binary community as far back as the 1970s and the 1980s, and the community should stick with it instead of creating all this confusion and angst in appropriating “they” as the new pronoun, especially as it also belongs to cis-gender people too. I respectfully and rightfully decline to entertain “they” as your pronoun… and this pushback does not make me phobic.
I love Heather’s idea of Jenny writing a comic book — this photo-story or _Let’s Pretend This Never Happened_ or something completely new. Or all of the above.