How the Widow Married the Driver of Her Late Husband’s Hearse: 1893

QUINN TELLS A PRETTY ROMANCE.

How Widow Doyle Married the Man Who Drove Her to Her late Husband’s Funeral.

IN WEEDS ONLY A FEW WEEKS.

Says Flannigan Was a Theological Student in Dublin, but He Ran Away From Home.

BECAME A HOSTLER HERE.

If He Hadn’t Followed the Wrong Hearse, Quinn Says He Wouldn’t Have Won a Bride.

Quinn says that if Flannigan had not become confused on the Sunday he drove the Widow Doyle to her first husband’s funeral and followed the wrong hearse to Calvary from the Brooklyn side of the river he would still be slaving in the North Moore street livery stable instead of doing the World’s Fair in a style befitting a gentleman of means. And Quinn is a man whom all Flatbush says you may believe.

Quinn attributes Flannigan’s present position to a series of accidents of which the one mentioned above is the culmination. In the first place, Quinn says, Flannigan’s father selected a profession for his son which was distasteful to the latter, causing him to strike out for himself. Coming to America he was compelled to go to work in a livery stable. Then he was ordered to drive the hack hired by the Widow Doyle, and for losing sight of the hearse, which he expected to follow, he was discharged. In desperation he appealed to the widow to intercede with his employer in his behalf, which she did. And finally he wooed her himself and won her. The time that elapsed between the funeral and the marriage, Quinn declares, was less than six weeks.

NOW FOR THE DETAILS.

This is a brief outline of the remarkable tale Quinn tells. To go into the details, which he also furnishes, carries you to Ireland. It was there that Flannigan was born twenty-six years ago. He was named William Frederick. His father, a wealthy Dublin merchant, wanted him to enter the ministry and, looking toward that end, sent him to college.

Flannigan studied theology for a while and then revolted. His father, however, wouldn’t listen to a change of plans. He insisted that the young man should become a minister. So Flannigan concluded to come to America.

He arrived her last April with very little money but lots of grit. He tried to get a place as a bookkeeper or a clerk, but was unable to find any vacancies. In desperation he applied for a job as hostler in a North Moore street livery stable, which he got.
This particular livery stable where Flannigan worked makes a specialty of furnishing carriages for funerals on Sundays. Ordinarily the proprietor has enough coachmen for all occasions. On the Sunday in question, however, he was short a man, and so he pressed Flannigan into the service.

It so happened that the funeral Flannigan’s coach was assigned to attend was that of William Doyle, and the occupants of the coach were the Widow Doyle herself and a relative. This in itself wouldn’t have significant if Flannigan hadn’t got confused and followed the wrong hearse to Calvary from the Brooklyn side of the river, as mentioned in the opening paragraph.

FLANNIGAN GETS CONFUSED.

The funeral of William Doyle was a big one. There were more carriages in line than the eastside had seen for many a day. This is easily understood when it is known that the deceased was worth at least $25,000.

The procession moved from Henry street to the East River ferry at the foot of Grand street. Driver Flannigan’s position in the line should have been immediately behind the black plumed hearse drawn by two black horses in heavy mourning trappings. Driver Flannigan was green on the box of a coach, however, and instead of getting near the front of the procession he got crowded near the rear.

When the ferry was reached there were so many carriages in line that they could not all get on the same boat. One of those which had to wait for the second trip was the coach containing the Widow Doyle driven by Flannigan. But the curtains were drawn and the widow didn’t know it.

Upon reaching the Brooklyn side of the river Driver Flannigan saw a hearse waiting at the head of a line of carriages. It was a black plumed hearse, too, drawn by two black horse in heavy mourning trappings, and it was only natural that Driver Flannigan should have pulled his coach into the line.

It looked also as if they had been waiting for him because the procession got under way immediately after he joined it.

A SURPRISE FOR THE MOURNERS.

In due time the grave in Calvary was reached and the many mourners alighted. Widow Doyle was among them. They gathered around the open grave, and then apparently for the first time the widow made observations through her heavy widow’s weeds. The result was startling. The faces of the mourners were strange to her.

“Theses are not my relatives,” she shrieked. “This is not the casket which contains the remains of my beloved husband.”

Quinn, of Flatbush, suggests that you can imagine the sensation this announcement caused.

Driver Flannigan lost control of most of his senses on the spot. The more Widow Doyle hysterically assailed him the more demoralized he became. She demanded that he drive for his life and find the grave where her husband was to be buried, and he lost no time in getting away.

Flannigan found the grave in a remote corner of the cemetery just as the undertaker was preparing to lower the casket. He had waited as long as he could for the missing widow and had concluded to go on with the funeral, as it was nearly time to close the cemetery gates.

The casket was over the open grave when the gathered mourners were suddenly enveloped in a shower of dust. When it cleared away Widow Doyle was among them. She threw a handful of earth on the lowered casket and then explained the trouble.

DRIVER FLANNIGAN DISCHARGED.

Widow Doyle called at the livery stable on the following day, and as a result of her visit Flannigan was discharged.

At this point it should be stated, on the authority of Quinn, of Flatbush, Flannigan got his first opportunity to utilize his collegiate education.

Having noted that Widow Doyle was young and handsome, and being young and handsome himself, he decided to ask her to intercede in his behalf. With this idea in view Flannigan called upon the widow. His eloquent language, Quinn says, impressed her and she granted his request. As a result he got his old job back.

The action of the story quickens here. The acquaintance between the Widow Doyle and Flannigan ripened, and on July 28 they were married. The funeral occurred on June 23.

Upon the death of Doyle his widow came in possession of something like $25,000, Quinn says. So it isn’t strange that Flannigan gave up his job as hostler when Widow Doyle became his wife. They went to live in a cosy little flat in Second avenue, and Flannigan then secured a place in a mercantile house easily enough.

They have since broken up housekeeping, stored their furniture and gone to the World’s Fair. At least that is what Quinn, of Flatbush, says.

If you want Quinn to tell the story in his own inimitable way you will find him at No. 194A Ninth street, South Brooklyn.

New York [NY] Herald 21 August 1893: p. 5

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  Well, really. Where was the undertaker in charge of the Doyle funeral, Mrs Daffodil would like to know? He should have been there directing the order of the funeral carriages and making everything run as smoothly as a casket on casters. Flannigan, in losing his job, was more to be pitied than censured. Still, since one so rarely finds such a happy ending in the wake of a death and the loss of a position, Mrs Daffodil will have to stretch a point and suggest that the negligence of the undertaker was a blessing in disguise.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

The Society of American Widows: 1916

NATION’S WIDOWS ORGANIZING TO CARE FOR THEMSELVES!

Omaha, Neb., March 30. The widows of the nation are organizing!

Led by Mrs. Bessie C. Turpin of Omaha, widows have founded a union to prepare for the avalanche of widows that will sweep down upon this country at the end of the European war and to better the lot of all widows in this man-made world.

“All classes in the world except widows are organized,” says Mrs. Turpin, “and there are no persons more in need of the help that comes through co-operation.

“Most widows are mothers, and when these women are suddenly thrown upon the world to support themselves and children they find almost insurmountable obstacles. We are organizing to help them solve these problems.

The Society of American Widows is no joke. It has a real program, and Mrs. Turpin has taken up the work so seriously she has lost her job as bookkeeper at the Booth fisheries.

But she has not allowed a little thing like that to block her campaign to organize the millions of widows throughout the country.

Here are some of the things the widows’ society plans to do:

Obtain from merchants a 10 per cent discount on all purchases.

Establish a sewing department, employment bureau, reading, rest and lunch rooms and a day nursery in the business districts in all large cities.

Build profit-sharing apartment houses, including gymnasium, music and assembly rooms, to be occupied by widows and their families at low rentals.

Publish a monthly magazine to deal with the widows’ problems and arouse interest in the movement in every city.

Mrs. Turpin has been able to go on with the work of organizing widows by the generosity of wealthy persons. She has been presented a checking account equivalent to two months of the salary she received keeping books for the fish company.

Any widow in any town or city who wants to start a local branch of the widows’ organization can have full information by writing Mrs. Turpin at 2415 Dewey Ave., Omaha, Neb.

“There are more than 2,000 widows in this city alone, and most of them are mothers,” says Mrs. Turpin. “It is therefore safe to say millions of children in America will also be helped by our society.

“We will try to win co-operation of business men. Already the outlook in Nebraska and Iowa is bright.

“I have found that widows number among the lowest percentage of persons receiving aid. We will not offer charity to widows. If we find one destitute we will help her on her promise to pay when she can.

“We aim to place all widows in an independent position so they may face the world without fear for the future, and, if necessary, take care of their children as well, as if there were a good husband at their side to fight their battles for them.”

The Day Book [Chicago, IL] 31 March 1916: p. 15

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: Mrs Daffodil has not been able to find that the American widows’ union ever gained much of a foothold, even though the intrepid Mrs Turpin was sadly correct about the avalanche of widows at the end of the Great War. Yet perhaps there was a different outlook in the States, for in 1919, English widows were said to be in high demand.

WIDOWS FAVORED

Single Girls Abandoned in England for Women Who Have Plenty of Experience

London, Friday, Aug. 15. Traditionally attractive, the widow is becoming even more popular with “marriageable” men in Britain.

“Why did I marry a widow? Well, just imagine you were buying a horse; you’d buy one that had been broken in. In any case you’d have more sense that to put a fresh young thing straight into harness and expect it to carry you and your dog cart into town without a mishap,” quoth one sturdy swain who possessed the heavenly gift of logic and had reached the stage of fat-and-forty, when Comfort so often cuts out Cupid.

“The same with a woman. Take my advice, marry a widow; you’ll find she is well trained for domestic life. The worst is over. She has no illusions about men.”
This growing popularity of the widow is creating quite a stir among “bachelor girls.” They prefer the name to that of spinsters. Their protest is to the effect that widows have had their share and they ought to stand aside and let others have a chance. [See a previous post on this subject.] But widows are in great demand….

The widow holds strange power. Many girls say if they wore widow’s weeds and a ring they would have proposals in no time.

“More widders is married than single wimmen,” said the immortal Sam Weller. He’s right—in England. Seattle [WA] Daily Times 15 August 1919: p. 14

Several chapters about widows, along with a myriad of other items on the oddities of Victorian mourning will be found in The Victorian Book of the Dead, by Chris Woodyard, which is now available as a paperback and in a Kindle edition. The book is a look at the popular manifestations and ephemera of Victorian death culture. In addition to mourning novelties, burial alive, strange funerals, ghost stories, bizarre deaths and petrified corpses may be taken as read.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead and on Twitter @hauntedohiobook. And visit her newest blog The Victorian Book of the Dead. 

Father Left a Picture on the Pane: 1890

This story appears in The Ghost Wore Black: Ghastly Tales from the Past.

In trying to choose a post for Father’s Day weekend, I ran up against the statistical horror that is the father in the 19th-century press. Unnatural fathers, murderous fathers, insane fathers, fathers who forbid engagements, then murder their daughters’ sweethearts, fathers who threaten to behead their children–then carry out that threat.  I wanted to counterbalance my cheery Mother’s Day post on “Maternal Influence and Monsters” with something less grewsome, yet still Fortean. But somehow I just didn’t have the heart to use the lurid, but true “Hatchetman” story I’d originally selected. If, after reading today’s offering, you decide you would prefer a tale from my bulging file on Victorian family destroyers, just slip a note into the pneumatic tube to chriswoodyard8 AT gmail. com.

I have previously reported on the mysterious faces that appeared on glass window panes beginning about 1871.  The phenomenon was a pervasive theme through the 1910s, although there are a few reports from the early 1920s and not long ago, the Virgin Mary appeared on the glass windows of a health center in Florida. How much of this is self-deception; how much simple human brain pattern matching? I am not qualified to say and at this historical remove, I doubt anyone could sort out the riddle of these images. I will say that, in many cases, they appear to have some element of PK: a severe stress–a death, a murder, a shock–somehow creates an image of a known person, recognized instantly by the immediate family and sometimes, without prompting, by others. This particular story also contains an “omen of death” element. One oddity I note in this image is that it is described (somewhat ambiguously) as being able to be seen by someone inside the room with the window. Every other example of this sort of image I’ve seen can only be seen from the outside. Another enigma….

LEFT A PICTURE ON THE PANE

A Strange Memento of the Death of Husband and Children

Pittsburg, Pa., August 16, 1890. A mystery surrounds the home of the late James Dougherty, at Swissvale. Within four weeks the father and three children have died. The mother refuses to remain any longer in the little home.

Midway between Swissvale and Hawkins stations on the line of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and on a street which leads toward the railroad tracks back of the public school building, stands a little one story frame house. Surrounding this little home is a garden of probably half an acre.

This, until a few days ago, had been the home of the Doughertys—the father, mother, and three children. It was always the father’s delight returning from a hard day’s labor at the Carrie Furnace, where he was employed, to meet his little ones down near the river bank. Taking the short cut through the fields and over hills he would take the children one at a time, place them on his back and carry them to his little cottage.

He had always been a most devoted husband and kind father.

July 5, the second child was taken ill with a fever. It lingered for a few days then died. In just one week from the death of the first child another one, a little boy, was stricken down with the same malady and died within a few days. Hardly a week had passed after the death of the second child when the last and youngest child and the father’s favorite, was stricken with pneumonia and in a few days passed away.

THE FATHER GOES TOO

The death of the three children occurring in as many weeks was a severe blow to the parents.

Last Monday morning the husband departed for his work at the Carrie furnace early in the morning. As he left his wife he bade her the usual goodbye. With the parting salute, “Bear up, dear,” he vanished over the hills on his way to work. This was the last seen of him alive by his wife. That afternoon while engaged at work on a high trestle in one of the departments at the furnace he missed his footing and fell backward to a pile of iron below. He was killed instantly.

Just before the sad news was brought to the unfortunate woman she happened to be near the window in the front of the house.

She was horrified to see imprinted on an ordinary pane of glass in the window before her a picture of her husband as lifelike as if he stood before her himself. On his back was the favorite little girl and in his hand his dinner pail, just as had been his custom in days when all was bright.

The woman was frightened by the sight, and was in the act of notifying her neighbors when a messenger stopped her on the threshold and announced to her the death of her husband.

AFRAID TO STAY IN THE HOUSE.

The news completely prostrated her. The husband was buried yesterday, and Mrs. Dougherty left the house before night, saying she was afraid to remain there. She is now with friends.

Crowds of people have visited the house. The crape still flutters from the door, and one spectator after another files up to the window to see the sight. Every one expressed himself to the effect that it is a wonderful likeness of Dougherty and his favorite child. The picture has the appearance of being ground in the glass. It is near the centre of the pane. It is in such a position that it would really be seen by a woman sitting inside the room and watching the path over which her husband would return home.

New York Herald 17 August 1890: p. 11

Other faces in the window stories? chriswoodyard8 AT gmail.com

You can listen to this story on my new Ghost and Grave YouTube channel, @ghostandgrave

Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead. And visit her newest blog, The Victorian Book of the Dead.

Haunted by a Death-bed Promise

Kosicky cintorin, Cemetery in Kosice, Frantisek Klimkovic, 1849
https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/beta/asset/kosicky-cintorin-cementery-in-kosice/yAEb96eieM0q9g

Death-bed promises should be broken as lightly as they are seriously made. The dead have no right to lay their clammy fingers upon the living.

-Edna Ferber-

In researching my various books from the Ghosts of the Past series, I’ve run across a minor theme of “death-bed promise” hauntings. Husbands or wives, from the hopelessly moral elevation of their death-beds, would ask their spouse to promise to never marry again. Some of this was undoubtedly anxiety about how a stepmother—proverbially wicked—would treat the children. I’ve written about a step-mother’s sinister haunting here. Some of these requests, however, seem to have sprung from sheer jealousy and control issues, like those of Simon Fisher, who haunted his family after his wife broke her coerced promise not to marry her “affinity.”

The stakes were high. Family, friends, and society might censure those who broke their promises. Weddings were called off under duress from the dead. This widower foolishly seems to have thought his late wife would not notice or haunt him if his bride kept her maiden name.

Kept Wedding Secret, Wife Asks Divorce.

William J. Latchford made a death bed promise to his first wife that he would never remarry, and so he made his second wife, Mrs. Mitzie Latchford, 709 Fifth avenue, keep their wedding a secret, she testified before Superior Judge Mogan yesterday in seeking a divorce. They were married in Santa Ana August 5, 1926, and separated in Los Angeles on November 6, 1926, as a result of his painful cautiousness, she declared. He insisted on her using her maiden name of Weiss, she said, and made her remove her wedding ring when they went out in public. Her mother, Mrs. Jeannette Weiss, acted as her corroborating witness. San Francisco [CA] Chronicle 15 April 1927: p. 3

But, as the following two stories make clear, the dead had an uncomfortable way of reminding the living of their promises.

Death bed promises, it seems, even in Ohio, [!!!]  cannot be broken with impunity. Owen Clark, of Cleveland, promised his young wife that he would never again pull in double harness. After meeting a handsome widow named Mrs. Murphy, he repented of his rash promise. The nuptial day was set, and Owen saw a ghost, for on that morning he made his will, then he called on an undertaker, and approved a bill for a respectable funeral for one. These cheerful preliminaries arranged, the bridal couple drove to the church and before the last words of the service could be pronounced he fell dead. Mrs. Murphy gets $40,000, but is still a widow. The Democrat [Wichita KS] 29 August 1891: p. 1

There is a temperance subtext in this next tragic story, which may be relevant or may be merely the paper’s editorial position. A change in the widower’s personality is noted, but was it the drink or guilt over his “infidelity”?  Or was it the dead wife standing at the foot of the bed?

GHOST OF FIRST WIFE DROVE HIM TO KILL HIMSELF

George Vedder Had Broken Oath of Loyalty made at Her Deathbed.

TOOK ANOTHER BRIDE

It Was Only a Short Distance From Saloon to Reservoir After Haunting Began.

A shadowy figure from the other world, standing silently beside the bed of George Vedder and constantly reminding him of solemn oath that he would be faithful to his love, sent the man to the bottom of Fort Field Reservoir, a suicide. The story came to-day to the surface as Yonkers folk talked of the strange things that had happened In the Vedder home.

The stories followed the funeral of the man, which took place yesterday. The Vedder home is at No. 410 Walnut street, In the midst of a colony transplanted from the Continent. It has its mysticism, its superstition, its picturesque customs, and all of the stage setting for the weird narrative that is here to follow.

Ten years ago there came from Russia in the steerage of a big liner a young fellow who had determined to make his way in the world. In the same ship came a young girl, fair to see, and of strong character. A voyage friendship grew between the two. The man was Vedder; the woman, or more properly, the young girl, was Mary Ivanko.

Becomes George Vedder’s Wife.

As they had together left the same region, Fate ordained that they should be neighbors in the New World, Both were employed at the Smith Carpet Works at Yonkers. Both saved money and prospered. The friendship ripened. The young woman left the works and went to preside as the wife and mistress of Vedder’s home.

Three little ones were born to the Vedder home. Joe, now seven, Mary, five, and George, three years of age, completed the little nest when early last fall the young wife fell ill. It was during her illness that she became obsessed with the idea that George would marry again, and that another would come to take her place in the home. She asked Vedder to swear upon a sacred ikon that he would not marry again in case of her death and he readily consented. October came and the young wife died.

Wife In Name Only.

Also he watched petite Mary Gopopski, just past twenty, scarcely more than four feet tall and with a face that looked like the pictures of the Madonna.  He remembered that she had been kind to him. It occurred to him that she might be kind to the children. He evolved a scheme for a proposal unique in its nature.

She was to marry him, yes; but she was to take the place of a wife only in relation to the care of his dead wife’s children. His own heart was in the grave. Would she care for the children and give up her place in the mill?

She would.

Then there came changed times for the Vedder home. The man was a different person from what his neighbors and friends had known. He found his way sometimes to Joe’s saloon. There had been a premonition of the change three days before the wedding when the man came into neighbor Wlasty’s home, his hair standing, his face pale and his limbs trembling.

“Down there,” he had cried then, “I can’t stand to look in her eyes.”

The neighbors thought him drunk and let the outburst pass without comment.

But the man passed the whole night on the floor in a nearby apartment and dared not return to his own room. The wedding passed. The new wife saw her husband fall in a fit from his bed. She heard him scream, “She is standing there at the foot of the bed; she is standing there! She won’t say anything, but she is looking at me!”

Then, in the dead of the night, the sacred Ikon dropped from its niche and was shattered.

The man was horrified. He wandered over to Joe’s saloon and took a drink. The saloon man, noting his stare, asked questions.

“Mary’s come back,” said the man.

But his lips were sealed beyond that expression. No effort would get him to explain to the outside world what he meant by that statement. Only the Wlasty family knew all of the story. There came night after night the ghostly visitation. The white-robed figure would appear to the man, take its place at the foot of the nuptial couch and gaze at him.

Saturday morning the man was sad and depressed. He went to the bank and drew $300. He brought the money to his wife, who, thoroughly confused by the strange turn of events, did not question him. Then he left the house. Late in the afternoon when he had not returned friends went in search of the husband. They found no trace of him.

As they returned to report the failure of their search they met men bearing the body of a suicide from Fort Field Reservoir. The body was that of Vedder.

He had done his penance for the broken oath, for the vow of eternal love that was not kept.

The Evening World [New York NY] 28 February 1911: p. 1

It’s all very romantic to force such an oath, but surely the dying wife must have worried about how Vedder could take care of the children and work at the same time. Mrs. Vedder did not seem to have been as concerned about inflicting an unsympathetic stepmother on the little ones as she was about enforcing sexual fidelity.

There is something more than a little disingenuous about the notion of the widower trying to fool his dead wife (and, perhaps, his neighbors) with a marriage “in name only” and “only in relation to the care of the children.” How gullible does Vedder think his late wife was, that she would fall for a claim of a mariage blanc?  If this truly was a marriage in “name only,” how was it that the second Mrs. Vedder was present when her husband fell out of the nuptial couch in a fit? No wonder he was racked with guilt.

“Mary’s come back.”  Simple. Laconic.

A death sentence.

 

Other examples of death-bed promises about remarriage haunting a bereaved spouse?  I wonder if these stories could be associated with changeling wife tales, so fraught with ambiguity  for the widower, where the wife’s ghost announces that she is not really dead, but has been taken by the fairies? chriswoodyard8 AT gmail.com

 

Chris Woodyard is the author of The Victorian Book of the Dead, The Ghost Wore Black, The Headless Horror, The Face in the Window, and the 7-volume Haunted Ohio series. She is also the chronicler of the adventures of that amiable murderess Mrs Daffodil in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales. The books are available in paperback and for Kindle. Indexes and fact sheets for all of these books may be found by searching hauntedohiobooks.com. Join her on FB at Haunted Ohio by Chris Woodyard or The Victorian Book of the Dead. And visit her new blog at The Victorian Book of the Dead.