Today in History

[Hurricane Jack]

The utter brutality of Dr. Samuel's interrogation aside, the tale is difficult to credit, for we must remember that Dr. Samuel successfully resumed practice when he moved the family North in the '70s. He did indeed die in an institution at the age of 80. He had suffered a stroke of apoplexy a couple years earlier, which made it impossible for his wife Zerelda James Samuel to care for him at home. Dr. Samuel did always claim that the horrible hanging incident permanently damaged his voice. Remember, too, that Dr. Samuel successfully performed the emergency amputation of Zerelda James Ssmuel's right hand which had been grievously injured by the bomb thrown into the family home by the Pinkertons in '75.

Not sure what you mean by Dr. Samuel moving the family north. Robert & Zerelda James bought the farm & Frank was born there in 1843. After the death of Robert & thru Zerelda's subsequent marriages, she continued to live there until her death in 1911. Frank was living there when he died in 1915.

The kerosene bomb that killed Archie Samuel, Dr. Samuel's son with Zerelda, mangled her right arm that it had to be amputated above or about the elbow. It is still true that Dr. Samuel suffered & worked very little after that day Union soldiers came to the farm in 1862. By today's standards he would certainly have been declared incapable & incompetent & a medical license would have been revoked.

I guess I'm not sure what point it is you are making.

 

[vitanola]

Not sure what you mean by Dr. Samuel moving the family north. Robert & Zerelda James bought the farm & Frank was born there in 1843. After the death of Robert & thru Zerelda's subsequent marriages, she continued to live there until her death in 1911. Frank was living there when he died in 1915.

The kerosene bomb that killed Archie Samuel, Dr. Samuel's son with Zerelda, mangled her right arm that it had to be amputated above or about the elbow. It is still true that Dr. Samuel suffered & worked very little after that day Union soldiers came to the farm in 1862. By today's standards he would certainly have been declared incapable & incompetent & a medical license would have been revoked.

I guess I'm not sure what point it is you are making.

By "moved north" I was referring to the family's move to Rulo, Nebraska, where Dr. Samuels reported considerable success in his practice.

Your narrative strongly suggested that Dr. Samuels was left utterly incompetent by that savage attack, and spent the last forty-four years of his life in an asylum. The reality as I understand it was somewhat more nuanced, though nonetheless horriffic, particularly in light of the subsequent experiences of that unfortunate family.

Outrages such as the interrogation of Dr. Samuels are the reason why torture was absolutely outlawed for more than a century under our code of Military justice. Remember that when our boys in the Philippines substituted "The Water Cure" for the then prohibited mock hanging THAT torture technique was also outlawed, and that for 96 years, in some cases, the administration of said "water cure" by military or intellegence officers could constitute a capital offense.

 

[Hurricane Jack]

By "moved north" I was referring to the family's move to Rulo, Nebraska, where Dr. Samuels reported considerable success in his practice.

Your narrative strongly suggested that Dr. Samuels was left utterly incompetent by that savage attack, and spent the last forty-four years of his life in an asylum. The reality as I understand it was somewhat more nuanced, though nonetheless horriffic, particularly in light of the subsequent experiences of that unfortunate family.

Outrages such as the interrogation of Dr. Samuels are the reason why torture was absolutely outlawed for more than a century under our code of Military justice. Remember that when our boys in the Philippines substituted "The Water Cure" for the then prohibited mock hanging THAT torture technique was also outlawed, and that for 96 years, in some cases, the administration of said "water cure" by military or intellegence officers could constitute a capital offense.

Rulo, NE was where Zerelda's sister lived & where Jesse was taken to heal & recover after being shot in the lung while trying to surrender at Lexington, MO as was required at the end of the war. Jesse would suffer from that chest wound the rest of his life. The Samuel family never lived in Rulo. When Jesse was sufficiently healed to be moved he was brought downriver by boat to the home of his mother's brother near Kansas City, where he would fall in love & later marry his first cousin.

In my original post I said that Dr. Samuel suffered permanent damage from the hanging due to lack of oxygen to his brain, & that he died in the mental hospital. It is certainly true that he also suffered from a damaged larynx. I never said or implied that he lived in one for 44 yrs.

 

[Hurricane Jack]

Thinking about it more the Samuel family did stay with Zerelda's sister & family in Rulo during the time Union Gen Thomas Ewing's Order #11 was in effect in 1863, forcing the complete evacuation of 4 Missouri counties.

 

[vitanola]

Rulo, NE was where Zerelda's sister lived & where Jesse was taken to heal & recover after being shot in the lung while trying to surrender at Lexington, MO as was required at the end of the war. Jesse would suffer from that chest wound the rest of his life. The Samuel family never lived in Rulo. When Jesse was sufficiently healed to be moved he was brought downriver by boat to the home of his mother's brother near Kansas City, where he would fall in love & later marry his first cousin.

In my original post I said that Dr. Samuel suffered permanent damage from the hanging due to lack of oxygen to his brain, & that he died in the mental hospital. It is certainly true that he also suffered from a damaged larynx. I never said or implied that he lived in one for 44 yrs.

Well, you wrote: " Due to lack of oxygen Dr. Samuel suffered brain damage the rest of his life & died in a mental hospital." Casual reading of the sentence would suggest something very different from the reality, which of course was the Doctor's institutionalization due to senile dementia of vascular origin after a stroke of apoplexy at the age of 77.

 

[vitanola]

Thinking about it more the Samuel family did stay with Zerelda's sister & family in Rulo during the time Union Gen Thomas Ewing's Order #11 was in effect in 1863, forcing the complete evacuation of 4 Missouri counties.

Remember, too, that Zerelda James was, understandably, an unreliable narrator, giving at different times wildly different narratives which of course were colored by her understandable hatred for the Union supporters who had persecuted her family and caused her so much woe.

 

[Hurricane Jack]

One of my ancestors was hung until dead from a beam in his own barn because it was thought he was hiding someone. That's no unrealible narrative.

 

[vitanola]

J&

One of my ancestors was hung until dead from a beam in his own barn because it was thought he was hiding someone. That's no unrealible narrative.

I was not referring to the basic narrative, but the elaboration, particularly the 1909 interview where she suggested that her husband had spent many years in the asylum after that shameful interrogation. I am in no way an apologist for the brutal interrogators, or for the Pinkertons, both of whom ignored both the law and simple decency in their persecution of this unfortunate family.

 

[1mach1]

Martin Luther King was assinated today in 1968, in Memphis.

 

[Hurricane Jack]

On this day in the yr 1320 the Scottish declared their freedom with the Declaration of Arbroath. Drinks on me later!

 

[AbbaDatDeHat]

On this day in the yr 1320 the Scottish declared their freedom with the Declaration of Arbroath. Drinks on me later!

Was this William Wallace time or am i way off?
Have a Glenfiddich (or 3) for me. Ha
Be well. Bowen

 

[Hurricane Jack]

Was this William Wallace time or am i way off?
Have a Glenfiddich (or 3) for me. Ha
Be well. Bowen

Close but no cigar: Wallace died in 1305. That means you buy!

 

[AbbaDatDeHat]

Close but no cigar: Wallace died in 1305. That means you buy!

Ha Teach me to ask a question!!
If i ever get out your way i sure will.
B

 

[Hurricane Jack]

National Beer Day was the beginning of the repeal of Prohibition with the Cullen-Harrison Act signed by President Roosevelt on April 7, 1933. Prohibition was fully repealed that December.

 

[1mach1]

Henry Ford dies at the age of 83 today in 1947

 

[Fading Fast]

Henry Ford dies at the age of 83 today in 1947

That had to be a media event nationally and a super-media event in the Detroit metro region.

 

[vitanola]

That had to be a media event nationally and a super-media event in the Detroit metro region.

Yes, indeed it was.

 

[Fading Fast]

Yes, indeed it was.

I image the more "balanced" view we have of him today wasn't common knowledge then - or, said another way, his hagiography was still in full bloom at the time of the funeral. It seems, that there was almost a conspiracy to cover up for "important" or "big" people then, unless the dam of bad/illegal/reprehensible behavior broke and, then, like now, they'd tear them down. But today, we almost try to tear everyone down right away.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There were neighborhoods where people would spit on the ground at the mention of Ford's name as far back as the twenties, and his trial for libeling the Jewish people in 1927 was a huge news story at the time -- but Old Henry had a very efficient publicity machine designed to buff his legend, even while he was accepting Nazi medals and sending his goons around to try and kill Walter Reuther. There were critics who didn't buy the legend, but they tended to be ignored by the press by the 1940s.

 

[vitanola]

There were neighborhoods where people would spit on the ground at the mention of Ford's name as far back as the twenties, and his trial for libeling the Jewish people in 1927 was a huge news story at the time -- but Old Henry had a very efficient publicity machine designed to buff his legend, even while he was accepting Nazi medals and sending his goons around to try and kill Walter Reuther. There were critics who didn't buy the legend, but they tended to be ignored by the press by the 1940s.

The "Better Half's" parents lived in a nice, older neighborhood in Columbus Ohio in the mid1940s, just after college. In those days they operated a rather exclusive antiques shop out of their home. Walter Reuther's brother lived across the street with his family. The In-laws recounted the bombing with a comment on the Reuthet's taste: "there were pieces of blue mirror everywhere!"