"Fainting Bertha" is On Her Way

1914

Des Moines, Iowa, Jan. 19. — "Fainting Bertha" seems to have difficulty in keeping from the paths of the police. In spite of her professed conversion to Christianity two months ago and her declarations that she is living a totally reformed life, she Saturday was taken to police headquarters by Officer Wilson Skinner and a few minutes later was told to leave town by Capt. C. C. Jackson.

"Why don't you kill me and be done with it?" she moaned when told by Jackson that she couldn't stay in Des Moines any longer. "I'd rather be dead than alive. I try to live right and no one will let me."

But she promised to take an evening interurban car for Ames.

Bertha came to Des Moines from Omaha the first of the week. She was accompanied by the Rev. Mr. Mason, assistant pastor of the People's church of the Nebraska city. Mason told friends here that Bertha had been converted two months ago and was now visiting different cities trying to obtain a livelihood for herself and her aged mother by self-written stories of her life, contained in a small book entitled "Clothed in Scarlet."

For several days "Fainting Bertha" has been working here, encountering little difficulty in selling her books. But each day complaints of her actions have been increasing in number at the station.

Friday it was reported that while riding inside an outbound Fourth street car she "suffered" one of the fainting spells which gave her so much notoriety and the appellation she has carried for years. She swooned and slid to the floor of the car, the story went, but, while the conductor was trying to revive her by rubbing her forehead, she glanced up and saw Detective Pettit watching her. She revived in a hurry and got off the car at the next stop.

A complaint received from the Kirkwood hotel Saturday afternoon that she was bothering everyone about the hotel lobby led to her final undoing. The police were called and she was taken to headquarters.

In the course of her conversation with Captain Jackson, Bertha got on her knees on the floor in front of him and started to implore him to be merciful. Jackson thought she was about to undergo another fainting spell and quickly got her out of his office.

—Waterloo Evening Courier, Waterloo, IA, Jan. 19, 1914, p. 7.