Tall Heiress Divorces Short Hubby

1920

Objects to Mate Because of His Low Altitude

LOS ANGELES, Cal., Jan. 1. — Mrs. Ellen Van Trees, heiress, is alleged to have objected to Eugene M. Van Trees, her husband and likewise heir to a fortune, because her 5 feet 9 inches of slender beauty did not "match well" With 5 feet 4 inches of dapperness.

They quarreled over Van Trees' lack of height until he left, and she sued for divorce, claiming desertion.

Attorney Wilder, for Van Trees, produced a letter which the wife had received from her mother. The letter reads in part:

"Don't let his size worry you. My mother was a beautiful woman and taller than my father. It made no difference. Live with him and be happy. Help him. It is your duty. Put his estate in both your names and don't let others meddle in your affairs. Every one will be nice to you when you have money, but without it the world is cold. You know that, dear."

Judge Crail granted the divorce, remarking:

"They appear to be fairly nice folks. But it's evident they can't live together, so I'll give her a decree of divorce and an allowance of $1,200 a year."

Comb World In Vain for Arnold Girl

Dec. 1915

Relatives Give Up Hope as Five Years Pass Without Trace

Folks Wear Mourning

Disappeared Five Years Ago This Week

Following is the order of Dorothy Arnold's actions December 12, 1910, so far as known up to the time of her disappearance:
11:30 A. M. — Left her home at 108 East Seventy-ninth street, New York, telling her mother she intended to buy a new dress.
12:00 Noon. — Bought a box of candy at Fifth avenue and Fifty-ninth street.
2:00 P. M. — Bought a book at Brentano's and had it charged, altho she had between $20 and $30 in her purse when she left her home two hours and a half earlier.
2:45 P. M. — Met a girl friend at Fifth avenue, near Thirtieth street.
2:50 P. M. — ? ? ? ? ?

NEW YORK, Dec. 16. — Five years ago this week Miss Dorothy Arnold vanished so completely that no detective in the world has been able to discover a clew to her whereabouts or her fate.

"What happened to Dorothy Arnold?" is a question that has been asked in every house where newspapers printed in any language are read.

For answer such men as William J. Flynn, now head of the United States Secret Service; Sir E. R. Henry, chief of Scotland Yard; William J. Burns, George S. Dougherty, former deputy police commissioner in charge of the New York detectives; Joseph A. Faurot, present chief of detectives, and Lieut. Grant Williams, who as the director of the New York police department's bureau of missing persons, has investigated thousands of strange disappearances, give the reply that they are at a loss for a way to fathom the mystery.

If Dead, Where Is Body?

Dorothy Arnold was last seen, so far as is known to the police or other investigators, at Fifth avenue and Thirtieth street, on Monday, Dec. 12, 1910. The time was 3 o'clock in the afternoon or a few minutes earlier.

The aged father of the missing girl, who has spent many thousands of dollars to search every city in the world by wireless, cable, telegraph, telephone, mail and detectives, wears as a silent answer to the query of Dorothy's fate a wide mourning band on his hat, a mourning necktie and a suit of black. He is a wealthy importer of French and Russian perfumes.

"She is dead," he said to reporters this week.

"But where is her body?" is the question asked by trained investigators.

"Any morgue keeper in the entire country would at once take notice of a woman dressed in expensive lingerie or clothing," Lieutenant Williams says, in discussing the statistics of his bureau, which show that on the average one woman a year is left unidentified.

Description of Dorothy Arnold.

Dorothy Arnold on Dec. 12, 1910, when she went away from her home, was 26 years old. She was about 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighed in the neighborhood of 140 pounds.

She was of striking appearance; her complexion was bright, her hair was dark brown and her eyes were grayish blue.

She wore a tailor-made blue serge suit and a black velvet hat trimmed with two silk roses.

The hat had inscribed in its lining the name of a fashionable milliner. Similarly, the name of the maker was embroidered on the tailor-made underwear which the young woman wore.

In her hand bag Miss Arnold carried about $20 or $30; yet she asked the clerk in Park & Tilford's Fifth avenue and Fifty-ninth street store to charge a pound of candy, and requested the cashier in Brentano's store to send her father the bill for a book — "An Engaged Girl's Sketches" — which she bought within a few hours after she was last seen by her mother.

Search Made All Over World.

The search for Dorothy Arnold has never been equaled for thoroughness. Here was the case of a mature young woman, highly educated, to a degree literary, and physically strong enough to balk any attempt at kidnaping. She was not in the habit of "slumming" or doing "settlement work," but, on the contrary, was more inclined to afternoon visits to such places as Sherry's restaurant and the Plaza tearoom. Her evenings were mostly spent in the company of her relatives or near friends. For almost six weeks following the disappearance of Dorothy the search was conducted along "confidential" lines. Her father, the descendant of a proud New England family, which traces its lineage back to the landing of the Pilgrims, loathed publicity. Her mother, a Canadian by birth and highly sensitive, equally abhorred the thought of letting the prying eyes of the public get a glimpse into the family circle.

The Man in Her Life.

There was a man in Dorothy Arnold's life. A few months preceding her disappearance the "affair" was such that it became a matter of family discussion. The first act after the young woman failed to respond to advertisements inserted in the personal columns of newspapers was to communicate by wireless with steamships bound for Europe. Then detectives were sent to Pittsburgh, Pa., to find out where George S. Griscom, a 44-year-old engineer, was staying at that time.

Griscom was in Florence, Italy. And there Mrs. Arnold hastened to confront him with the story of her daughter's disappearance. Even at the time of her sailing, the Arnolds were determined not to take any more persons than absolutely necessary into their confidence. Arnold had written to his brother in Germany a letter saying that a "terrible calamity had befallen the family," but they "did not wish to spoil their Christmas holiday by telling about it." As Mrs. Arnold sailed her husband cabled briefly to his brother telling him to furnish her with funds if needed.

Like the public, Dorothy Arnold's uncle and aunt got the first intimation of what had happened on the morning of Jan. 26, 1911, when the story of the disappearance appeared in all the newspapers of the leading cities of the United States and Europe. Deputy Police Commissioner Flynn, now chief of the Secret Service, on the day before told Arnold that his detectives had to have the aid of the newspapers. The "confidential" search had failed.

At the same time that the reporters were asked to aid the family. Word of Mrs. Arnold's visit to Florence and her meeting there with Griscom was kept a secret. "She is too sick to be seen," was the only explanation offered when reporters inquired for her. Two days later, however, it became known that George S. Griscom "was the man in the case." It then became known that the young woman less than two months before she left her family had been in Boston, where, according to the records of a loan company, she had obtained $60 for a quantity of jewelry that had been pawned.

George Griscom was Boston at the time, but if he and Dorothy met there at the time the information was never communicated to the public. It was admitted Dorothy on her return to New York rented a mail box in the general postoffice and that she quite regularly corresponded with Griscom. The letters she wrote him were in his possession the day Mrs. Arnold and her elder son John, saw him in Florence. As she demanded them John Arnold felled Griscom with a blow on the jaw. Then a promise was exacted from Griscom that he would never reveal the contents of the letters. Griscom has until this day kept his word as far as known.

Mrs. Arnold, on entering the lower bay on the steamship Pannonia, received a message from her attorneys and her two sons, John and D. Hinckley, met her at the pier. On their advice she declined to go into any details of her daughter's disappearance. John Arnold, in an interview with the then District Attorney Whitman, six days after the arrival of his mother from Italy, said he was convinced that Dorothy had committed suicide. He did not suggest that she might have met with foul play, nor did he ask for a grand jury investigation of her disappearance.

House in Pittsburgh Raided.

That the family lawyers at first shared with the detectives the belief that Dorothy Arnold bought a box of candy and a book with the intention of passing away time while riding on a railroad train was evident some time after the investigation was under way when John Keith, head of the Arnolds' legal representatives, said he had searched a sanitarium on the outskirts of Pittsburgh which was raided in April, 1913, by the Pittsburgh County authorities, who charged its proprietor with the death of a young woman who had been missing from her home for nearly a year.

A few days after this raid and the mention in the newspapers of Dorothy's name in connection with the investigation of the place, Arnold sent for the reporters and invited them to go thru his East Seventy-ninth street house from cellar to garret. He repeated his belief that his daughter would never be found.

The police records show that of the women who are daily reported as missing there are but few who, under any compulsion, give up the luxuries of homes so that they may wander about as fancy dictates. Some go away because of quarrels, others because they tire of being "pampered" by indulgent mothers, brothers and sisters, and others want to get away from the scene of some lovers' quarrel.

Dorothy Arnold was a girl of romantic ideas. She incorporated some of these in manuscripts, hoping to have them published. She was a graduate of Bryn Mawr, and after her schooling she began writing novels — which were never published.

——————

Did Dorothy Arnold take her family into her confidence? Has everything been told? Has any evidence been found to point to the theory that she is dead? Could she have been murdered and her body disposed of? Was there a suggested motive for murder? Did she by act or word suggest a reason for leaving home? These questions have been asked by the leading detectives of the world.

—Saturday Blade, Chicago, Dec. 18, 1915, p. 3.

Note: The case was never solved.

Chorus Girls Quit Stage for Factory

1920

Higher Pay in Shops Overcomes Lure of Footlights

NEW YORK, N.Y. — Theatrical managers and producers are becoming alarmed at the shortage of chorus girls — and to think that there used to be so many of them the producer had to hide himself to keep from being overwhelmed with applications! This is the word that New York is casting abroad.

In the good days gone, it said, the chorus girls received larger pay than they could get in the shops or factories or offices. Besides, there was the lure since the pay of women in business is so much more than it is upon the stage.

It is said that the shops of New York, and even the factories, pay much better wages than is possible with the theaters. As one observer puts it, "Better money can be obtained in the shops, in the canning factories, in the laundries, than upon the stage."


Shonts' Will Makes Wife Chief Heiress

NEW YORK, N.Y. — Mrs. Milla D. Shonts, widow of the former president of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, who was cut off in her husband's will with a picture and a small bequest, has filed for probate another will made in 1905.

This will gives $5,000 each to Drake University and Monmouth College, Iowa; $100,000 to Mrs. Shonts and minor gifts to the relatives.

The remainder is to be shared equally by Mrs. Shonts and the two daughters.

Sane Woman Describes Her Experiences in Insane Asylum

1905

"Ordeals There Would Drive Any One Crazy"

NEW YORK, Dec 2. — "The best way to make a sane person demented is to send him or her to a lunatic asylum. It is death in life. Men and women with staring eyes look into yours and despite your certainty that your sanity is perfect, you suffer one of the most horrible sensations that a human being can have — you feel that the men who are watching you believe that behind your eyes lies the same distortion of intellect that is harbored by the heads which wag from side to side around you."

Mrs. Sara Dean Reid, bride of Capt. Albert Dean Reid, who is in the Tombs on a charge of bigamy, talked thus last night in Mount Vernon about her nerve-wrecking experience as an inmate of Bloomingdale Insane Asylum, from which she was released by order of Judge Platt, who, at the demand of her counsel, John M. Digney, had her sanity investigated. Mrs. Reid was placed in the institution at the request of her three brothers a few days after her marriage. The woman is heiress to a large estate.

"The most vivid imagination cannot conceive," said Mrs. Reid, "the horrors of an insane asylum. I felt as one might feel if suddenly transferred to another planet. Everything was strange. The voices were not human, the glances were full of terror, the treatment was brusque, and the life so mechanical and circumscribed that I am astonished I was not driven crazy myself.

"The one thing that helped me to fight off the impulse to shriek as the unfortunates around me did was writing. Day by day since a year ago I have jotted down my impressions of the awful place, and I shall some time publish a book on the subject.

"An insane asylum spells monotony. You rise in the morning, bathe, eat, walk, and, after the hours have worked themselves out with the dreariness of the ticking of a clock, you go to bed again while all around are mental wrecks. You cannot sleep. You never lose the consciousness that you are sane among the insane, that mad people who may at any moment rend the air with shrieks that will kill the slumbers you woo are almost within arm's reach.

"I was treated by the attendants just as if I were really insane. They watched me constantly. I could walk nowhere without having eyes following me. I could not go out without having two nurses, grim and reticent.

"About seventy insane people were in the ward to which I was assigned. There were all manner of lunatics, and when I tried to sleep at night the babble of their incoherent, senseless voices awakened me with a start.

"There is one prayer I have added to those I learned in childhood, and it is 'God keep the sane from the asylums.' "

Mrs. Reid will not return to her brothers. She has decided to live at Mamaroneck, for a time, as the guest of the Rev F. F. Gerran, rector of St. Thomas' Episcopal Church.

Bride Fools Many As Fake Heiress

Girl-Wife's Acts Inspired By Famous Novel.

Law Steps in When Winsome Fabricator Gets to "End of Her String."

TWO RIVERS, Wis., May 20. - Day dreams of a winsome lass, coming true for three thrilling months by reason of her own forceful imagination and convincing inventions, went all to smash when detectives brought Mrs. Harold Haltaufderheide here to face charges of obtaining money by false pretenses.

It was revolt against the unmusical names of Herzog and Haltaufderheide and against the prosaic role of a factory worker's wife that impelled Helen, whose name before her marriage last summer was Herzog, to enter upon her romantic adventure.

This is the story, as Helen constructed it:

Helen, the beautiful daughter of a stolid farmer, lives and toils in obscurity until she is 16. In an amusement park she meets the clean-cut, tall, wavy-haired youth whom, at a glance, she recognizes as the man of her heart.

Heroine Elopes With Harold.
From the dull farm, her hard-working father and an unsympathetic stepmother she elopes with Harold. Harold returns to his labor in a veneer mill. The honeymoon wanes and the high cost of living gets in its deadly work. Helen and Harold live with Harold's family in Two Rivers. The girl feels out of place, a bit neglected.

One evening at the supper table she appears in a state of intense excitement.

"Harold," she says, "you didn't marry a poor girl after all!"

A letter from her aunt, Mrs. Ben Strupp of Manitowoc, has informed Helen that her name was not Herzog, but that she is actually the daughter of Herbert Earle, a wealthy opera star. her mysterious father has left her a vast estate - a ranch in Montana, a plantation in Virginia and much other valuable property.

Helen at once insists that Harold quit his factory job, and his parents, overjoyed at their daughter-in-law's good fortune, are prevailed upon to purchase a new home.

Draws All His Money.
Mr. Haltaufderheide draws money from the bank to keep the heiress supplied until her own shall come rolling in. The girl travels about the State on important errands, scorning the interurban for hired touring cars. Her slender beauty is arrayed in becoming and costly garments.

Then Harold and Helen go to Milwaukee for a second honeymoon and nothing is heard from them day after day. Suspicion and finally panic invade the serenity of the Haltaufderheide household. The police are notified. At the home of Adam Horning, Helen's cousin in Milwaukee, Helen and Harold are found by large, unsentimental detectives.

Helen confesses and weeps; Harold embraces her and weeps. They weep together and Helen sobs.

St. Elmo Is Responsible.
"I thought you'd love me more if I was rich," she explained as she weeps on Harold's manly breast. "I got the name Herbert Earle out of a book called 'St. Elmo.' I wrote the letter to myself and I fixed up the lawyer's paper and everything myself. I am all to blame."

Behind is a trail of notes signed at the bank, of grim attorneys chagrined at the revelation that a slip of a girl has fooled them and, worst of all, the exasperated family.

"Why," gasped Papa Haltaufderheide, "the little minx had even ordered a special limousine from the factory. No ordinary automobile would do for her when she got her million."

And Helen, in the midst of her troubles, says she is sure John Herzog, plodding farmer, and her honest-to-goodness father, will come to her aid, even tho he has to mortgage the family acres.

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, May 22, 1920, page 3.
--Picture from The Ogden Standard Examiner, May 16, 1920, page 6.