Arabella: Milwaukee, 1907

Arabella Jahn at age 15

Milwaukee Daily News, Friday September 4, 1908

FIND GIRL’S BODY NEAR COUNTRY CLUB

ARABELLA JAHN, AGED 17 YEARS, ENDS HER LIFE WITH CARBOLIC ACID

Coroner Gets Report That Girl Telephoned to Man Aquaintance From Saloon on Whitefish Bay Road – Was Not in Love, Declares Father of the Victim

Two men strolling near the Country club on the Whitefish Bay road early this morning found the body of a beautiful young girl. In one hand was clutched an empty carbolic acid bottle plainly indicating that the girl committed suicide.

Worried by his daughter’s absence from home all night, Henry Jahn, a barber in the Railway Exchange building, who resides at 430 Lloyd Street, identified the corpse several hours later as that of his child, Arabella, 17 years of age.

Hard to Control, Says Father

Tearfully and in a broken voice Jahn told the attendants in the coroner’s office that Arabella was a reserved, distant, haughty, willful girl who rebelled affection.

“She was the opposite of her tender-hearted, impulsive brothers and sisters,” he said. Arabella’s queer nature made me fear an end like this.

“Poor girl, we all loved her, but she wouldn’t mind. She left home at 4 o’clock yesterday afternoon. Her mother wanted her to stay home but she was defiant and answered: ‘I’ll show you.’ And here she is, a corpse. The sorrow of it is hard for me to bear, but I tremble when I think of mother, I don’t know how to tell her.”

Arabella at right

Take Body From Morgue

Jahn recovered from his emotion and arranged to have the body removed to an undertaking establishment.

“Was she ever in love?” asked Deputy Coroner Glenn, remembering the tatooed names, “Arabella and Arthur” on the calf of the left leg of the body.

”No, I believe not,” Jahn replied.

However, it was reported to Acting Coronor Luehring that Miss Jahn entered a saloon on the Whitefish Bay road at midnight and telephoned to a man in an East side flat building. It is said that she asked the fellow to meet her. Her manner betrayed that his reply was a keen disappointment.

The theory is that Miss Jahn committed suicide soon after she left the saloon while brooding over a broken appointment.

Milwaukee Sentinel

GIRL COMMITS SUICIDE

Seventeen Year Old Daughter of Henry Jahn Drinks Acid Near Country Club

Arabella Jahn, aged 17 years, committed suicide early Friday morning by drinking carbolic acid, in the grass across from the Country club on the Whitefish Bay road. Her body was not identified until several hours later when her father, Henry Jahn, a barber in the Railway Exchange building, worried over his daughter’s absence, called at the morgue.

The girl left home Thursday afternoon at 4 o’clock and she failed to return Thursday night. No reason is known for the young woman’s act. Her father saying yesterday that there was a no love affair connected with his daugther’s life. According to Mr. Jahn she was headstrong and the opposite, temperamentally, from her brothers and sisters.

The body was removed to the undertaking rooms of Foss & Nicolai yesterday. The funeral arrangements have not been made but services probably will be held in the family home, 430 Lloyd Street.

Milwaukee Journal, Friday September 4, 1908

FIND GIRL SUICIDE IN GRASS; LIMB IS STRANGELY MARKED

MYSTERY IN HER DEATH

NAMES “ARABELLA” AND “ARTHUR” TATOOED ON HER.

Said to Have Been Rebuffed at Telephone Last Night by Down-Town Man and Then Left Saloon Near Which She Was Found Dead Early Today – Father Says He Knows of No Reason for Suicide, But Declares She Has Always Acted Strangely and Repulsed Affections of Those Near to Her.

Lying in the grass, across the road from the Country club, with her face upturned to the sky, the body of a girl was found shortly after daybreak today.

Near the head was a bottle labeled carbolic acid.

The body was taken to the morgue and it was later identified as that of Arabella Jahn, aged 17, daughter of Henry Jahn, 430 Lloyd st.

ARABELLA-ARTHUR IS TATOOED ON HER LEG.

Before identification was made, a search of the clothing for a note or any mark which might throw light upon the mystery was without result, but upon the calf of the left leg was tatooed the name Arabella and under it the name Arthur.

Mr. Jahn, worried by the absence of his daughter, made a search this morning which resulted in his finding her at the morgue.

When shown the body, he burst into tears.

WORRIED ABOUT HER; SHE ACTED STRANGELY.

“She left home about 4 p.m. yesterday,” said he.

“Her mother asked her not to go out, but Arabella said: ‘I’ll show you’ and a little while after, when her mother looked for her, she was gone.

“She always was a strange girl – cold and not responsive to the affection of her parents, sister and brothers.

“She was not communicative. We worried a great deal about her.”

“She had never been in any serious trouble of which I know, but she was unlike the other children, and I sometimes feared she might come to such an end as this.

NO KNOWN REASON FOR TAKING HER LIFE.

“She had no love affair, nor any reason to take her life of which I am aware.

“She was very headstrong, and when she determined to do anything neither reasoning nor expostulation could make her change her mind.

“She did not have to work. She stayed at home, and both her mother and I tried to make her life happy.”

The body was removed from the morgue to undertaking rooms.

TELEPHONES TO MAN; TURNED DOWN; DIES

At the morgue it is stated that the girl, shortly after midnight, went into a saloon not far from the Country club and telephoned to a man in a downtown flat building asking him to meet her, but he refused and the girl then left the saloon.

It is believed she walked across the road, lay down in the grass and committed suicide.

Mr. Jahn has a barber shop in the Railway Exchange building.

Milwaukee Journal, Saturday September 5, 1908

WAS SUICIDE CARRIED ABOUT?

COUNTRY CLUB CADDY HAS SUSPICIONS.

Believes Girl Whose Body Was Found Yesterday Died at Her Own Hands – but, Position of the Corpse, as Well as Fact That They Can’t Find Cork to Acid Bottle, Leads Him to Ask Questions.

Where did Arabella Jahn die?

Was it at the spot where her body was found in the grass, across the road from the Country club, yesterday morning?

Or, after she died elsewhere, was her body carried there and left to be found by the chance passer?

G. W. Crane, caddy-master at the Country club, who found the dead girl, believes the latter.

NO SIGNS OF STRUGGLE.

“I do not believe she died where I found her,” said Mr. Crane today. “There are several peculiar circumstances that strengthen me in that belief.

“Her clothes were not disordered in the least. The body was lying upon the back as though asleep. Those who die from carbolic acid poisoning are apt to struggle and disarrange the clothing. “The grass in which she was found was about 8 inches high. It was not beaten down, showing that there was no struggle. Her hat was pinned to the head and the empty bottle lay close to the hand.

NO CORK NEAR BOTTLE.

“The strangest circumstance of all is that there was no cork near the bottle. I had several boys search for it for half an hour.

“It is not credible that the girl would have proceeded to that point with an uncorked bottle of carbolic acid.

“I am not prepared to say that the girl met with violence. In fact, I believe she committed suicide.

“But I do not believe she committed suicide at the place where the body was found.

“If she had met her death at the hand of others there would in all probability have been marks of violence upon her. But there were none.”

Milwaukee Free Press, Monday Morning, September 7, 1908

THE CASE OF THE GIRL

The wretched end of the unfortunate girl which was chronicled in the press last week is typical of an ever increasing number of similar cases. They all tend to illustrate an unfortunate condition: The increasing waywardness of city girlhood, and the seeming impotence of parents to deal with it.

It is a lamentable state of affairs and one that is reaping even more lamentable consequences.

There is something so infinitely tragic in the thought of this pretty maid of seventeen dying by her own hand, alone, in the darkness, like a rat in a corner, that the human heart spontaneously cries out in terrible remonstrance. In the blush and rose of girlhood, with a good home, kindly parents and none save legitimate cares, need this have been the end?

No, a thousand times, no. The cause here, as in all similar cases, is the lure of exciting pleasures, the craving for the so-called “good time” that must be had at any cost.

In the old days, the girl of humble station was content with her family circle, the friends at school and neighborhood and those simple pleasures which come legitimately to young womanhood. She was satisfied to remain at home in the evening, visiting, or engaged in those feminine duties that are now considered a drudge.

Today, this is all changed. While still in short skirts, the premature and sophisticated miss whose home is not “swell” enough for her begins to walk the street corners, frequents the cheap theaters and turns longing eyes toward automobiles and Bohemian restaurants.

Parents implore and threaten, but their words are of no avail. The girl is out nightly on some pretext or other – where and with whom she does not care to say. The mother hopes for the best. She dare not guess that the “best” is the pace that kills – surely the soul, often the body. Then one day comes the awakening – when it is too late.

This impotence of parents to restrain their young daughters is astounding. In many cases, no doubt, they do not care. They think the girl is having a good time, that is all. But in many, many cases, they do care, but stand by helpless seeing their child walk down the road to ruin.

What is needed here, is good, old-fashioned parental authority. Every father, mother, brother, should know that when a girl is out, night after night, no good is a’brewing. The girl should be forced to give an ccount of herself, or be made to feel the rod of iron. Likewise, if she does not desist in her course. If she is utterly incorrigible there is but one place for her – the reform school. Better that, where she may quiet down and come to her senses, than a greater shame and misery.

If every family that holds a headstrong, wayward girl, would look into her case today and then take the proper measures, the year of 1909 would have less tragedies to chronicle like that of last week.

Original URL: http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/oct01/stincol14101301a.asp

From tragic past, a soul cries for help

By Jim Stingl

Last Updated: Oct. 13, 2001

Genealogy has never interested Becky Siefert. She confesses that she doesn't even know where her children's baby books are.

The past is dust. Most of us don't have time to reconstruct lives long ago extinguished.

So why does poor Arabella Jahn, who died at age 17 in 1908, have such a hold on Becky?

This Fox Point woman has uncovered a hushed-up and scandalous family tragedy - her husband's family, actually - and is holding it up to the light, trying to learn the truth.

And trying to understand Arabella, this child who turned up dead in a field in what is now Shorewood with a bottle labeled "carbolic acid" on the ground next to her body.

The Milwaukee Journal on Sept. 4, 1908, the day she was found, called her a "strangely marked" girl. She had "Arabella" and "Arthur" tattooed on her left leg, hardly an acceptable practice for a girl in that era.

Over the years, the story of Arabella's death, when it was discussed at all, was shortened by her family to this: She was a troubled girl. She got pregnant and she committed suicide.

It's not quite that simple, Becky Siefert believes, but it's every bit that sad.

Becky married Rick Siefert in 1970. Arabella's sister, Ada, was Rick's grandmother. The past 30 years, Becky knew nothing about Arabella or her untimely death.

Rick's father died last December and his mother moved into assisted living housing in February. While helping to clean out the couple's Mequon home, Becky found an old schoolbook. Arabella's faded name is on the cover. Her penmanship practice covers just two pages of the book and the rest is blank.

Becky thought it was a neat find, but she didn't give it much thought. But a couple days later she found yellowed news articles about Arabella's death.

"It gave me goose bumps. It was so tragic and so young. Here's a bit of her childhood (the schoolbook), and here's the end of her life. It makes you wonder what's in the middle," she said in an interview last week at her home. She's a marketing sales representative for Corporate Express, an office products company, and has two grown children.

But her most important find came a few weeks ago in a box of things her mother-in-law had with her. It was eight letters written by Arabella to her older sister, Ada, between September and November of 1907.

The letters don't include the word "pregnant," but reading between the lines reveals that Arabella was sent away to a group home near 38th and Vliet streets on Milwaukee's west side for the last trimester of her pregnancy. That means the baby came - and went, evidently - some 10 months before Arabella's death.

The girl's pain and feelings of rejection and humiliation come through in the letters. She longed to return to her home near 4th and Lloyd streets.

"I feel so blue thinking it all over that it seems as though I don't care to live, but I suppose I will have to bear it all myself," she wrote.

She speaks fondly of her parents and her sister and two brothers. She begs them to come visit her at her temporary home. She never mentions anyone named Arthur or any possible father. Becky does not know who Arthur was or if he is the mysterious "downtown man" that the newspaper says Arabella telephoned from a saloon on the last night of her life. She asked him to meet her that night.

"But he refused," the morgue report in the paper says, "and the girl then left the saloon. It is believed she walked across the road, lay down in the grass and committed suicide." She was found across the road from the Milwaukee Country Club, which at that time was located along Lake Drive just north of Edgewood Ave. in what was then East Milwaukee.

Arabella's father, Henry Jahn, a well-known Milwaukee barber, is quoted as saying his daughter left home at 4 p.m. the previous afternoon, defying her mother's insistence that she stay home.

"She always was a strange girl, cold and not responsive to the affection of her parents, sister and brothers," the father said.

The words wounded Becky. "The poor girl, and then to have her father sell her out on the front page of the newspaper," she said.

Another article ran the next day, in which the caddy master at the country club, one G.W. Crane, expressed suspicion about the girl's death and said, while she very well may have taken her own life, he did not believe she died where she was found.

Nonetheless, a coroner's report, which Becky tracked down in storage at the Milwaukee County Historical Society downtown, was shockingly brief and certain. It said she died of suicide by carbolic acid poisoning, and it said little else.

Arabella's story haunts Becky Siefert. She feels a little silly saying it, but she thinks perhaps she can help the girl's tortured spirit finally rest easy. Arabella's story is now part of her own story, she said.

She's planning, if possible, to review records of the child Arabella had and whether he or she was placed for adoption. The child is likely dead by now, but there may be children who want to hear the tale.

Becky and her husband went to Union Cemetery on a rainy day last month and tracked down Arabella Jahn's grave. She is buried next to her parents.

It's odd, though. The girl's black cylindrical gravestone bears the wrong year of death. It says 1907, the year of her fall from grace, rather than 1908.

"In her parents' minds, did she die in 1907?" Becky wondered.

She put flowers on the 93-year-old grave, a gesture that seemed to say it's never too late for a little compassion and understanding.

Since the October 2001 story, my aunt Becky and I have determined that Arabella gave birth to a baby girl on November 6, 1907. She named her Gwendeline. She gave her up for adoption to Alfred and Letitia French. On the lying-in records, the father's name is listed as Raymond Lamboy.

The baby was raised as Letitia French, later marrying and known as Letitia Welsh. She died on March 23, 1992. By using an online Social Security database, I was able to link her birth date to her married name. There were Welshes in the Milwaukee phone book. Her family did not know she was adopted.

Raymond Lamboy married Imogene Peters in Berrien County, Michigan on October 23, 1907. His family did not know that he had fathered a child before marriage. John Raymond Lamboy was born August 21, 1889, making him 18 years old in 1907. He died in November 1962.

Arabella's sister was Ada Jahn, my great-grandmother. She married Frank Ramsthal. Their daughter Ellyne married Joseph Siefert, and she was my grandmother. In the 1970s, my mother Diana Foust researched our family genealogy. In her notes, I found a reference to Gwendeline, in a list of Jahn births to investigate. She never got around to it.

- John Foust