Nothing ruins a night out more than coming home to find your house has been broken into. Such was the situation for Clara and Albert Jost on November 15, 1919.
A suitcase containing a small amount of cash and old clothing and some groceries, including salt, sugar, potatoes and 25 pounds of raisins, were missing from a Lockport, Illinois, home.
There are so many raisins.
Why would anyone other than a commercial baker have 25 pounds of dried fruit in their hands?
Could it have something to do with the passage of the Volstead Act on October 28, 1919?
Prohibition, which would soon become the 18th Amendment to our Constitution, was proposed to Congress on December 17, 1917, and was scheduled to take effect on January 17, 1920. President Wilson vetoed the Volstead Act, but the U.S. Senate voted 65 to 20 in favor. Please ignore his veto.
The Volstead Act, officially known as the National Prohibition Act, defined laws prohibiting the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcoholic beverages within the United States and its territories.
Illinois will soon become a “dry state.”
It's not illegal to drink alcohol, but once your stash runs out, you can't legally buy any more.
However, the Volstead Act allowed individuals to make up to 200 gallons of wine and cider, but not beer at home.
Not that we know that Yosts plans to brew cider for personal consumption, but it certainly seems possible. But that doesn't matter. No matter what they stole, they were victims of a crime.
After a Thanksgiving dinner with friends, the Yosts discussed many things on a spirit board. Someone in the group suggested asking Ouija about the robbery.
After being left in the hands of the police for 12 days with the case largely uninterrupted, why not look to Ouija for clues?
The planchette hesitated at first, but soon Yosts had his answer.
Frank Walter.
This was unbelievable. Frank Walter was a friend and neighbor.
Mr. Yost asked Ouija if Frank had acted alone. no
Was Frank's wife Lydia with him? yes
Since this was not hard evidence, no one contacted the police, but the planchette certainly drove a wedge between the two families.
News of Ouija's revelations began to spread through Lockport, but the Walter family was unaware of the rumors.
The first sign that Lydia's friendship was in trouble came a few weeks later when she decided to run for the position of Oracle in the Royal Neighbors of America.
Founded in 1895 as the Ladies' Auxiliary of American Modern Woodworking, RNA still exists.
Our members, then and now, are committed to doing good and empowering women.
“Royal” symbolizes the nobility of their work, and “Neighbors” means neighbors helping neighbors. Nowadays the organization specializes in scholarships, insurance and pensions.
Their logo, unchanged since 1894, is a flower with five petals. Each petal symbolizes the personal qualities we hope our members will embrace: faith, perseverance, courage, humility, and selflessness. The central point represents morality.
Lydia expected her friend and lodge sister Clara Yost to give her her full support in the upcoming election, but what she got instead was a worthy opponent both inside and outside the organization.
Clara won the election and Lydia soon heard rumors spreading about her and Frank. Lydia was furious and demanded a public apology.
“What are you apologizing for?” This was Clara’s position. It was the Ouija Board that called Frank and Lydia Walter thieves, not the Yosts. There will be no apologies.
Lydia wouldn't let it go. That's not to say she wasn't open to the supernatural or alternative thinking. Lydia herself was a member of the local Society of Spiritualists, but she felt she had been the victim of slander.
Rather than wait for an apology that never came, Lydia Walter hired a lawyer and sued her former friend for slander and defamation.
She asked for $10,000 in damages. That's $130,140.00 in today's money.
Announced in early 1920, the suit was not brought before a judge and jury until April 1921.
Lydia's attorney, state representative and fellow Lockport resident William R. McCabe, threatened to call Ouija as a witness, and potential jurors were asked whether they believed messages received through this medium.
Judge de Selm, 1914 |
Circuit Court Judge Arthur W. De Selm ruled that belief or disbelief in Ouija was not a factor in the men's eligibility to serve on the jury.
After all testimony had been heard, Judge De Selm's instructions to the jury were as follows: “If there was malice behind Ouija's declaration, the defendant should be found guilty. However, if Ouija was clearly humorous and simply joking, the defendant should be found not guilty.”
Over the course of two hours, the jury cast three votes. The first was 9 to 3 in favor of the defendant, the second was 11 to 1, and the third was unanimous in favor of the defendant.
The trial ended and Clara Yost was deemed not responsible for Ouija's actions.
Lydia Walter announced her intention to appeal the ruling.
On April 29, 1921, Judge De Selm granted Lydia Walter's request for a new trial.
Unfortunately I couldn't find out whether she continued with the second trial or gave up on the matter. Perhaps there were apples?
In 1936, after years of investigating corruption in the state, Lydia attorney William R. McCabe (1884-1958) left politics and legal practice when he took over the weekly newspaper The Joliet Spectator.
McCabe's editorial stance made him more than just enemies.
In fact, on April 16, 1938, Deputy Sheriff Leahm Kelly assaulted McCabe in the street in protest of an article calling for McCabe to be removed from office.
A day earlier, a brick was thrown through the Spectator's front window. Leahm Kelly denied there was a connection.
A much more serious and anonymous attack occurred on April 7, 1947, when McCabe was severely beaten and left for dead. He never fully recovered.
McCabe's publishing partner (each holding 48 shares of the newspaper) was Amelia “Molly” Zelko, 25 years his junior.
Molly's long relationship with McCabe began in 1927 when she was 17 and she was hired as McCabe's secretary.
In 1936, Molly followed him into the newspaper business. Molly was, by all accounts, like her mentor McCabe, a tenacious reporter/editor who took a hard line against corruption and made enemies.
Molly mysteriously disappeared on the night of September 25, 1957.
According to public opinion, Molly was targeted by mobster Sam Giancana.
Rather than delve into the deep rabbit hole of Molly Zelko, I highly recommend Part 8, “Who Killed Molly Zelko?” A podcast series co-produced by the Joliet Area Historical Museum and the Joliet Public Library.
Here is the link – https://www.thespectatorpodcast.com/podcast
We will never know how seriously Yost or Walter took their consultations with the spirit world. Mysticism was very popular in the early 1920s.
Was it just a lark for some of them, or were there legitimate questions for their loved ones on the other side? It is impossible to know.
Lydia Walter may have begun dabbling in spiritualism as a way to communicate with her brother Otto E. Lundstrom, who was shot to death by his morphine-addicted wife Alberta Lundstrom (aka Vera Lee) on January 17, 1909. there is.
Alberta's sentence for this crime is a rather mild one, considering she killed a man. After serving only 18 months, she was released. It was generally accepted that she could have a good life outside of prison if she kicked her drug habit.
Did Lydia consider turning to Ouija for answers when her 17-year-old daughter Marie was “lured” from her home by a mysterious stranger in July 1922?
The article on the left says, “When Marie comes home, all will be forgiven.”
Sounds like elimination.
Their daughter, Marie Louise Walter, who performed with great ease at social events around Lockport, Illinois in early 1914 and delighted her mother's guests with “an impromptu instrumental and vocal program,” later became known as Marie Walter. Same. She partnered with Edw. F. Williams and Madeline Smith founded the Marie Walter Company, which was actively touring the country in the early 1920s.
I will be honest and say that I don't know. It's certainly plausible, but not certain.
This is another situation where we let the readers decide for themselves.
Here are a few photos from the company's press release:
Compare the woman in this photo to a photo of the missing Marie Walter.
In photo 1, Marie appears twice as a woman who is not seated at the piano. I believe that woman is Madeleine Smith.
Those two photos show Marie Walter and Edw. F Williams.
Whatever drama swirled around the Walter family when Marie went missing in 1922, Marie Walter and Frank Schmidt's Michigan marriage certificate, dated June 23, 1933, indicates that the two had been married once before.
Frank is 56 years old and Marie is 29 years old.
According to that year's census, the Schmitzes were still together in 1940, living in St. Louis, Missouri with their seven-year-old daughter. Elaine.
Lydia Walter (age 44 at the time of trial) died at the age of 50 on November 3, 1927. Her husband Frank died on January 13, 1934 at the age of 74.
Clara Yost (age 35 at the time of the trial) died in January 1959 at the age of 73. Albert lived the longest, dying on January 27, 1968 at the age of 92.
Molly Zelko's body has not yet been found.
It may be interesting to know that on October 13, 1946, former Sheriff Leahm Kelly was shot dead in his driveway with his wife and 4-year-old daughter watching.
On April 2, 1947, Leahm's brother Dennis Kelly was ambushed and shot, but survived. Six years later, he might not have been so lucky.
On March 5, 1953, Dennis Kelly was shot twice in the body with a shotgun and then shot twice in the head with a .45 caliber pistol.
Both brothers have been described as “jukebox kingpins” and it is well known that the Mafia seeks to control the dime business in Illinois. At the time of the murder, Dennis was also a business representative for the Joliet Local 714 AFL Bartenders Union.
All this and more can be found in “Who Killed Molly Zelko?” Podcast.
Check back at that link – https://www.thespectatorpodcast.com/podcast