Strange Times 60: Father Prescribed Poison

Strange Times is a weekly newsletter that explores the weirdest news of 1921, one day at a time. Issues 0-52 are archived here.

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Today we have a poisoned cousin, exploding whisky, a purse-snatching chow, and the bob banned. Chop off your curls for…

March 1, 1921

• The widow of baseball player Ray Chapman, killed last summer after being hit by a pitch, announces the birth of a baby girl, named Rae Marie Chapman in honor of her father. 

• Caruso's condition continues without change, and his doctors express private confidence that he will not suffer a further relapse. 

• The Weather: Cloudy today and Wednesday, not much change in temperature; moderate fresh west winds.

The poisoning accusations made against nurse Alice T. Lattimer, apprehended while trying to board an ocean liner in New York, have been whispered about in small items for the last few issues. I’m glad they finally provided a story with some detail, and I hope it’s not the last.

SYRACUSE, N.Y., Feb. 28.—Denying responsibility for the bottle of medicine which was found to contain poison and declaring it had been prescribed by her father, Dr. William Towsley, Mrs. Alice T. Lattimer, the nurse, arrested in New York Sunday, today made a detailed statement to the police here regarding her care of Mrs. Ruth Crawford, the 68-year-old widow who, it is alleged, had been strapped to her bed for five months. The affidavit has been turned over to District Attorney Frank P. Malpass and will be used in presentation of the case against Mrs. Lattimer to the March Grand Jury, which begins its sittings tomorrow.…

It is expected that Mrs. Crawford will be taken before the Grand Jury in a wheel chair as there has been a marked improvement in her condition since she has been withdrawn from the care of nurses. Because no crime has been charged against Mrs. Lattimer, the Grand Jury investigation may be in the form of a John Doe proceeding.

While the affidavit in full will not be disclosed by the police, it was learned that Mrs. Lattimer refused to make any admissions that she was responsible for the presence of the poison in the medicine or that she was in any way to blame for Mrs. Crawford's condition. All through her statement runs the declaration that she had given the best of care to the woman she was nursing. She explained the fact that Mrs. Crawford was strapped to the bed by saying her patient was paralyzed in the legs and that if they slipped from the bed the woman would fall to the floor. On this account she frequently tied her patient's feet together, she stated. 

"The woman is absolutely innocent," asserted Nichols, after he had held a conference with her for more than an hour in the matron's department. "When the full story becomes known, it will develop that Mrs. Lattimer has been made the target of designing persons and that in reality she has been a martyr in her attendance upon Mrs. Crawford.…"

Denies He Prescribed Medicine

Dr. Towsley today denied he was responsible for the medicine containing chloral hydrate, as charged by his daughter. He insisted that whatever had been done in the treatment of Mrs. Crawford had been done by Mrs. Lattimer, who had full charge of the case.

"I never interfered," said Dr. Towsley. "For many months Mrs. Lattimer kept the door of the patient's room closed and I did not know just what was going on, even though it was my house. One day after two men had called and Mrs. Lattimer had them sign some papers, I asked if Cousin Ruth (Mrs. Crawford) had made over her property to her. She did not answer and then I told her that if she gained control of the money and property I was going to sue for board and lodging, laundry and medical services. A few days later, when Mrs. Towsley and I and my son were away, Alice called an ambulance and had Ruth taken to the Emma Street house. From that time on we had no friendly relations."

Mrs. Crawford today expressed great delight that she is "free of terror for the first time in years."

"I am glad that Alice Lattimer has been caught and I hope she has made to suffer as she has made me," she declared this afternoon. "I had told her time and time again to take my money and spend it, but to let me alone. Oh, I am relieved to know she has been taken. I am not vindictive, but I do want to see justice done. 

"Sometimes she almost had me believing I was crazy, as she said. I used to tell her it was not necessary to tie me in bed, that it made me feel like a rat in a trap. She always said she knew best. One time I tried to choke myself to death with one of the straps, but because of my position I could not make the knot tight enough. I used to beg Alice to give me a pull to put me out of my misery and I asked her to let me be taken to the country home—anything to get me out of my suffering."

Mrs. Crawford appeared to be much improved in health and cheerful. Release from the confining straps and cessation of the medicine seem to have restored her health in great measure. 

Does the possibility that it explode make bootlegged whisky seem too dangerous to be worth the risk—or does it just make it that much more cool? And one must respect the Times’ commitment to putting scare quotes around slang or anything ersatz, as it makes their headlines almost impossible to read.

The explosion of a bottle of "whisky" while it was being carried Sunday night by Severin Mantelle of 2,854 West Twentieth Street, Brooklyn, yesterday led to a raid by detectives and revenue officers on a drug store at 1,326 Surf Avenue, Coney Island, where they declared they found four cases and two barrels of whisky and a barrel and five one-gallon cans of alcohol.

Mantelle was walking through Mermaid Avenue, Coney Island, with what he believed was a bottle of whisky concealed in his overcoat pocket. There was an explosion, and Mantelle found himself lying on the ground with a deep gash in his left wrist. Investigation revealed that the "whisky," which he declared he had purchased a few minutes before at the Surf Avenue drug store, had exploded without apparent cause.

Max Davidson, proprietor of the drug store, and his clerk were held in the Federal Court later in $1,000 bail each for examination on a charge of violating the Volstead act.

Chow finds a handbag! I nearly cut this story because it’s awfully silly and awfully padded, but I just couldn’t because, well…chow finds a handbag!

Man's ancient friend evidently knows as well as his master that it costs money to live these days. And the police are preparing for an epidemic of loose dogs on the street just as soon as it is known generally how this one sought to solve the problem for his master.

The hero of the story is a chow, name not recorded. He belongs to Henry W. Rovloffzen of 20 West Seventy-fifth street, who took him out for an airing last night and unleashed him in the block in which he lives.

Chow went trotting away as if he were bent on a definite mission, was lost in the shadows a few minutes and then came running back to his master, wagging his tail with every evidence of being highly pleased with himself. The dog thrust his muzzle into his master's hand and kept it there until Mr. Rovloffzen became aware that some object was being proffered persistently.

He took it, to the dog's manifestations of delight, and found himself the possessor of a silver-mounted black handbag, in which were the stubs of two matinee tickets, a business card and $64.21 in cash.

Mr. Rovloffzen gave his dog a pat for his thoughtful kindness, a lecture on the sacredness of other people's property and delivered the handbag to the West Sixty-eighth Street Police Station. 

1921 fashion coverage from Paris, which veers randomly between deeply credulous and bitterly mocking, is one of my favorite things to find in these old newspapers. “An enormous turban to which there seemed to be no beginning or end” is what I shall be asking my barber for the next time I go in for a trim.

PARIS, Feb. 28.—Before three separate juries of the most expert hairdressers in Paris, to whose number were added several artists and modistes, the question, "What should be the most fashionable style of dressing hair during the coming season?" was decided yesterday. Prizes of the value of 500 francs were awarded to four of the most beautiful creations, about the merits of which it took the juries over three hours to reach an agreement. Even then the spectators of this curious competition were not entirely satisfied.

The first prize went to an artist who had built the hair of a beautiful blonde into an enormous turban to which there seemed to be no beginning or end. The second prize went to what is described as a Greco-Roman coiffure, and the third prize was divided between a modern arrangement with the hair brushed back from the forehead and another in which a light fringe was left above the eyes. 

In the judging a quarrel broke out between the hairdressers and the modistes because the latter wished more attention paid to coiffures over which a hat could be worn. The hairdressers, however, decreed that the days of simplicity are over. Curls and wig-like confections have returned to favor, and the Chinese fashion of straight back hair is frowned on. Very definitely bobbed hair has disappeared from the ideas of the hairdressers.