Primary Selections from Special Collections

Wilhelmina, or Mina, (Schmidt) Fahlenkamp did not appear to have an easy life. Born to Christ and Maria Schmidt about 1844 in Germany, Wilhelmina had immigrated to the United States with her family in 1860. She married Carsten Fahlenkamp in 1867 in Clinton, Iowa.

Little is known about Carsten and Wilhelmina’s days in Clinton, Iowa. We do know that in the 1870 United States census, the family lived in Lyons, Clinton County, Iowa (in 1907 Lyons was absorbed into the city of Clinton). 35-year-old Carsten was a laborer while 25-year-old “Minnie”, as her name is written in the census, kept house while raising 2-year-old Otto and six month old Albert.

Carsten died in 1871 and was buried in Oakland Cemetery in Clinton, Iowa. Wilhelmina never remarried. In 1880, the United States census finds Wilhelmina, Otto, and Albert still living in Clinton. Wilhelmina is entered into the census as a widow who was keeping house. Both boys were entered as students.

Around 1896, Wilhelmina and Albert moved from Clinton to Davenport. Otto had left the family home years before to travel west with a railroad job. Mother and son rented a house at 424 E. 11th Street, then 1021 Ripley Street, and finally at 909 Ripley Street by 1906. Wilhelmina keeping house while Albert worked as a laborer and then a machine operator making saddles on the Rock Island Arsenal. The pair were known to neighbors and considered quiet people.

It was around 1910 that neighbors noticed Albert no longer held a job. Neighbors began to talk amongst themselves as mother and son began to appear “feeble-minded” as the newspapers would later describe it. Wilhelmina was seen leading 42-year-old Albert around by the hand and hitting him with a club. Albert began to appear frail as the years passed. Walks to the neighborhood store with his mother ended and neighbors saw him slowly walking in the house’s small yard by himself. By 1912, Albert needed a walking stick and stopped to rest frequently while in the yard. It was not unusual for Albert to disappear into the house for a week or two at a time in the months before April 1912. He always appeared even weaker the next time the neighbors saw him.

A neighbor, Miss Wiggers at 919 Ripley Street, saw Albert shuffling about on an evening walk in his yard on April 4, 1912. He was not seen by the neighbors in the following days. On April 9, 1912, Wilhelmina paid a morning visit to the Halligan Undertaker Parlor to inquire about the price of a coffin. After a short discussion, a coffin and price were settled on. It was then that Wilhelmina asked for the coffin to be delivered to her home. The clerk asked who the coffin was for and Wilhelmina stated for her son, he had died at home that morning. After a few more questions, the clerk realized that no one had attended Wilhelmina’s son. A doctor or coroner needed to see the body to record the death the clerk told her. Wilhelmina quickly became upset at the conversation and left the business. The clerk felt something was amiss and alerted Coroner Frank Rudolph that a death had taken place and was not recorded.

Deaths at home were not uncommon in the early 1900s. Rudolph went to visit the small four room house at 909 Ripley Street that afternoon to resolve the matter. Wilhelmina initially refused to let the coroner in, but Rudolph persisted and was finally granted access to the home.

Coroner Rudolph was immediately overcome by the smell of a decaying body. No air circulated in the home as all the windows had been nailed shut. There was barely any furniture in the building. Every room, except the kitchen, was in disarray with dirt and garbage in the rooms. Cats roamed about inside and outside of the home.

Coroner Rudolph slowly made his way about the house. He went up the stairs to the upper level where he spied a mattress on the floor covered in what appeared to be rags. Walking closer, Rudolph was horrified to find that the rags were covering the body of Albert Fahlenkamp. Someone had been placing mustard poultices on nearly every part of his body. Even his head was wrapped in a mustard poultice. The body had turned black and was bloated three times its normal size. Coroner Rudolph fled the house and quickly summoned the police.

The police immediately pulled the nails out of the windows to open them. Fresh air and light were needed to even approach the body. When questioned, Wilhelmina stated her son had just died at 4:00 a.m. that morning. She had been trying to cure his illness with mustard poultices for the past few days. The police searched the home and found a kitchen fully stocked with food even though Wilhelmina and Albert (according to the neighbors) appeared frail and gaunt, two guns were found hidden in the house, and a fresh hole was dug in the basement. When asked if the hole was to bury her son, Wilhelmina stated she did not know why she dug the hole.

The body was in such bad condition that an autopsy was not able to be performed. The body was buried within hours of discovery in Oakdale Memorial Gardens Cemetery with no time for a funeral. Wilhelmina was taken to the police station for questioning. The police matron was called to examine Wilhelmina. To the confusion of the police, the police matron found gold coins wrapped in cloth and then sewn into Wilhelmina’s underclothes. In total, the coins amounted to over $2,290.

When asked where the coins had come from, Wilhelmina declared her father was the King of Prussia. A deceased former acquaintance had come back to life and given her the coins from her father, the King. The police were stunned that the mother and son had lived in destitute circumstances in a home with no furniture that was filled with dirt and cats; they suffered from starvation, but had a kitchen filled with food; and Wilhelmina wore over $2,000 in gold coins and they found hundreds of dollars in bank accounts opened by the pair.

During questioning, Wilhelmina told the officers how her late husband, Carsten, was not really dead and had just visited her. When asked why a doctor had not been fetched for Albert, Wilhelmina said she did not believe in doctors because they charged to much for their services.

Neighbors were questioned and stated on the night of April 4th, horrific screams were heard coming from the Fahlenkamp home. The police theorized those were the final moments of Albert’s life. The police returned to the house to search for valuables and any evidence of family. While no other valuables were located, letters led to Wilhelmina’s family being found in Lyons, Illinois where the Fahlenkamp family had lived years before. The family said that Wilhelmina had been grief stricken in 1871 when her husband had died. What followed was a steady decline in her mental stability over the following 41 years. The family eventually stopped contacting Wilhelmina and Albert due to the woman’s increasingly strange ways.

Wilhelmina’s oldest son Otto was finally found in Chloride, Arizona. He had changed his name to Otto F. Ross, but still worked for the railroad he had joined years before. Otto quickly came to Davenport upon hearing the news. Wilhelmina was declared insane and committed to the state hospital, Mt. Pleasant Asylum, in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. A temporary guardian was appointed until her son arrived.

Wilhelmina would eventually be released from Mt. Pleasant, but quickly showed signs of insanity and was returned to the hospital. She died there on May 7, 1926 and is buried next to her husband in Clinton, Iowa. Her oldest son Otto died on January 29, 1934 in Blythe, California. He never returned to Iowa and his mother.

The house at 909 Ripley was boarded up and turned back over to the owner. A few weeks after Albert’s body was discovered, neighbors called the police for assistance. The house is haunted, they insisted. Horrible screams and scratching sounds were coming from the building. The police entered the building to investigate and found not a ghost, but a horrible scene. The Fahlenkamp cats had found their way inside the building before it was boarded up. The screams and scratching were the nearly dozen cats trying to escape the building. Some survived, but many died. The owner quickly had the house demolished.

No explanation was ever given for the large amount of gold coins sewn into Wilhelmina’s dress. The money in the bank was associated with Albert’s years of working, but the coins remained a mystery.

What had caused Albert’s death? His mother told the police that a strange man had come to the house and given Albert a bottle which he drank from. The coroner, who did not have a chance to examine the body, did agree that the condition and discoloration of the body would be indicative of poisoning. Would the poison explain the horrible screams heard the night that Albert is thought to have died? We know Albert, formerly an active and healthy man, was almost too weak to walk in his yard at the time of his death. Was poison involved? Did it come from a stranger? Did Albert have a bottle of poison hidden in the house he consumed in desperation? Did Wilhelmina give her son poison that night (or even over a longer period of time) in her insanity?

That will remain a mystery.

(Posted by Amy D.)