Barbara – Page 2 – InSROland

The Case of the Medical Electrician aka Abortionist

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“The girl was thirsty and wanted ice water constantly. She wouldn’t eat much, and vomited black stuff. She was in a great deal of pain on her left side and her abdomen.” So ended the short life of Lillie Hattery, age 22, on February 5th, 1897, in the clinic of “Dr.” Calvin S. Hastings, Medical Electrician, according to testimony presented at his murder trial.

When Lillie Hattery came from San Bernardino to visit her sister in Los Angeles in late January, she arrived with the names of people rumored to perform “criminal operations.” “Dr.” Hastings, who practiced without the benefit of a medical license, was third on the list. According to testimony at the trial, Lillie paid $200 for Hastings’ services, which included multiple applications of electrical current to the back and abdomen, as well as a surgical procedure, which resulted in copious blood loss by the patient. Lillie suffered from fever, convulsions, and severe pain for a week, during which Hastings treated her solely with electrical stimulation. Two licensed medical doctors examined Lillie’s body after it had been delivered to the morgue, and determined that the cause of death was septicemia due to blood poisoning. They also determined that she had been pregnant and undergone an attempted abortion.

At his trial, Hastings testified that Lillie Hattery suffered from an injured ankle, which he treated with electrical stimulation. He claimed that she appeared in good health until the very last moment before she succumbed to what he assumed must have been an internal abnormality such as a diseased heart or some other affliction. Although the prosecution presented evidence of perjury and intimidation of witnesses on the part of both Hastings and his nurse, along with surgical instruments found in Hastings’ offices that were commonly used for abortion procedures, as well as closed court testimony from a young woman who had recently undergone the criminal operation in Hastings’ care and had almost died, the jury still found Hastings innocent in the death of Lillie Hattery.

Hastings was even able to post bond during the trial, thanks to the generosity of a female admirer, and re-located his Medical Electrician clinic for business down the street in the Hammond Block at 120 1/2 South Spring. Hastings’ Medical Electrician Clinic’s Grand Opening so provoked a dentist in residence there that the man came to blows with the rental agent, and promptly moved out of the disgraced office building, where, he claimed, no decent woman would now darken a door.

Spring Street, looking south from First Street 1900-1910
USC Digital Archive

After his acquittal, Hastings married the woman who posted his bond. In later years she turns up as one of the many sufferers who find miraculous relief at the hands of the great healer, Rama, of the Rama Institute at 305 ½ South Spring Streets, Los Angeles. One can only wonder why Mrs. Hastings’ own husband was unable to heal her deafness with his electrical stimulation.

LA Times Historical Archives

Dr. Calvin S. Hastings was still practicing medicine without a license in 1911 when the state attorney filed a complaint against him during a campaign to shut down so-called “Quack Chink Doctors.”

Scandal at Highland Asylum for the Insane

Second and Spring Streets, ca. 1920
Courtesy Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection

F.E. Howard would have plied his trade as a druggist at Dean’s Drugstore on 2nd and Spring Street in relative anonymity if it weren’t for the outcry raised by nurses at his former workplace, the Southern California Hospital for the Insane at Highland.

Allegations of cruel and inhuman abuse of the inmates at Highland surfaced in the summer of 1903, after San Bernardino papers published a series of investigations into graft and financial irregularities at the institution. The nurses charged that female patients were routinely operated on without the benefit of anesthesia, and were punished by “protective sheeting” or immobilization in their beds under sheets of heavy canvas, sometimes for weeks at a time. The nurses also testified to the common punishment known as “giving the hypo”, hypodermic injections of apomorphia, a violent emetic that causes hours of agonizing cramps, followed by hours of vomiting and eventual collapse. The injections were repeated usually twice a day, for five days at a time, for such mild infractions as insubordination and “talking in excess.”

State Hospital at Highland
Image courtesy of USC Digital Archives

Before he signed on as an assistant at Dean’s Drugs, F.E. Howard worked for two years as the druggist at Highland, and kept written records from his tenure that supported the nurses’ testimony. He supplied the names of over forty victims of the body-wrenching, organ destroying emetic punishment, as well as the date the drug was administered. He also testified that the drug hyosine was used to punish recalcitrant patients, a medication which works on the kidneys and puts the victim to sleep. He alleged that at least one patient died as a result of a punitive hyosine injection.

In addition Mr. Howard provided records that supported allegations of graft and fraud in the institution. Highland’s Superintendent Dr. Campbell, and chief medical officer Dr. Dolan rewarded his whistle-blowing with swift law-suits, accusing Howard of stealing government records. But they were unable to deflect the public outcry, or the findings of the investigation ordered by the Board of Directors of the state institution. By the end of the Highland scandal, both men resigned under pressure. Anticipating his own dismissal, a lower level official committed suicide on the grounds of the asylum. One year after leaving Highland, Dr. Dolan also departed this life. Whether he succumbed to heart disease or died by his own hand remains a mystery to this day.

Scandal at Highland Asylum for the Insane

Second and Spring Streets, ca. 1920
Courtesy Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection

State Hospital at Highland
Image courtesy of USC Digital Archives

Brilliant Lawyer Pushed over the Brink of Sanity by Sensation-Monger Spook

He triumphed over a gaggle of LA’s most prominent legal minds, only to be undone by a second rate mentalist with a trumped-up Teutonic alias. Shortly after establishing a law practice in Los Angeles, young George D. Blake, Esq. landed one of the city’s most sensational divorce cases, Mayberry v. Mayberry. Mr. Mayberry, an original California pioneer and prominent landowner, possessed an estate valued at more than a million dollars. In 1899 his wife brought suit against him for divorce on grounds of extreme cruelty and adultery. George D. Blake represented Mrs. Mayberry in a bitter trial that lasted several weeks. Despite employing four separate law firms in his defense, amounting to a team of every well-heeled lawyer in town, Mr. Mayberry was found guilty of acts of atrocious cruelty towards his wife, who had become a paraplegic as a result of a beating her husband administered to her during one of his many violent rages.

But George Blake’s reign at the top of the LA legal establishment lasted only a few short years. After the tragic death of his wife, Blake sought out spiritualists who promised to put him in contact with his departed spouse.

In 1904 he became especially close with one medium, Maude Von Freitag, a slate-writer who often plied her mind-reading trade at regular séances in Harmonial Hall at 125 West Fifth Street. During one of these events local authorities caught her sneaking peaks at folded slips of paper she alleged she could read without opening.

Attorney Blake, unperturbed by rumors of Von Freitag’s fraud, or by ample evidence of her fondness for liquor and morphine, took up with her with a passion, truly a passion, and accompanied her on a series of out of town trips of many days duration. Von Freitag’s husband and two children did not accompany them on these spiritual journeys.

In the fall of that year, Blake suffered a mental and physical breakdown, and spent weeks in the care of physicians at California Hospital. From there he went on to recuperate at a sanatorium near his mother’s house in Pontiac, Illinois, where he reunited with a childhood love, May Babcock. When he returned to Los Angeles in January of 1905, Miss Babcock accompanied him. But Maude Von Freitag still doted on her fellow spiritual traveler, and when she fell ill in March, she contacted Blake. Within the week the dashing Miss Babcock had packed up and headed back to Pontiac, Illinois.

George Blake took on the cost of Von Freitag’s care at a private hospital at no. 513 East Twelfth Street, and at Von Freitag’s urging even went so far as to try to obtain a loan for $5,000 dollars, in order to take part in a grand scheme involving millions of dollars, a complicated arrangement meant to insure the lifelong financial support of Von Freitag and her family. But the loan didn’t go through. At this point Von Freitag, likely sensing her influence over Blake might soon wane again, pulled out all the stops. In early April, she invited Blake to her sick-room, where she told him she would soon “pass-out” of this life, and asked that he lie down next to her on her bed to have one last talk about her approaching death, the mortgage of certain properties, and the future of her two children. During this conversation, as Blake later described to a friend, Von Freitag spoke to him of “high forces” and “lords of Karma”, she called herself Theodora, and explained to Blake that when she succumbed to death her soul would fly out of her body and into his, to be with him always, until he too passed out of the life, whereupon they would both sweep spiritward and dwell together on the astral plane. Von Freitag then fell into a fit of convulsions, and Blake let out a series of blood curdling screams that brought nurses and doctors to the door, only to find Blake in delirium, holding a limp Von Freitag in his arms. In the wake of subsequent events, shocked Angelenos surmised that Von Freitag placed Blake under a hypnotic spell of sorts during this visit, a spell that led directly to his ultimate loss of all hold on reality.

For three weeks after this episode, Blake managed to resume his law practice, but on April 24th, his frayed cord to reason snapped. While attending a performance at a Main Street theater he found himself possessed by a spirit and was compelled to lead the orchestra. The management didn’t care for this, and sent for the police. Later in the evening Blake was thrown out of a café for disturbing the peace. It seems the headwaiter was offended by Blake’s claim that he had assumed the genius and character of the late Emma Abbot, a famous opera singer of the past century. Blake spoke loudly to anyone who would listen about his plans to sue all parties involved in the fracas for 150 – 500 thousand dollars.

Blake then spent several days calling reporters to tell them of a suit he was pursuing to recover an English estate worth 64 million dollars. (Ah, Nigerian email-type schemes have always been with us!) He raved to the police officer assigned to restrain him of his appointment as “Most High Master”, working for the forces of good, in the name of which he and others like him would, tomorrow, at 9 o’clock, erect a bank at Third and Broadway, the most magnificent bank human eyes have ever conjured or human brain ever conceived… capitalized at 2 billion dollars, offering interest at 4%. He, Blake would be president, and would make pawnshops of the other banks, usurers that they are, charging 10 percent! A crowd gathered on South Broadway as Blake was escorted from his offices in the courthouse to an Olive Street Hotel, to await arrest and commitment to Highland Asylum for the Insane. Blake was taken to Highland on May 10th.

As for Maude Von Freitag, her story continued after Blake’s sad exit from sanity. Mere weeks after she claimed she lay at death’s door, Von Freitag experienced a miraculous recovery at the hands of an occultist colleague (or “sensation-monger spook” as the LA Times’ preferred to describe her). Von Freitag even returned to her lecturing career. The medium responsible for Von Freitag’s complete restoration to health offered to try her technique on George Blake, but was turned away at the door of the asylum.

George D. Blake, Esquire, never returned from Highland. He refused food and medical attention, and died there in November 1906, at the age of 43.

Snake Oil: Mrs. Bridge’s Miracle Cancer Cure

Image courtesy of the LA Times Historical Archive

Mrs. Bridge’s unusually graphic ad for a cancer cure appeared bi-monthly in the LA Times. In 1906 she was prosecuted for practicing without a license, but managed to circumvent the law by joining forces with the licensed physician Dr. J.C Hewitt. This end-run maneuver worked for her until October, 1908, when she was brought up on similar charges in the wake of the death of one of her patients, a pillar of the Pico Heights Methodist Church, Mrs. F. W Vandenburg. Mrs. Vandenburg suffered from advanced breast cancer, and rather than undergo the surgery her doctor recommended, she opted for an alternative therapy, namely Mrs. Bridge’s miracle cancer cure. The cure included the application of a common topical treatment for lesions at the time. The ‘healer’ would apply ‘cancer paste’ or carbolic ointment to the external affected areas, a practice that licensed physicians claimed resulted in the cancer retreating deeper within the body to attack internal organs. Mrs. Bridge and other non-licensed healers alleged the carbolic paste drew the cancer poison out of the victim. Whatever its efficacy, one thing was evident: the treatment caused excruciating pain. Pain which Mrs. Vandenburg bore weekly, at the cost of $15 per treatment, and then daily in the last three weeks of her life. During these last house calls Mrs. Bridge administered the cancer cure alone, without the presence of her beard, the properly licensed Dr. Hewitt. After Mrs. Vandenburg’s death the LA Health Office jumped on the opportunity to prosecute Mrs. Bridge for medical fraud. We can only assume Mrs. Bridge did not fare well in court, as she swiftly moved her offices to the Majestic Building in the 400 block of South Broadway, notably without the accompaniment of Dr. Hewitt. Another clue — her advertisements in subsequent years became much more discreet, eventually shrinking to the size of footnotes, before disappearing altogether after what appeared to be a close-out, everything must go sale of cancer cures in 1913.

Miser’s Death leaves Mysteries

His neighbors reported old Joe had told them in the recent past he had frequented such fashionable San Francisco clubs as the Olympic and the California, that he was a member of good standing in society up north, and that he had lost all his fortune in speculation in mines and real estate. He told one friend that he was hoarding money with the goal of regaining his position in respectable society. One of his many vocations was dealing in junk, which explains why the woodshed appeared to serve double duty as a storage facility. The Miser’s “Old Curiousity Shop” Illustration courtesy the Los Angeles Times

Joe’s collection included antique buttons, cords of wood, faded summer parasols, piles of old tobacco, boxes of discarded salve bottles, matting, broken clocks, curtain rings, outdated encyclopedias and newspapers of all kinds, . Joe’s carthorse shared the premises as well. The horse’s stable was somewhat insulated from the elements, but Joe chose to forgo that expense in his own quarters. In fact the whole front wall of his house was constructed of the same open latticework one would use in a chicken coop. The last few days in Los Angeles in February had turned unseasonably and brutally cold. The old man had tried to insulate his bedchamber with newspaper. He likely died of exposure.

Miser’s Death leaves Mysteries

Who was this hermit, the man who lived in the woodshed in the backyard of 651 South Main Street? Was he Joe Albrecht, waiter at Warner’s 5-cent restaurant, or Joe Miller, the delivery-man, or Joseph Albrecht Jr., well-born denizen of San Francisco society? Whatever his legal name, Joe lived like a pauper but died a seemingly wealthy man, with at least a thousand dollars in three bank accounts and copious mining stocks of incalcuable value. He also left behind volumes of poetry, love letters, and the beginning of what might have been his autobiography, the story of a man born to a noble and wealthy family, but so hideous of countenance, so distorted and dwarf-like, that he is shunned by his family and brought up by an old and childless woman who takes pity on him. His neighbors reported old Joe had told them he had frequented, just two years before, such fashionable San Francisco clubs as the Olympic and the California, that he was a writer of romance and poetry, a member of good standing in society up north, and that he had lost all his fortune in speculation in mines and real estate. He told one friend that he was hoarding money with the goal of regaining his position in respectable society. One of his many vocations was dealing in junk, which explains why the woodshed appeared to serve double duty as a storage facility. The Miser’s “Old Curiousity Shop” Illustration courtesy ProQuest Historical Newspapers Los Angeles Times Joe’s collection included antique buttons, cords of wood, outdated encyclopedias and newspapers of all kinds, faded summer parasols, piles of old tobacco, boxes of discarded salve bottles, matting, broken clocks and curtain rings. Joe’s carthorse shared the premises as well. The horse’s stable was somewhat insulated from the elements, but Joe chose to forgo expense in his own quarters, the whole front wall of which was constructed of the same latticework one would use in a chicken coop. The last few days in Los Angeles in February had turned unseasonably and brutally cold. The old man had tried to insulate his bedchamber with newspaper. It is likely the cause of death was exposure.

Rescued from the Clutches of a Superhuman Diagnostician

When your mother goes missing, where would you look first? Why, the home of the nearest hypnotist, of course! That was Mrs. Edna Lehman’s (nee Larkin) first impulse, and she enlisted the help of LA’s finest in her investigation. One evening in June, 1899, Mrs. Lehman and her husband, a 4th street fishmonger, accompanied Officer Bert Smith to room 33 at the Leone Lodging House at 144 South Main, home to one “Dr.” Frank N. Martin. But when the good doctor emerged with his patient, Edna’s mother, both seemed equally indignant at the disturbance to their privacy. Mrs. Larkin, perhaps still suffering from the effects of hypnosis, seemed unsure at first whether she would depart with her daughter. She then claimed that “Dr.” Martin had sworn, “he would kill them all.” Frank Martin denied all “man-killing proclivities” and stated that he and Mrs. Larkin had merely been transacting business. Eventually Officer Smith persuaded Mrs. Larkin to go home with her daughter and son-in-law.

After they left, Frank Martin presented Officer Smith with his card, as proof of his legitimate standing in the business community. It read as follows: “Frank N. Martin Diagnostician of Diseases by Superhuman Power. Can ascertain, locate and describe the disease of any patient without asking a question or even seeing the patient.”

Besides possessing power of superhuman dimensions, Frank Martin also possessed power of attorney signed by Mrs. Larkin, authorizing him to dispose of certain real estate in her name. And here the trail of Mrs. Larkin and “Dr.” Martin takes a decidedly racy turn. As it happens, Mrs. Larkin had come into property in South Pasadena after her husband abandoned her and her daughter. In order to stretch their income, Mrs. Larkin took in boarders at the South Pasadena residence, one of whom was Frank Martin. The couple engaged in intimacies of a closer nature than the usual landlady/tenant variety, relations Mrs. Larkin’s daughter referred to as hypnotism. In time, Mrs. Larkin became so impressed with Martin’s medical acumen that she planned to sell off part of her country estate and use the proceeds to go into partnership with him selling patent medicines. For this reason she granted Martin power of attorney, and visited him in his room on Main street. That she brought her combs and toiletries with her on her visit can only be attributed to the complex nature of their business dealings, which she anticipated would require her to spend the night downtown.

Under pressure from her daughter, Mrs. Larkin revoked the power of attorney, but since Martin had already sold the property, it was unlikely she was able to prevent him from banking the profits. Profits he undoubtedly used to further the pursuit of long distance diagnostics.

The Fabulous Baker Broads

Main Street, 1916
Photo Credit: USC Digital Archives

Sometime after midnight on January 29th, 1915, Anna “Diamond Tooth” Baker and Mrs. Louise Baker were arrested in a rooming house at 652 1/2 South Main Street. The sisters were among 54 women apprehended by police that night as the department pursued a wholesale clamp down on vice in the downtown area, authorized by the recently passed Red Light Abatement Act. The Act aimed at stemming prostitution by targeting the real estate used for this purpose, as well as property owners, property managers, and renters. As a result of this legislation, landlords would often refuse to rent to single women. In some cases, single women were prohibited from owning property at all in downtown neighborhoods of American cities.

On January 29th, police raided forty houses. They posted plainclothesmen at all exits to the houses, while officers rushed in and detained anyone within the premises for questioning. The bookings broke all records in the female department in City Jail. Many of the women were forced to stand in the halls until more cells were converted for female use.

At a hearing on March 27th of that year, a temporary restraining order was issued against Louise Baker, the proprietor of the rooming house on South Spring, forbidding her from conducting business there on the grounds that the house was being used for immoral purposes. When the landlord and property owner of 652 1â„2 South Main, who were also facing charges, claimed they had no knowledge of Mrs. Baker’s activities, the prosecution presented depositions from three police officers which called their statements into question. The officers testified that Mrs. Baker’s “resort” was one of the most notorious of its kind in Los Angeles, and alleged that Mrs. Baker boasted to them that she had “cleaned up more than $40,000 in Los Angeles” and that she would “use that amount to fight the police force, if necessary.”

This was not the first time Mrs. Baker’s words were used against her in court. In October of the previous year, Louise Baker was cited in contempt of court for talking too much. “Unable to stem her voluble flow of language”, the judge told her “to talk to the bars.” She was sentenced to a day in jail, but as her trial concluded at 4 pm and the prison workday ended at 5, she was able to fulfill her sentence in one hour. As it happens, Mrs. Baker was in court to accuse Lou Haufbine, a furniture salesman, of disturbing the peace. Although Haufbine was found guilty, he received a suspended sentence, while Mrs. Baker was marched off to jail. After serving 60 minutes worth of hard time, Mrs. Baker apologized to the court. “I wanted to be heard,” she said. “I guess I talked too much.”

Her sister, Anna “Diamond Tooth” Baker, known for the half-carat diamond she wore in a front tooth, generally faired better in court. Prior to her arrest in 1915 she was acquitted of several charges of conducting a house of ill repute at nearby 610 1/2 Spring Street. Each time Anna requested a jury trial, and each time jurors found her innocent, declaring that she couldn’t possibly be as bad as she was represented to be. On one occasion, however, Miss Baker was unable to make an appearance at court on the designated day, and called Police Judge Chambers to request he change the date. Judge Chambers told her that his court “had not been so modernized that its sessions were held over the telephone, and unless she put in appearance her bail of $200 would be forfeited.” After Anna failed to appear, the judge issued a bench warrant, and raised the bail to $500. Louise came to her sister’s aid, and, “after expressing her indignation,” (we can only assume at great length) bought her sister’s freedom with a large pile of silver dollars, gold coins, and greenbacks. Anna, apparently equally as voluble as her sister, commented to reporters that she could buy automobiles, so why should she not purchase her own liberty when it cost a mere 500 clams?

Spring Street looking South from 6th, circa 1915
Photo credit: USC Digital Archive

Mad Dogs and Angelenos Go Out in the Noonday Sun

Jack Vernon, resident of 245 1â„2 South Spring Street, was one of several hundred Angelenos to fall prey to the scourge of rabies which periodically struck downtown Los Angeles and its suburbs in the early part of the century. Thousands of rabid cats and dogs roamed the streets, attacking babies, school children, and adults. One Sunday during this outbreak a group of handsomely gowned women on their way to church sought safety from a charging mad dog by scrambling up the cliff side entrance to the Broadway Street tunnel, where they remained until a shotgun-toting policeman came to dispatch the menacing beast.

The first case of rabies during this period was recorded in Pasadena, where local health officials quickly passed an ordinance requiring pet owners to muzzle their dogs. The muzzle law brought a halt to the spread of the disease in that city, but it proved unpopular in Los Angeles, and after one week, was revoked. Members of the city health board objected to dedicating police manpower to enforce the ordinance, and residents protested the inhumanity of restraining man’s best friend in such a brutal way. No measures were taken to combat the epidemic downtown until tragedy struck a prominent city family. A few days before Christmas, 10 year old Joseph Scott Jr. went out on his front lawn at 984 Elden Street to eat a piece of bread and butter, when a stray dog jumped the fence and nipped him in the leg. As health officials were still in denial about the rabies threat in the city, they hadn’t raised an alarm, and the child’s family saw no reason to take extra precautions over such a minor dog bite. It healed over quickly. Six weeks later, the child became violently ill, and died in agony that night. His father, Joseph Scott, was president of the Los Angeles Board of Education and also President of the Chamber of Commerce. In his grief, Scott made every effort to draw attention to his son’s death, hoping it might save lives.

Likely alerted to the rabies danger by the publicity surrounding Joseph Scott Jr.’s death, Jack Vernon sought treatment in January for a dog bite at the Receiving Hospital at Hill and First Streets. A nurse poured carbolic acid into his wound and cauterized it, a very unpleasant business. It was routine to inform bite victims that rabies can lie dormant for up to three years, so Jack probably faced the dilemma of either having to track down the animal that bit him to confirm the rabies diagnosis, or waiting years before he could be sure he wouldn’t one day form a violent aversion to water, leap at his loved ones throats and suffocate to death from respiratory paralysis. The only other option at the time was to travel to the Pasteur Institute in Chicago, which had recently pioneered a rabies serum.

One Angeleno who sought the Pasteur cure after being bitten by a mad dog found little consolation in the treatment. He was on a train traveling back to Los Angeles, when, according to his fellow passengers, he suddenly stabbed himself repeatedly in the throat with a pocketknife. He stated later from his sickbed that his mind had given way under the worry that he might go mad, and had decided suicide was his only way out.