Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This odd little story--which I suppose goes into the “bits of random weirdness” file--comes from the “New York Sun,” June 25, 1882:

The boarding house at 52 Willoughby street, Brooklyn, is one of a three-story, painted, brick row, on the south side, between Jay and Lawrence streets, a few doors only from the residence of Hugh McLaughlin, and is kept by Mr. and Mrs. William Swift, formerly of Boston, who leased it early in the present year.

The back parlor was let to a lady from Chicago, but about two months ago she suddenly went away, and the room, with a bedroom adjoining it, was rented to a young married couple, who yet occupy it. The room is very prettily furnished and ornamented with bric-a-brac. The walls are adorned with paintings and engravings, while the windows and doorways are heavily curtained. The following stories are told concerning these rooms: 

The couple had occupied the room only a few nights when the springs of a clock standing on the mantelpiece, and known to the trade as a carriage clock, began occasionally to vibrate with a sudden force, thereby transforming the ordinary tick into a sound likened to a prolonged mournful cry. This would occur while the occupants of the room were seated at the table, and sometimes it would break out in the middle of the night, when they were asleep. This peculiar noise has continued at irregular intervals ever since. The clock continued to keep good time, and there did not seem, on inspection, to be anything the matter with it.

Recently there has appeared in the room several times a floating, vaporous body which assumes the shape of a huge foot ball. It is of a dark color, and is transparent. It will start from a corner of the ceiling. take a downward course. and float slowly across the parlor, through the curtained doorway of the bedroom, and disappear under the bed.

In one instance it was discerned by a pet dog lying in his mistress's lap. With a bound the dog was upon the floor barking at it loudly. Two of the occupants of the room were riveted to their chairs, while the effect upon the third, who was lying sick in the bed, is described as like that of a severe electric shock. During the last few nights slight rappings have been heard.

On Thursday night the light was extinguished about 11 o'clock, and just as the couple had fallen asleep a loud pounding awakened them. The pounding ceased for a few seconds, only to be renewed in the shape of loud raps, which appeared to come from a small table by the fireplace. They sounded as though they were caused by a knuckle coming in contact with wood. The table is small, of common wood, and is covered with a cloth which would somewhat muffle the sound of a rap.

The raps heard were sharp and could not have been produced by striking upon the cloth. A thorough investigation failed to elicit any cause for the mysterious rappings, which were kept up almost without cessation until the dawn of day. There was also a rustling sound at intervals, as though something was moving through the air. The curtains trembled. 

The occupants of the house believe that a natural cause will eventually be found for the annoyance, but it is added that there are peculiar circumstances surrounding the affair which are very distressing.

"Something Utterly Malign"; Or, Why You Should Be Very Careful Where You Hike In Scotland

British author Joan Grant (1907-1989,) is probably best known for her historical novel about ancient Egypt, “Winged Pharaoh,” which expressed her lifelong interest in reincarnation and the supernatural.  However, this week we shall look at a passage from her autobiography, "Time Out of Mind," which describes an experience in 1928 that was as sinister and uncanny as anything in her fiction:

On one of our Sundays off my husband Leslie and I went to Rothiemurchus intending to climb towards the Cairngorms. It was a beautiful day and we had it to ourselves. Basking naked in the sun, we ate sandwiches beside a burn. It was far too hot and peaceful for serious walking, so we decided to wander on for another mile or so, and then go for dinner to the hotel in Aviemore. Nothing could have been farther from my mind than spooks when suddenly I was seized with such terror that I turned and in panic fled back along the path. Leslie ran after me, imploring me to tell him what was wrong. I could only spare breath enough to tell him to run faster, faster. Something utterly malign, four-legged and yet obscenely human, invisible and yet solid enough for me to hear the pounding of its hooves, was trying to reach me. If it did I should die, for I was far too frightened to know how to defend myself. I had run about half a mile when I burst through an invisible barrier behind which I was safe. I knew I was safe now, though a second before I had been in mortal danger; knew it as certainly as though I were a torero who has jumped the barrier in front of a charging bull. 

A year later one of Father’s professors described an almost exactly similar experience he had had when bug-hunting in the Cairngorms. He was a materialist, but had been so profoundly startled that he wrote to The Times--and received a letter from a reader who had also been pursued by the “Thing.” Some years later, when I was living at Muckerach, the doctor told me that two hikers, for whom search-parties had been out three days, had been found dead. He showed me the exact spot on the map. It was the place of my terror. Both men were under thirty. One came from Grantown, the other from Aviemore. The weather was fine. They had spent a good night under the shelter-stone on the highest ridge, for they had written to that effect in the book which is kept up there. They were found within a hundred yards of each other, sprawled face downward as though they had fallen headlong when in flight. “I did a post-mortem on them both,” said the doctor gravely. “Never in my life have I seen healthier corpses: not a thing wrong with either of the poor chaps except that their hearts stopped. I put ‘heart failure’ on the chit, but it is my considered opinion that they died of fright.” 

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

I have nothing to add to this story, except that it’s certainly a funny old world.  The “Blairsville Enterprise,” March 14, 1899:

A petition filed at Cordele, Ga., for a receiver for the First National Bank ends a peculiar story. The bank was established by Dr. George W. Marvin. A few months after organizing it he married a Mrs. Cunningham, a widow, who brought to him a large amount of property, which was added to the capital of the bank. A few months after the marriage Mrs. Marvin died and Dr. Marvin soon married Miss Trammell, a typewriter. In 1892 Marvin died and Mrs. Marvin married Joseph E. Bivens, who succeeded to Marvin's fortune.

Mrs. Bivens died in 1896, leaving all of her property to Bivens. The most uncanny feature of the story was Mrs. Bivens' treatment of her first husband's body. She had it perfectly embalmed by an expert and placed in a glass case in her parlor.

The coffin was so arranged that whenever she entered the room an electric motor forced it up to an upright position. After her marriage with Bivens this ghastly spectacle was relegated to the graveyard.

An article in the “Commercial Appeal,” on October 11, 1896, gives a bit more information.  (As you can well imagine, I wanted to learn every available detail.)

CORDELE, Ga Oct 10—The death in this town of Mrs. Joseph E. Bivens, wife of the president of the First National Bank, recalls a sensation as ghastly as it was realistic. 

Mrs. Bivens was formerly an old maid in Atlanta where she had some little property. Dr. Marvin, a specialist from Omaha, Neb., came to Atlanta, wooed the matured maiden and made her his wife. He engaged in some real estate speculations which made him worth nearly $500,000. He then removed to this city and erected a magnificent home which was a dream in the eyes of the country people hereabouts.

The happy couple lived in this new palace, but a few weeks passed when the doctor sickened  and died. Mrs. Marvin refused to be comforted. She forbade a funeral and telegraphed to New Orleans for an expert embalmer and an expert electrician. The result of their joint efforts was that Dr. Marvin was enabled to remain in his seat in the parlor and by an electrical appliance would rise and bow to his widow and then take his seat again. Ridiculous as this may seem there was no arguing the widow out of its continuance.

After about a year of this kind of enjoyment the widow concluded to give her hand and heart to Joseph Bivens, who had become her business manager. After her marriage she carried him to her home and then it was that she gained the remarkable distinction of having two husbands in her home at the same time—one alive and the other dead. She carried Mr. Bivens to look upon the body of her dead husband in the parlor and it was only after urgent solicitation on his part that she consented to the remains being sent to Macon and buried in Rose Hill Cemetery,

Notwithstanding this very peculiar conduct Mrs. Bivens was a lady of great charity and many Christian virtues.

A Very Unidentified Flying Object

During my blog-related browsing through the odder side of life, I occasionally come across a story that I think is worth sharing with you, Dear Readers, but I’m damned if I know what to say.  I just bung it down, hit the “Publish” button, and say, “Here.  You deal with it.”

This is going to be one of those times.

In the July/August 1970 issue of “Flying Saucer Review,” Gordon Creighton shared a story which he titled, with admirable restraint, “A Weird Case From the Past.”  He heard of the “very strange experience” from one John P. Sutcliffe, who in turn had learned of it from one of the people directly involved, a “lady who is well known to him.”

Creighton got in touch with the lady, Mrs. I.J. Goodwin, who lived in Stranden, Bournemouth, and she agreed to share what she remembered about the episode, which had taken place some forty years previously.

Mrs. Goodwin wrote, “I will tell you the facts of my personal experience exactly as I remember them.

“I was  born in 1924 at 57 North Road, Hertford, Hertz.  One day in 1929, at about the age of five, I was playing in the garden.  With me was my eight-year-old brother (Mr. Priest, now living at Moordown, Bournemouth.)  He was suffering from an infected knee, due to a fall, and was consequently confined at that time to a chair.

“At that date the road was a lane, with just two pairs of houses, one of which was ours, and behind the houses there was an orchard.

“So far as I can truthfully recall, what happened was that we heard the sound of an engine--what I would today liken to a quietened version of a trainer plane.  My brother and I looked up and saw, coming over the garden fence from the orchard, this small aeroplane (of biplane type) which swooped down and landed briefly, almost striking the dustbin.  It remained there for possibly just a few seconds and then took off and was gone, but in that short time I had a perfect view not only of the tiny biplane but also of a perfectly proportioned tiny pilot wearing a leather flying helmet, who waved to us as he took off.

“Neither my brother nor I ever spoke of the strange sight, so far as I recall, until about ten years ago when, in the presence of our mother and of other members of the family, I asked him whether he recalled the episode.  He replied that he too had wondered many times, over the years, about that tiny plane and its tiny occupant.

“May I be permitted to add here that my brother is so honest that he would certainly not claim anything beyond what he could truthfully recall of an experience.

“I am very sorry that I cannot swear to the exact measurements, but I would estimate the wing-span of the tiny aircraft at no more than 12-15 inches, with the tiny pilot in perfect proportion thereto.

“Although I do not recall his having said it, my brother apparently went into the house and told mother: ‘That aeroplane nearly hit the dustbin.’

“This is a true and honest account as I remember it.  The house and garden still exist, but the orchard has long ceased to be there.

“I have no explanation to offer, but I do know that this was not a figment of my imagination and, although I have not mentioned this correspondence to my brother, I give you herewith his address so that you may question him too should you wish to do so.

“I trust that you will glean something of interest from my experience, and I shall be most interested to hear of any explanation that you can give.  You have my permission to print this account.”

Creighton believed that we should take stories like the above very seriously, no matter how bizarre they might be.  He noted that “Tiny, shape-changing, size-changing, tenuous creatures of some sort of highly plastic matter have been reported throughout all history and from every land.  We can no longer afford to sit back smugly and laugh them off.  The reports about them must be collected and studied.  We are going to be very surprised by what we find.”

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This item from “Shreveport Times,” June 19, 1953, is one of those difficult to categorize stories that go into the “Just Plain Weird” file.

Houston, June 18.--Five persons, all of whom live in the same house, complained to police they saw a combination of Superman and Captain Midnight perched in an oak tree outside their home early Thursday and said he disappeared in the light of a mysterious "rocket" and a second aerial display. 

Police said they were "investigating" the stories but admitted they were not equipped to handle such phenomena as the five persons described. 

Mrs. Hilda Walker, 23, accompanied by her husband, Lloyd, was the first to report the affair to authorities. She said it was 2:30 a.m., and, because it was so hot, her husband, the 14-year-old daughter of the landlady and herself were all sitting on a porch when the entire yard seemed wrapped in a heavy shadow.

"All of a sudden this shadow settled in a tree," she said. "We all looked up and saw a 'batman.' He was balancing himself on a tree limb and there was a dim gray light all around him."

She said the creature was about six and a half feet tall, wearing a black cape and skintight dark pants, quarter-length boots and looked like a white man.

"I could see him plainly and could see he had big wings folded at his shoulders," she said. Walker and young Judy Meyers, daughter of Mrs. Vivian Meyers, agreed in all respects.

They said after the batman perched in the tree a few moments while they sat paralyzed and watched, a mysterious white flame and smoke shot from behind him and a burning object, like a "flying paintbrush" scooted across the horizon, and the "batman" faded from view. 

Mrs. Meyers said she got home just in time to see the "flying paintbrush" scoot across the sky and another roomer, age 71, said he saw the weird shadowy fellow in the tree, though he said he merely "went back in and went to bed." 

The Walkers agreed it could not have been their imagination and said they were so upset they were thinking about returning to Bryan, Texas, from where they moved only three months ago.

Bunty and the Beastie

"Aberdeen Press," March 26, 1934

A lonely little family is living in an isolated area.  Then, they begin hearing the sound of a mysterious, invisible creature merrily chatting away to them…

No, it’s not Gef the Mongoose.  It’s the Scottish Beastie.

Nine-year-old Isabella “Bunty” Ross lived in the Tarves district of Aberdeenshire, Scotland with her grandparents,  Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Wilkie.  (The newspapers do not seem to have recorded what became of Bunty’s parents.)  Life in their rural cottage was comfortable enough for the child, but also dull and lonely.  Aside from the Wilkies, Bunty’s only companion was her black cat, Topsy.

Let me amend that.  She acquired an additional companion.  And it was one nobody could have expected.  

One day in December 1933, the little household heard a mysterious voice coming from behind a wall of their home.  At first, they were frightened, but by the time several months had passed, the three were chatting away with The Voice (which spoke in a “broad Buchan accent,”) as if it were an old friend coming to call.  It was better than the radio.

Mrs. Wilkie once asked it, “What are you?  Have you four legs?”

“Aye,” The Voice replied.

“Have you a tail?” she inquired.

“No, but I have a beak.”

The Voice informed them that it was fond of chicken, but declined to come out to get some, explaining that Mr. Wilkie had “plugged up the hole.”  (Soon after they moved into their cottage, Mr. Wilkie had filled in a small hole in one wall of the house.)

The “Beastie” (as the household soon dubbed their visitor) was both talented and versatile.  It could recite the alphabet, count up to twenty, say the Lord’s Prayer, and sing “A Bicycle Built For Two” and “Jesus Loves Me.”  Beastie occasionally talked to visitors, although it would, we are told, tell them “what it thought of them in a very straightforward manner when they became too inquisitive.”

In late March 1934, shortly after reports of this unusual houseguest hit the newspapers, it was announced that the mystery was solved.  Although Bunty had always been a fluent talker, she had recently developed a bad stutter.  That somehow led to her discovering “by accident” that she had a natural gift for ventriloquism.  She used her newfound talent to amuse herself by fooling everyone into thinking there was some mysterious talking creature living in their wall.  We are told that her secret was uncovered at her school.  During the reading lesson, Bunty’s teacher noticed something unusual about the girl’s voice, and came to the conclusion that the child was a ventriloquist.  When confronted with this revelation, the girl readily confessed.

Mystery solved!  Yay for teacher detectives!  Well, maybe.  And maybe not.  Despite these assertions that their little granddaughter had--no one could explain how--taught herself to throw her voice like an experienced professional, the Wilkies continued to insist otherwise.

“Bunty hid naething tae dee wi’t,” Mr. Wilkie told a reporter indignantly.  “I tell ye it wis a beastie thit wis ahin the wa’.”  He added that, despite what the newspapers claimed, the “Beastie” continued to speak after Bunty’s “confession.”  (“Bit naebody ‘ll believe ma.”)

How could the old couple continue to insist that something genuinely supernatural was going on?  Because both Mr. and Mrs. Wilkie, as well as a neighbor named Lizzie Stott, had frequently spoken with the “Beastie” while Bunty was away at school.

That is the last word we have about the Beastie.  The local newspapers, evidently feeling that things were getting a bit too weird, promptly dropped the story.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

One finds many peculiar "personal ads" in the old newspapers, but this may be the most what-in-freaking-hell one I've seen to date. It appeared regularly in the "New York Evening Post" during July and August of 1807:

TO THE PUBLIC.

A report that a monstrous birth, bearing no marks of the human form, has lately occurred in this city, has within these few weeks been industriously circulated. The malignity of the infamous authors and propagators of that report, whoever they may be, has been carried so far as to fix the detestable charge upon a Young Lady of spotless innocence and merit--and, as if the villains were determined that the tale should gain belief, they have even affected to designate the Physicians who attended at the Birth.

We, therefore, who are the physicians so said to have given our attendance, and who have hereto subscribed our names do most solemnly and unequivocally declare that we have no knowledge of any such occurrence, or of any birth by the lady alluded to; and that from our souls we believe the report to have originated in the most diabolical malice, and to be totally destitute of foundation.

Dated July 31, 1807.

Signed,
JOHN WILSON,
RICHARD S. KISSAM,
JOHN ONDERDONK,
WILLIAM MOORE,
WRIGHT POST,
DANL. B. CORNELIUS,
JOHN RIDDELL,
V.A. SERVANT GRANGEAR, D.M.M.

P.S. Attempts are making by the friends of the young lady, to trace the calumny to its source, for the purpose of inflicting legal and exemplary punishment; and a reward of One Hundred Dollars is hereby offered to any person who will give information of the original author or authors, so as to convict him, her, or them in a court of justice.

It may not be amiss to caution every person against propagating the aforesaid calumny, as, by so doing, they make themselves equally liable in law with the inventor. The peculiar nature of this case is such that the friends of the injured feel themselves justified in saying that they are determined to take every measure within their power to put a speedy end to so cruel and unprecedented a slander.

The printers of country papers, in whose vicinity the tale may have been disseminated, will vindicate injured innocence, and subserve the cause of justice and humanity, by inserting the preceding.

Does anyone else suspect that all these "vindication" efforts by the friends of this nameless young lady just resulted in an early 19th century version of the Streisand Effect?

Mommie Weirdest; or, You Great Big Beautiful Doll

In March 1921, 51-year-old Frank McNally of Hammond, Indiana, got married. The bride was his attractive 26-year-old housekeeper, Hazel Hall. McNally professed to love his wife, but he had an additional, even more urgent reason for marrying: Although he was a divorced man with two children from his previous marriage, he wanted his middle age to be brightened with additional progeny. Precisely nine months after the wedding, his cherished desire was fulfilled when Hazel gave birth to not just one child, but twins--a boy and a girl, whom they named Lauren and Laurene.

Mr. McNally, of course, was ecstatic. And Mrs. McNally was the most devoted and attentive of new mothers. She proudly hovered over her babies, doing everything for them. She was not one of those women who gives birth only to turn the children over to nannies and nurses! In fact, she scarcely ever let her precious infants out of her sight. Mr. McNally happily cooed and cuddled his twins, but all the tasks of feeding, nursing, bathing, and changing the babies all fell to his wife. It was a job she happily accepted: indeed, she insisted on being the sole caregiver.

The McNallys were the ideal early 20th century family.

Well, for a while, at least. A few months after the twins were born, Frank had to admit that Hazel's attitude towards her children was perhaps just a wee bit too attentive. Not to mention "possessive." When friends and neighbors would drop by, naturally eager to fuss over the new little McNallys, Hazel kept them well away from the babies. She always said that they were sleeping and she didn't want to wake them. Unlike most new mothers, she didn't seem to want anyone to even look at her children.

And they certainly did sleep a lot. When Hazel was not tending to them, the twins lay in their darkened nursery, perfectly still and quiet. Their mother claimed they had "weak eyes" and could not bear daylight. Unlike other babies, they never cried or wriggled or fussed when they were left alone.

Odd, that.

Mr. McNally was obviously the most easygoing of men, one of those placid souls who takes life as it comes and never wastes much time brooding over life's many funny little details. The remarkably inert characteristics of his offspring was evidently something he was willing to just shrug off. After all, what did he know about babies? Hazel, who was a trained nurse, saw nothing out-of-the-ordinary about them.

The neighbors, however--particularly the women--began to suspect that there was something not quite right about the McNally twins. Finally, one acquaintance, a Mrs. Agnes Sphirmer, privately persuaded Mr. McNally to let her have a peep at the twins the next time his wife was out of the house.

On the next rare occasion when Hazel was away from her children, Mrs. Sphirmer stole into the McNally house. Like an undercover detective hot on the trail of a mystery, she tiptoed into the twins' bedroom. The babies, as usual, where lying in a deep sleep. When she peered down at the little faces, her heart instantly leaped into her throat. The twins were gazing up at her, with the fixed, unblinking stare of the dead.

When Mrs. Sphirmer examined the babies, only to find that they were not corpses, but two straw-stuffed dolls with china heads, I can't say if she was left more or less horrified than before.

When Agnes informed Mr. McNally that his wife had given birth to a pair of toys, he naturally scrambled for some sort of logical explanation. Understandably reluctant to accept that he had fathered two bundles of straw and painted china, he came to the only other possible alternative. About a month after the, uh, children were, um, born, Hazel had taken the babies for a brief visit to Chicago, ostensibly for medical treatment. Frank decided this meant that his wife had cold-bloodedly slaughtered their newborns and, with diabolical cleverness, secretly substituted them with a pair of dolls. He yelled for the police and had Hazel arrested for murder.

Hazel stood trial for double infanticide in October 1922. It was noted that for someone accused of such a heinous crime, Mrs. McNally appeared to be getting a good deal of amusement from the situation. She had a simple defense, albeit one that raised The Weird to dizzying new heights. When she married Frank, she knew that an operation had left her unable to have children. Realizing how anxious he was for the joys of fatherhood, she fulfilled his wish the only way she could. Hazel nonchalantly explained that she pretended to be pregnant, pretended to give birth, pretended to take care of two flesh-and-blood babies, all to keep her husband happy.

Frank was always nagging her to have children, she shrugged. So, what else was she to do, huh?

One of the first witnesses was Mary Griffith, a nurse who had visited the McNally home a couple of days after the twins were born. She testified how remarkably protective the new mother was of her infants. She would not let anyone, even Mrs. Griffith, near the children. Mrs. McNally had, it seems, even given birth on her own. Mrs. Griffith admitted that she did not get a good enough look at the babies to say whether or not they were real or ringers, but she did say that "I frequently saw her nurse them--at least she appeared to nurse them." Mrs. Griffith took Hazel's little hoax as a personal affront, grumbling that "to sit up there nine days with dolls makes me feel foolish."

During the trial, Hazel changed her story. She now said that her husband had been in on the hoax. They bought the dolls with the intention of just keeping them on display until they were able to adopt the real thing. However, "babies are mighty scarce when you want them most."

She soon found that her faux-motherhood was a "terrible bother...I was living in a neighborhood with a lot of old married women and they insisted on advising me as to the care of my children to make them grow. They couldn't understand why they remained the same size.

"Further, Mr. McNally held this thing over my head. And every time a few pieces of the household bric-a-brac would come his way and I would threaten to leave, he'd say, 'Now you'd better be careful--I'll fix you if you leave me.'"

She concluded her testimony on a philosophical note. "Well, it's over. I left Mr. McNally September 22. I didn't know what he was going to do. I didn't care. I only wanted to get away from him and from his dolls.

"So I was arrested for assault when I bashed him over the head with the mop, and later for murder. But now I am free. And the joke is still on Mr. McNally.

"But really, he got all sorts of fun out of it. He rocked the babies, wheeled them around in the baby buggy...What more could a man of his age want than doll babies?"

Frank had an uncomfortable time on the stand, as no one seemed to be able to resist the urge to laugh at him. He admitted that he had never seen the faces of his children. "I've often carried them, and for weeks wheeled them in a perambulator, but my wife always said that they were very weak babies and that I was not to uncover their faces. It was only by accident that I discovered finally that they were dolls."

Mrs. McNally's doctor, Cyrenus Campbell, stated that he had examined Hazel only once during her "pregnancy," and "there was no doubt of her condition at that time."

I'm guessing his professional colleagues never allowed him to live down that expert diagnosis.

Before the trial was even over, the judge, Henry Cleveland, decided it was time to stop the show. While Hazel McNally was definitely one for the record books, there was no proof she was a murderer. Judge Cleveland ruled that even if she had really given birth, there was no evidence to show the children were dead. And while it may be a wee bit eccentric to pass two dolls off as your babies, it wasn't illegal either. The defendant was free to go. It was a very popular verdict among the women of Indiana, most of whom were evidently wondering why they had never thought of Hazel's nifty little gag themselves. Some of the ladies talked of lynching Mr. McNally for bringing charges against their new heroine.  As she left the courtroom, Hazel cheerfully told reporters that she was--roughly in this order--buying two new dolls, divorcing Frank, and entering law school. (The assault charges against her seem to have been nolle prossed.)

Effanbee, the company that manufactured her youngsters dolls, happily used the case as part of an advertising campaign, boasting "When they are produced so close to life that they fool the father and the neighbors, that's going some!"

Hazel's happy new family.

As for Frank McNally, he preferred to think that his wife was a murderer, rather than that he was an idiot. Until his death in 1923, he continued to stubbornly insist that he had indeed fathered living, breathing twins, who were out there...somewhere.

As far as I can tell, neither McNally asked for custody of Lauren and Laurene.

This is all I can find about the story in the old newspapers, leaving me with the same unanswered question that is undoubtedly now plaguing you: For how long did Hazel think she could keep her little secret, and when the inevitable day of reckoning came, what would she do? Was her plan to one day dump the dolls in the trash, and sorrowfully tell the world they had been kidnapped? Or would she keep buying dolls of gradually increasing size--assuring the neighbors all the while that her offspring were just unusually quiet and reclusive sorts?

I find myself resenting that busybody Mrs. Sphirmer for keeping us from learning what would have happened if Hazel had been allowed to play her game to the end.