Iowa – Page 7

Episode 53: The Insane Doctor: Medicine, Drugs, and Murder in a Small-Town

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Dr. George Appleby was everything a small-town doctor should be: polite, gentle, and caring. But under the surface seethed hidden secret that would burst forth one dark day in 1900. Sources ‘Mad Deed of A Doctor.’ The Courier, 1/10/1900 ‘Dr. Appleby’s Crime.’ The Evening Times-Republican, 1/10/1900 ‘Insane Doctor’s Crime.’ The Des Moines Register, 1/10/1900 […]

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Episode 48: Ghosts of the Pandemic, Part 2: Home Front

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In 1918, Americans on the home front were supporting their troops fighting in Europe while waging a war of their own against a deadly pandemic. Does one of the souls lost to the flu still haunt a Midwestern college? Sources Fannon-Langton, Dianne. The Ghost of Helen Roberts. The Gazette, 10/20/2019 Langton, Diane. Time Machine: Flu killed

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Episode 46: Ghosts of the Pandemic, Part 1: Arrival

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As America prepared to fight World War I, the deadliest pandemic the world has ever seen arrived silently. 50 million people died. Do some of them still wander the earth? Sources Garamone, Jim. World War I: Building the American Military. http://www.defense.gov Barry, John M. The site of origin of the 1918 influenza pandemic and

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The Devil You Know: The John Hoskins Murders

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I have always loved Adams County. Located in the southwestern portion of the state, Adams county is the least populous county in Iowa, containing just under 3700 people. It’s very rural, and is comprised of rolling hills and rich green fields. People still wave to you in the street, or raise an index finger in

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Ghosts of the Pandemic, Part 2: Home Front

2 Comments / Iowa, Uncategorized / The Kitchen Table Historian

When I was attending Iowa State University, I decided that I needed to take up running. Up until that point, running was never my thing. I didn’t like it. I preferred to walk. All through my life, I had loved to go hiking out in the woods. I would walk for miles, taking in the

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Table Scraps, Vol. 2

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History is a forgetful creature. While there is much about our past that we know, there is so much more that we don’t. If the stories aren’t written, or aren’t passed down through the generations in their retelling, then the knowledge is often lost. Sometimes, though, we catch glimpses of that hidden past. It might

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Episode 40: The Bandits in the Blizzard

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If you had just spent eight years in prison, would you return to a life of crime? If you did, but got caught, what would you do to keep from going back behind bars? Today, we explore the story of Paul and Everett Schroeder, two Iowa brothers who went to desperate lengths to escape justice

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The Emotional Insanity of George Scott

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In the 1870’s, the town of Delmar, Iowa, had a problem. They were a railroad town, and with the railroads had come the railroad laborers. While some of them were no doubt polite and well-behaved, there were many others who were not. Many of these ruffians liked to drink. They liked to drink so much

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Episode 36: The Emotional Insanity of George Scott

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George Scott was a loving family man. All of a sudden, he became convinced that his wife was trying to kill him. The drastic steps he took to take care of that would shock his close-knit neighborhood to its very foundations. Sources “The Delmar Tragedy.” Daily Davenport Democrat, 2/25/1874 The Morning Democrat, 2/25/1874 “The

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Episode 35: Frozen Secrets

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In 1927, William Coffey was a middle-aged newlywed on top of the world. His wife’s family began to suspect that something wasn’t quite right with him when they hadn’t heard from her. While they thought he was a con man, they had no idea about the frozen secrets he was keeping. Sources

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