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The Death of a Club Man 145 However, it didn’t take long for authorities to discover that the woman claiming to be Mrs. Ketcham was the notorious Minnie Wallace Walkup, acquitted of poisoning her first husband in 1885, in a controversial verdict. In light of that discovery (with information furnished by the Ketchams in Toledo), an inquest was ordered, to determine whether the deceased’s organs contained lethal amounts of poison. For anyone who had been in Emporia, Kansas, in August 1885 and was now in Chicago in 1897, it must have seemed like déjà vu. Once again, Minnie’s calm demeanor and lack of emotion were startling. She gave interviews in the luxuriously appointed rooms of the house where her husband’s body was undergoing an autopsy, telling reporters it was John who wanted their marriage kept a secret (even though he had supposedly blurted it out to Joe Keller). But she did learn something from all that negative publicity in Emporia, and when she knew the neighbors were watching the house, she went upstairs and sat in a window overlooking the street, striking poses of anguish for their benefit.20 John’s family was stunned to learn not only of his death but that he had been married for almost two months. They had no intention of letting what remained of his wealth pass to this woman who was obviously a gold digger. They would challenge both the will and the wedding: John could not have been in his right mind for either of those events. And they wanted their son and brother’s body for burial in the family plot in Toledo . But they knew not with whom they reckoned, notwithstanding her Two examples of Minnie’s signatures on official documents To view this image, please refer to the print version of this book Chicago, 1893–1902 146 young age, as Minnie gave every indication of fighting them on all fronts, including burial rights. she told reporters about the plot in Forest Home, conveniently omitting the fact that her mother already occupied one of the two sites: “John will be buried in my lot in [Forest Home] cemetery, where i expect to lie beside him when my time comes.”²¹ There were challenges from others, as well. John Ketcham had dated quite a few women and it was rumored that some of these would come forward to claim rights as common-law wives. indeed, two of them showed up on minnie’s doorstep hoping to scare her into settling with them, but she did not scare easily and they were sent away.²² in illinois in 1897, as in some other states at the time, legislation regarding common-law marriages was an open invitation to fraud and blackmail. No third party was necessary to witness the promise the couple made to each other in a private exchange of vows, as long as there was some kind of evidence that the two people intended to ally themselves. What started out as a well-intentioned law often ended up with unscrupulous people coming forward to claim this relationship when a wealthy person died, as was the case with John Ketcham.²³ minnie was well aware of the law and wisely foresaw that she would have a better claim if she could actually get a marriage license rather than stand in line with all of John’s other “spouses.” she may have moved John to her house not only to control him but to establish just such a relationship, especially since she waited so long to marry him. However, the insistence of George Ketcham and friends of John to be allowed to see him must have alerted minnie to the likelihood of a stiff challenge to a common-law marriage—hence, the trip to milwaukee. When the suspicions against minnie hit the newspapers, Gladys Forbes and Josephine Moffitt came to assure her that they knew lawyers who could see to it that nothing would happen to her. Dethlef Hansen, who was probably more astute about public opinion than minnie and also did not want to lose “his” case to another attorney, took her aside and told her that if people saw these courtesans calling on her, it would not look good. Besides, a story about the “party house” where minnie spent her evenings with other men as her husband lay dying had already been published. it was important to avoid any new scandal.24 So when she testified at the inquest...

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