SIOUX CITY

Kudo's to the Sioux City Journal! Great Journalism!

I read the Christian Science Monitor report on the Sioux City Journal's publication of the death of Kenneth Weishuhn Jr.  The reflection of the role of community is welcome and refreshing.  The response of a community is very important when a child dies.  Compare Sioux City's response to that of the Florida community most recently in the news.  If more communities share the concern exhibited by Sioux City, maybe more of our children can be saved.

The story struck me because I visited Sioux City in the late 90's in search of information regarding the death of another boy, 12 years of age, that occurred in that town in 1933.  He was murdered.  You see, from my earliest memories I was told that my name came from that boy.  He was my Dad's youngest brother, and was born in Missouri in 1921.  Even though I was able to verify much of what I had been told,  more than sixty-five years later;  mysteries still linger.

If you visit the abandoned section of the city Cemetery, you'll find at the bottom of a steep slope, in a ravine, under a spreading tree, a solitary white marble cross.  That is his grave.  Who put that expensive cross on that lonely grave (especially in the depth of the Depression) is just one of the mysteries.

The boy was 3 years old when his mother died.  He and his 5 year old brother and seven year old sister were bundled onto a train by the Missouri state Welfare and shipped to Wichita, Kansas.  From there, he somehow wound up in Omaha, Nebraska and, finally, in Sioux City, Iowa where he was shot-gunned.

I had been told that he was killed in the Depression to collect insurance money.  In my research, I found there was a child killed in Iowa for insurance around that time, but it was not him.  The woman who shot him claimed he had stolen a gold watch.  The trial revealed that the watch had been taken to a jeweler by the woman's husband.  How he wound up with that couple is still a mystery.  I was able to find, in a Sioux City nursing home, his cousin, who, at 4 years old, witnessed the murder.  He said my uncle did not steal the watch.

The murder took place around the time that President Roosevelt closed the banks in this country and had citizens turn in their gold.  Even though we may be facing tough times today, 1933 was miserable  for U.S. citizens.  Sioux City was especially rough!  Children were especially vulnerable. The Sioux City Journal ran a series of articles on the murder and the trial of the murderer, beginning April 25, 1933, and running through May 29, 1933.

If  you should visit the grave, put a flower on for me?  Thanks!
 
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