The Fire

Look who’s back, back again

Yeah, I kinda flaked for a year there on my postings.

To be honest, my research shut down as I conducted two more vital ones. The search for a new job (my choice, don’t worry!) and a new house (because it was time).

I’m happy to report that both were successful. I’ve got a new gig in Corporate America where I will continue to write, but in a different format and style. And Jason and I, after three years, finally found a place to call our own. Thanksgiving 2010 was spent binge-researching at the Carnegie Library. Thanksgiving 2011 found me elbow deep in paint and spackle.

But now that things have finally calmed down at work and on the homefront, I’ve gone back to my evenings in front of the TV, where I “Play along at home” as I watch ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ The first episode of the season was Friday (Martin Sheen) and I dug into the website after the show.

Saturday’s mission was seeing if I could find out what happened to the Drost kids. Marion, Frank, Thomas and Joseph survived the fire just as Phil and Joe did. Surely, they had scars from that ordeal, and likely more deeply because they lost their sister. Phil, miraculously, kept his sibling.

So, I started poking around. I found the family easily enough in the 1910 Census. Their father was also Frank. And he was an iceman in this family snapshot. Interestingly enough, there is the children’s mother, Teresa. The family appears to be of Polish-German origin, which means over the next two censuses, their national identity will change at least twice as the boarders shift due to war.

But a decade later, Teresa is gone. Frank, as the papers had said, was a police officer for the city. Interesting. I look up at the date on the census. It was recording literally the month before his children became wards of the Allegheny County Juvenile Court. A policeman. With four kids in county care. That alone would be front-page news today.

It’s hard to find big Frank, but by 1930, I think I may have found Marion and little Frank, along with Thomas.

If it is the same family, Marion is now Mrs. Marion Baker, with a young son named Paul who is almost 3 (quick math, NO he is not Howard Lager’s). Frank Drost and Thomas Drost (correct ages) are living with them and recorded as being brothers of the head of household, a title Marion and her husband Stephen seem to share. He’s recorded as Head, but there’s an H next to her name.

Again, though, I can’t be 100 percent sure because someone has used the feature Ancestry gives you to allow corrections to historic documents. I could have made one, for instance, when I saw how badly Pasquale’s name was misspelled in the 1920 Census.The corrected name is something else entirely, which holds me back from believing this is the outcome for Marion and her siblings.

I hope it is. Because that would mean that she at least (I hope) found peace and a home of her own. Her husband is a steelworker, and if Stephen’s personal history held to the wider arc, that would mean the family probably found a solid, middle-class life. And, just like Phil, she managed to keep her immediate family together.

January 1, 2012 0

Questions answered

I just got back from the Brenckle Family Reunion. And oh boy, did I once again hit the motherlode.

So, to answer your question, yes, there’s a significant faction within the family that believes Howard Lager did get away with murder. And there were other concerns, as you can imagine, as well. Particularly with the female members of the family. No one had a definitive answer, though. A few people thought they heard that Howard had gotten Marion pregnant and that was what the fight on the night of the fire was about.

There was also a rift, apparently, among the Brenckle siblings over the use of these farmed out children. A certain part of the family thought it was unethical and it got pretty heated.

But no one could say anything for certain, and because of that, I’m still wary of pinning criminal labels on anyone — even though you can’t defame the dead.

I shared all the stories I had, and also the research I’d done on the Brenckle family itself. I had copies of Raymond and Myrtle’s marriage license, census records for branches of the Brenckle family and a few odds and ends.

After dinner, we went down to the basement because they had a surprise for me.

“I thought you should have them,” they said as they handed over two envelopes of pictures.

If I was shocked by seeing my grandpa on the front page of the newspaper, these two envelopes shocked me even more.

The picture at the top of the page is Phil (right) and Joe (left) the summer after they came to the farm. This is the youngest I have ever seen either boy. Unless I stumble on a trove of baby pictures by a forgotten Venezia relative, it maybe as young as I get.

I look at their faces and I can see that they are happy. It makes my heart soar. They look like they are having a terrific time. After all they’ve been through, they’re in the summer sunshine, together, with clothes and shoes. Grandpa looks a little silly. I’ve seen my brother make that same face when he’s being goofy and someone’s trying to take his picture.

This next one is just Phil with another one of the farmhands. It might even be Howard Lager. I think it kind of looks like him.

These pictures make me think again — if you’ve got dozens of kids passing through your farm just to do work, why take their picture? Why treat them like members of the family if you were just going to cast them out when the season was over? That wasn’t going to be my grandfather’s and great-uncle’s fate, it seems.

This next one cracks me up. Joe, even though he was the baby brother, was the first Venezia boy to get married. In 1932, he married Ruth Broglie. Joe, looking almost like a movie star, is on the left. Phil, on the right, was his best man. Awwwww.

I laugh because my dad looks like that in a tux. He stands the same way, with his hand at his side, fingers curled almost the same way. They look so Godfather. I’m not sure who the little girl or the maid-of-honor are. I’m also shocked to see how much both boys look like their parents. Joe is Francesco with Saverina’s eyes and forehead smoothed over the sharp edges. Phil is his mother, with his father’s thin face pulling what could be too round into a squarish-oval. Two more generations, and my face is what my Grammy always admiringly called “the perfect oval.” I never thought so, but I guess that meant something back in the day. 🙂

I’m full of good food and good memories now. I may not have concrete answers, but I have ideas. And as I think about writing the book, those ideas will surely guide my imagination.

August 23, 2011 0

Thankful for the Carnegie Library — Again

Look at this. Just look at it. I’ve had it in my possession for two days now and I can’t stop staring at it.

This is the first time I’ve seen my grandfather this young. And oh, what a picture it is. It was on the front page of the Pittsburgh Dispatch. It was taken the morning after the fire.

You may not be able to see it very well, but that’s Phil on the far left. Joe, Marion Drost and her brothers, are all standing in front of steps that go to the shell of the burned out house. I stare and stare at Grandpa’s face. In spite of the blur, I can see the despair in his eyes. His jaw is clenched.

Of all the material I found over the last 48 hours, this is the most amazing.

I knew the story was front-page, but a photo like that makes it so viscerally real to me. How many times have Jason and I been on the opposite side of the lens? I feel like I can see the scene going on all around the edges of this picture so clearly.

I won’t be able to link the material I found because I copied it all off microfiche and it doesn’t look like any of the other papers were part of the Google News Archive project. I’ll just have to summarize.

Pittsburgh had half a dozen major newspapers that covered the area. How they approached the story depended on their proximity and, to be honest, objectivity. Some, like the Press and the Gazette, were pretty straightforward. The Dispatch, News Chronicle and Sun, along with a few others, were a more lurid in their coverage. And one paper, I forget which one, got so much wrong in the initial report that I was glad the reporter’s name wasn’t memorialized. I’d have been mortified.

But all that helped me get a much clearer picture of what happened that night because certain facts are consistent throughout the reporting.

They include:

Howard Lager being on the phone with a woman who was not his wife at about midnight on the night of the fire (he was married at the time, but his wife and child were living elsewhere.)
Howard sounding the alarm that roused the house
Howard waking Phil first and the two of them fighting the fire in the kitchen together with pitchers.(This fact just wrenched my heart. He must have been terrified. The fact he escaped out the kitchen window made it all the more harrowing.)
Howard going back upstairs through the flames to rescue his niece and nephew (Anna Mae and Buddy). He saved them and himself by tossing the kids down to Raymond and then climbing down a porch support.
A central furnace had just been installed in the house. Howard recalled the vents on the floor were hot as he passed over them and there was an odor of “varnish” in the air near them.
Phil and Joe corroborating Howard’s statement of the night’s events when on the stand during the inquest.

There were also some very interesting revelations:

The Brenckles had homemade wine and were drinking it that evening. This was during the height of Prohibition. Homemade wine was allowed, but of course anyone who drank was vilified.Oopsie.
There was a fight on the evening before the fire between Myrtle, Howard and Cecilia over a ring. Howard had apparently given it to Cecilia (uh…). Myrtle was flipping out over it. Cecilia returned the ring that evening.
No one saw Cecilia after she went upstairs to bed. She never made it out of the house.
There was confusion among the fire companies over who covered the fire. The property is between Reserve and Ross. The call to their version of 911 went into the city first. There was a significant delay in getting help out to the house.
John Orlowski may have gone back into the house because he wanted to rescue his dog. I can’t even think about how sad that is right now.
The Coroner was really, really hard on Raymond Brenckle. He all but accused the Brenckles of letting the kids burn while they worried about their own family.
The county’s Juvenile Court System was on trial, too. A number of the papers made some pretty good hay out of renting kids out for farmwork. The county paid about $5 a week for their care. When the trial concluded without an indictment, there were lots of speeches and pronouncements about how the District Attorney and President Judge would keep investigating, demanding answers. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. I’ve sat now about 60 hours in front of mircrofiche and intranet search. I don’t see a scintilla of follow-up on this case. At least, until the next tragedy.

I’m in Pittsburgh to celebrate Thanksgiving with Mary Ann, Mike and my cousins, so it’s been incredible sharing these revelations with them. And I’m feeling even more thankful that none of us ever had to live through something like this.

November 25, 2010 0

What we learned at the inquest

The Coroner’s Inquest has arrived and it left me feeling a little empty. There was some good stuff, for sure, but what was missing was the transcript. Surely, somewhere in the bowels of the Allegheny County archives, there must the record of what was said during the hearing over whether the fire was intentionally set.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m really happy to have it. It’s part of my general research on the case itself and it fills in a few details.

** WARNING: GRUESOME DISCUSSION AHEAD.**

So, anyway, the details of the kids’ deaths are pretty horrible. And the autopsy records are the stuff of nightmares.They were incinerated virtually beyond recognition. All that was left of poor Cecilia was the middle of her body. Poor little John was a head, upper torso and part of a femur. What’s interesting, and frankly odd, is that the coroner DUG UP THE BODIES to autopsy them. Uh, wait. What? Doesn’t a coroner hold a body and then release it for burial after a cause of death is decided? The bodies were buried shortly after Dec. 13th. The autopsy was conducted on the 30th. Both autopsy reports note the putrid odor of the remains.

I missed that little, about the hasty burial, when I read that article about the funeral services. I’d presumed the autopsy had been performed before the burial.

All that was left of both children was bones wrapped in a tarp. My heart broke for them. And for their parents. Yes, parents. In re-reading that funeral article, I also saw that the Drost kids father was still alive, as was John Orlowski’s father. Both are mentioned as having either attended the service or were being sought for contact. Phil and Joe were the only “true” orphans in this equation.

It was interesting to see that the Coroner’s office provided a Press Report, which contained the verdict, all the witnesses and general information about the deceased.

There was also a Proof of Identity document for Cecilia and John. Each contains critical information, such as when they were remanded to care and when they came to live at the Brenckles. I note that Camilla Barr, whose name appears in conjunction with Mary Venezia’s petition to have South Side Trust named as guardian of the money Pasquale left her, was the person in charge of Cecilia.

The cause of death, obviously, was incineration. Nothing further could be determined by the remains, including the sex of each body, according to the doctor who performed the autopsy — DeWayne Ritchey of Mercy Hospital. That fact was probably what made it hard for the jury to indict Howard Lager.

** OK TO RESUME READING IF YOU SKIPPED THE LAST PART **

Another interesting find was that Walter Black was indeed the person who oversaw the cases of all the children at the Brenckles. So, he was Phil and Joe’s caseworker. Interesting that the head of the department was the person overseeing them.

The documents also show that John had come to the farm roughly the same time as the Drosts. All things being equal, I’m going to go ahead and just figure Phil and Joe did as well. It looks as if the Brenckles were purposefully taking in sibling groups. Some people may quibble with me on this, but I think it’s at least a little kind-hearted. It’s pretty meaningful for kids who face the kinds of trauma all of them faced to have their siblings.

But what I really need is that transcript! If I’m going to really find the truth, I’m going to have to know exactly what was said by whom and when. I think my next stop is probably the State Archives.

June 5, 2010 0

Collecting evidence

The more deeply I go into this story, the more I see how important it was. This clip is from the Reading Eagle, a newspaper that publishes in the suburbs between Harrisburg and Philadelphia. News of the fire made it all the way out here.

I’ve spent hours on the Google news archive.

The fire took place Dec. 13, 1922 in Mount Troy, Reserve Township.

Pittsburgh Press Dec. 14, 1922 edition: John and Cecilia’s burial. And here another revelation. There were more Drosts. Marion Drost, 16, Frank, 11, Joseph, 10, and Thomas, 7. There was a Coroner’s Inquest, which must mean there’s a record somewhere. I’ll give them a call on Monday and see how to access them.

Pittsburgh Press Dec. 16, 1922 edition: The headline says it all “Sordid Sensation Born of Tragedy at Brenckle Home.” Oh man. It looks like they’re starting to make the case to arrest Howard Lager on suspicion of starting the fire and on the accusations made by Marion Drost, Cecilia’s older sister.

We also meet a new cast of Allegheny County characters:

W.J. McGregor, the county coroner.

Samuel Triplett, the deputy county coroner.

County Detectives Joseph Dye, W.O. Alexander, Harry Barker and T.A. Sidenstricker.

Chief Probation Officer Walter Black. It looks like Walter had charge over the Drosts. What’s sad is that Marion and the rest of the kids (I presume Phil and Joe are among them) are sent to “the detention rooms.” Sounds ominous. And completely unfair. You’re essentially locking up the victim of a potential crime and all the witnesses. I’m enraged on their behalf.

Thomas Pfarr, the county fire marshal. The article quotes him as saying he believed the fire was set using gas.

Pittsburgh Press Dec. 17, 1922. It just keeps getting worse. Howard’s been arrested, and it looks like he has all but admitted to “relations” (shudder) with Marion. But he adamantly denies setting the house on fire. Marion’s apparently told the court that he’d abused her since she came to the farm three years ago. So, about 1919-1920. Hmmm. Makes me wonder if Phil and Joe were also there that long.

The next few days are silent on the case and it dawns on me that if Phil and Joe did indeed go to the detention rooms, they very likely spent Christmas there. My heart breaks for them all over again. How much more are these poor boys going to go through?

March 28, 2010 0

Shocked

I’m still shaking.

I’m shocked. I’m stunned. And I am also now completely obsessed.

One of the last searches I did before bed the other night brought up a strand of information I’d never seen before. I found it using a variation of Phil’s name.

There was a fire. Remember how I’d said the old Brenckle farmhouse burned down? Well, let me tell you, there’s a whole lot more to it than that.

Because it seems during the same year Ottavio was seeking the trust for the siblings, Phil and his brother were embroiled in a scandalous, front-page saga as Allegheny County investigated the cause of Brenckle farm fire.

Two children, apparently other wards of Allegheny County, died in the blaze. Grandpa and Joe had to take the stand and testify about what happened that night.

“Others who testified yesterday were Philip Venezia [hooray to the reporter who got his name spelled right], another ward of the court wards who made his home with the Brenckles. Philip said that after the fire had started, he saw John, the child whose body afterwards was found in the ruins of the house, with the other children. No one though saw Cecilia at any time.

Philip told how Lager had helped the children from the house. Joseph Venezia, another court ward, also living with the Brenckles, gave about the same testimony as his brother Philip about seeing John after the fire started. The supposition is that John went back into the burning house and could not get out. Lager is being held without bail.”

Cecilia is Cecilia Drost, 13, and John is John Orlowski, 9. Both of them were wards of Allegheny County, just as Phil and Joe were. Lager is Howard Lager, Myrtle’s brother, who apparently lived at the farm, too. From what I gather from other articles, it seems that Howard was suspected of not only starting the fire, but of starting it to cover up the fact he was sexually abusing Cecilia.

Their death was enough to raise serious questions about how the Juvenile Court was overseeing its wards (terminology at the time for foster children). So much so that the Press wrote a strongly-worded editorial condemning them and the practice of “farming out.”

The whole thing leaves me feeling sick. Sick, too, because more than 80 years later, nothing’s changed. Kids still die and get abused by the people the state says should take care of them.

I’ve been on the phone with my parents on and off all day as I uncover a new article. My dad is as shocked as I am.

“Never,” he said. “I never, ever heard about this. Neither did Mary Ann. I called her to ask. This is incredible.”

It seems, from what I found so far, no charges were leveled in the blaze. I haven’t found anything on whether Howard Lager was convicted of sexual assault or similar charges.

Even with the news articles, there are so many unanswered questions. Looks like I have a new mystery.

March 27, 2010 0

findingphilblog

In search of my grandfather's past … and maybe a book deal

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