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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (June 8, 2016)
4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL June 8, 2016 O PINION Offbeat Oregon History Albany’s “Queen of Fakirs” belongs in con artists’ hall of fame BY FINN J.D. JOHN For the Sentinel W hen D.C. Davis fi rst met Hazel Petterson, she was lying, frail and sickly, in a hotel bed in Yacolt, Wash- ington. She’d been taken there following a horrifying mishap on the Northern Pa- cifi c Railroad on April 9, 1909. It seemed someone had left a suitcase in the aisle, and the train’s crew hadn’t no- ticed. As the train had pulled into Yacolt, there had been a sudden lurch, and poor Mrs. Petterson, her baby in her arms, had been thrown forward and tripped over the suitcase. Crashing to the fl oor with a dramatic scream as she held her baby safely away from harm, she’d writhed there in agony, spitting teeth and blood and clutching her side. Hastily removed to the hotel bed in which she now rested, they had learned the extent of her injuries — and they were astonishing. Her ankle appeared to be broken, with a bone out of place, al- though it had not yet started swelling. She appeared to have at least one broken rib. One of her pupils was dilated while the other was normal — a known sign of ei- ther eye injury or brain trauma. And she’d spat two teeth out upon the fl oor of the train amid a welter of blood, the appar- ent result of a lung hemorrhage, possibly punctured by the broken rib. This was bad. And it seemed to be get- ting worse. Davis learned that Mrs. Petter- son was a wealthy widow from Calgary, the sort of person who could be expected to take legal action against the railroad if she felt unfairly treated. So Davis spent nearly a week attending to her. A local doctor examined her, confi rmed her inju- ries and set her ankle in a plaster cast. Davis’s fi rst priority was to forestall any litigation and attendant bad public- ity. So as soon as he could, before any additional symptoms could appear, he hurriedly started negotiating a settlement with the injured woman. She fi nally ac- cepted a payment of $1,250, and he wrote a bank draft out on the spot. Then he set about getting her ready to go back to Calgary. She was loaded in a stretcher on a baggage car and sent to Vancouver; then she was placed in an au- tomobile and gingerly driven down into Portland, in the care of two nurses hired by the railroad. They fi rst took her to the railroad’s banking house, where Davis vouched for her identity and she cashed the draft — taking most of it in gold. This was probably the moment when the fi rst hints of doubt started to cross Davis’s mind. Why would a wealthy widow faced with nothing more than a week-long train trip home want the trouble of lugging all that gold along with her? Mrs. Petterson checked into a hotel. Davis went out, at her request, to fi nd an attorney for her, make an appointment with an eye specialist and arrange accom- modations on a train back to Calgary. She then sent one of the nurses to make travel arrangements. Immediately after the nurse departed, Mrs. Petterson hopped out of bed and made a phone call. Within minutes she’d left the hotel — having somehow made a miraculous recovery — and disappeared into the night. When Davis returned, she was gone. Following a quick series of inquiries to Calgary by telegraph, the dismayed Mr. Davis learned that there was no recently widowed Mrs. Petterson. He also learned that a very odd thing had been found in Mrs. Petterson’s hotel room in Yacolt: A small packet of red powder, which had been recognized immediately as fake blood. There could now be no doubt: D.C. Da- vis had been taken for a ride. And, worse yet, he knew exactly who had conned him. All the railroad claims agents, all over the West, had been talking about her. She could be none other than the “Queen of Fakirs,” Maud Myrtle Johnson — a smooth and talented actress who over the previous few years had bilked railroads and streetcar companies all over the west- ern United States to the tune of at least $200,000. And, in what must have been a particu- larly bitter revelation to poor Mr. Davis, it turned out that the train she’d been riding on had been carrying Maud Johnson away from the courthouse in Seattle, where she’d just been acquitted on charges of soaking the Seattle streetcar company for $600 in precisely the same way. Maud Johnson was born Maud Myrtle Wagnon, on a farm near Albany. After her mother died, her father left her in a convent in Salem and moved to Portland, where, in an ironic twist, he became a po- lice offi cer. Maud seems to have been something of a hellion. When she was 14, she sued a man for seduction under promise of mar- riage, and at 16 ran away from the con- vent to which she had been committed with another man. She soon drifted into a life of crime — and, it seems, of Vaudeville. At the same time she was becoming well known to the police departments of Salem, Portland, and Pendleton, she was also acquiring a very unusual set of skills. By 1906, Maud could dislocate an an- kle, a knee, and a rib at will. Born with a slightly misshapen chest, she learned to pose it to maximize an illusion of bro- kenness. One of her eyes was noticeably different in appearance than the other — possibly the result of some old injury — and she could exacerbate that by dilat- ing its pupil at will. And she developed a macabre ability to bite on her gums in a way that produced blood on demand. So Maud took her show on the road. Adopting a foundling baby from an or- phanage to use as a prop — she knew a settlement would be far more likely if a baby were involved — she took her show on the road with a small group of accom- plices, bilking railroad and streetcar LETTERS TO THE EDITOR More on the Airport Thanks to Jon Stinnett for a great article about the Cottage Grove Air- port welcome center. I want to thank the Woodard Foundation and City of Cottage Grove for their generosity and belief in this project. Our Airport is the aviation gateway to Cottage Grove, which makes it a perfect match for a tourist informa- tion center for pilots and their pas- sengers. It has almost 10,000 visitors a year, and recently the Department of Aviation invested in a new multi million-dollar runway. For about 20 years there has been no real bathroom for visitors or local tenants. What does that tell visitors CONTACT YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS Cottage Grove City Hall: 942-5501. www.cottagegrove.org/ Cottage Grove Mayor Tom Munroe: 942-5501. Cottage Grove City Councilors: Mike Fleck, At Large: 942-7302 K. Michael Roberts, At Large: 942- 5501 Jake Boone, Ward 1: 653-7413 Jeff Gowing, Ward 2: 942-1900 Garland Burback, Ward 3: 942- 4800 Amy Slay, Ward 4: 942-5501 about Cottage Grove? How many of those 10,000 visitors came to down- town or even knew we had one? We are missing a great opportunity to promote business and recognition of the treasured assets in our commu- nity. We will encourage pilots and their passengers to visit our city and return for future visits. The City of Cottage Grove is providing a courte- sy car for transportation into down- town. We will also have bicycles available for their use along with bus and taxi information. The 432 sqare foot Airport wel- come center will promote tourism and economic vitality and attract po- tential aviation business to the Cot- tage Grove Airport. It will contain information about restaurants, ho- tels, golf courses, shops, museums, events, bike trails and more, as well as a providing a much needed bath- room. The Airport welcome center will aid in the desirability to build more hangars and add to the prop- erty tax revenue for the city. We have hit the halfway mark of our fundraising. Tax-deductible do- nations can be made to: Welcome Center-OAHS, PO Box 553, Cottage Grove, OR 97424. I am proud to be part of this great project. Lane County Commissioners: Salem, OR 97301-0001 Phone: (503) 986-1704 Fax: (503) 986-1080 Email: sen.fl oydprozansski@state. or.us Faye Stewart, East Lane Commis- sioner Lane County Public Service Build- ing 125 East 8th Street Eugene, OR 97401 Phone: (541) 682-4203 Fax: (541) 682-4616 Oregon State House of Representatives: Rep. Cedric Hayden (REP) District: 007 900 Court Street NE Suite H-288 Salem, OR 97301 Phone: (503) 986-1407 Fax: (503) 986-1130 Email: rep.cedrichayden@state. or.us Oregon State Senate: Sen. Floyd Prozanski (DEM) District: 004 900 Court Street NE Suite S-319 Please see OFFBEAT, Page 11A Nadine Kelley Project Mgr., CG Airport welcome center Governor: Kate Brown 160 State Capitol 900 Court Street Salem, Oregon 97301-4047 Phone: (503) 378-4582 Fax: (503) 378-6827 United States House of Representatives: Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (DEM) District: 004 United States House of Representa- tives 2134 Rayburn House Offi ce Build- ing Washington, DC 20515-0001 Phone: (202) 225-6416 Fax: (202) 225-0032 Email: http://www.house.gov/form- defazio/contact.html Preventing osteoporosis with excellent nutrition BY JOEL FUHRMAN, MD For the Sentinel B one health is directly linked to nutrition. Cer- tain foods promote breakdown of bone and osteoporosis. Other foods, such as fruits and veg- etables, supply your body with the nutrients necessary to build $ PUUBHF ( SPWF 4 FOUJOFM 116 N. Sixth Street · P.O. Box 35 · Cottage Grove, OR 97424 ADMINISTRATION: JOHN BARTLETT, Regional Publisher.............................. GARY MANLY, General Manager................942-3325 Ext. 207 • publisher@cgsentinel.com ROBIN REISER, Sales Repersentative...............942-3325 Ext. 203 • robin@cgsentinel.com TAMMY SAYRE, Sales Repersentative......... 942-3325 Ext. 213 • tsayre@cgsentinel.com SPORTS DEPARTMENT: SAM WRIGHT, Sports Editor...................942-3325 Ext. 204 • sports@cgsentinel.com CUSTOMER SERVICE CARLA WILLIAMS, Office Manager.................942-3325 Ext. 201 • billing@cgsentinel.com LEGALS.............................................................942-3325 Ext. 200 • legals@cgsentinel.com NEWS DEPARTMENT: JON STINNETT, Editor......................................942-3325 Ext. 212 • cgnews@cgsentinel.com GRAPHICS: RON ANNIS, Graphics Manager (USP 133880) and main- tain healthy, s t r o n g bones and prevent os- teoporosis. A number of substanc- es in foods promote the loss of calcium in the urine, which leads to bone loss and os- teoporosis. The foods we should avoid to protect the health of our bones include animal products, salt, soda and caffeinated bev- erages. Salt and caffeine are known contributors to calcium loss. Also, high caffeine intake is associated with increased bone loss and osteoporotic frac- tures. Animal protein and other high-protein foods leave acidic residues in the blood, and the body responds by dissolving bone to release basic calcium salts to neutralize the acid. This results in loss of calcium in the urine. Many studies have found animal protein intake to be as- sociated with low bone mass. In contrast, plant protein intake is associated with decreased hip fractures in the elderly. Natu- ral plant foods do not leave an acidic residue in the blood or promote urinary calcium excre- tion. Soda, including diet and decaffeinated soda, is associ- ated with bone loss. Soda con- sumption increases parathyroid hormone (PTH) in the blood, which increases blood calcium concentrations by stimulating bone breakdown. This increased blood calcium is then excreted in the urine. Whole plant foods are the best foods for bones. Studies show that individuals with the highest consumption of fruit and vegetables have the stron- gest bones. A diet full of greens, beans and seeds provides the calcium required to maintain healthy bone. Green vegetables in particular are rich calcium sources. For example, one four- ounce serving of steamed kale has just as much calcium as one cup of milk. Broccoli, bok choy, sesame seeds and gar- banzo beans are also excellent calcium sources. Furthermore, the body absorbs about 50 per- cent of the calcium in many green vegetables, compared to only 32 percent of the calcium in milk. Green vegetables are also high in vitamin K, which is a crucial component for main- taining healthy bones. Nuts and seeds are rich in magnesium, an essential mineral for the forma- tion of bone tissue. They also help maintain adequate calorie and protein intake to maintain muscle and bone mass without having to rely on high acid- forming animal products. Also, don’t forget about exer- cising and supplementing with vitamin D. Both of these prac- tices are extremely important for bone health. Dr. Fuhrman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat to Live and Super Immuni- ty, and a board certifi ed family physician specializing in life- style and nutritional medicine. Visit his informative website at DrFuhrman.com. Submit your questions and comments about this column directly to news- questions@drfuhrman.com. 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