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Thursday, December 31, 1903
James Curran feared the worst. His youngest sister
May had been talking about going to work in Chicago
and now here was her name among the dead from that horrible theater fire,
reportedly living at 299 Webster St.▼1
Could it be May? She'd been going by
Marie the last couple years but they'd
called her May as a child, family still did,
and the Chicago police said the victim was
wearing a watch engraved, "May Curran."
Fifteen years younger, May was more like his
daughter than a sister; he had raised her
since she was nine. When he married in
1895, Mary's children, Winaford and Maude,
became like May's siblings.
Since January they hadn't seen much of May.
She was working for a perfume manufacturer,
Frederick F. Ingraham, and lodging on Adams
Avenue. His wife and May got on
well but even Mary didn't know much about
May's life now. According to their last
letter from her, she was working in Chicago for a
company that sold cash trading stamps, owned
by a man named Preston S. Fancher.
Hurrah! A
letter from May, brought by messenger.
She says she returned to Detroit from
Chicago Wednesday night and saw her name in
the newspaper list. She wants James and Mary
to know she is fine. The messenger
says he was given the letter by a clerk at a
hotel near the Grand Trunk depot on Brush Street. The
handwriting looks suspicious to James,
though.
Could it be a forgery by an imposter?
James and Mary board a train for Chicago to
make sure. Riding
as a passenger was a change for James, an
engineer for the Michigan Central Railroad.▼2
Friday, January 1, 1904
In Chicago, equipped with a letter
from Detroit police chief George W. Fowle, James and Mary
are assigned a Chicago detective to escort
them to Rolston's mortuary to view the female body
thought to be May Curran. To their
relief, the body is not May. James and Mary
spend hours touring all the other Chicago
mortuaries, viewing the remaining bodies and
satisfying themselves that May is not among
them. They
become convinced May is working for the
Minneapolis branch of the cash trading stamp
company and talk to a newspaper in hopes
she'll see the story and contact them.
The body at Rolston's is identified as
that of
Margarethe Annen.
Monday, January 2, 1904
A second letter from May awaits upon
their return to Detroit. With it is a watch that James
had gifted
May eight years earlier. The letter
expresses incredulity that they think she and the
Chicago victim are connected. The
letter fails to assuage her brother and
sister-in-law's concern. They
sense that something is amiss and James sets
out to investigate. When he can't
learn anything about the delivery of the
most recent letter, James focuses on the
first letter. He goes to the hotel and
speaks with the clerk who delivered it. The
clerk says that the letter was brought to
him in the hotel not by a guest of the hotel
but by a stranger who said he was in a hurry
to catch a train to Chicago. He paid
the clerk to deliver the letter to James,
first gaining the clerk's assurance that it
would be delivered as soon as possible.
Wednesday, January 6, 1904 (approximate
date)
James seeks input from an
expert. He takes the two letters and a
third one from May to
a public school teacher who teaches
handwriting, William P. Lyon. In Lyon's
opinion, the recent letters were written by
the same person as the one from the past.
James and Mary conclude that May is in
Detroit and for some reason avoiding them.
As there have been no problems in their
relationship with May, they are perplexed.
Involved is $1,200 worth of life insurance
(inflation adjusted: $41,000) in May's two
policies, one with Metropolitan Life and one
with Protective Home Circle.
Friday, January 8, 1904
A third letter
arrives from May. She is fine, was just
embarrassed to have sprung her ankle and
wished to avoid notoriety and gossip.
[Like multiple newspaper stories as to her
whereabouts were preferable?] She is
in Detroit and relatives are no longer
worried. [This writer's translation:
May finally told them the truth and they
have good reason to be quiet.]
January 9, 1904 to February 10, 1904
[Newspapers silent.]
Thursday, February 11, 1904
Joseph Ogurkowski's gig with
The James Boys in
Missouri ends after only one night in Ann Arbor.
He and fellow cast members hoof it to
Ypsilanti and apply for roles in the Hunt
stock company. Unsuccessful, they return to
Detroit where Joseph learns he's a father.
Friday, February 12, 1904▼3
May dies of puerperal fever (aka childbed
fever and today known as
postpartum
infection) after giving birth to a son at the
Red Cross Hospital in Detroit. She'd
been at the hospital since around January
30, registered as Mrs. Ralph Barton.
Saturday February 13, 1904
The Detroit Free Press newspaper
reports that May had been married for a year
before her death, to an actor named Joseph
L. Ogurkowski who goes by Ralph Barton on
the stage. The marriage certificate
documents the ceremony that took place on
January 19 at the Methodist Church on
Windsor Avenue. The service, witnessed
by two women, was conducted by reverend
Alfred Brown. May had concealed her
marriage from her brother and sister-in-law,
while her husband concealed it from his
mother. No explanation is suggested
for the secrecy. The only person known to have
been aware of her pregnancy at at eight
months was her boss, Preston S. Fancher, who
paid a portion of her medical expenses.
He was co-owner of the Cash Buyers Discount
Co. with Alcon Faulkner, occupying an office in room
625 of the Chamber of Commerce building in
Detroit.▼4
Monday February 15, 1904
May Curran Ogurkowski is buried at Mt.
Elliot Cemetery — like her grandmother
and later her brother James,
without a grave marker.
Friday February 26, 1904
May's will surfaces
in probate court. Dated March 4, 1903, two
months after May married Joseph, and about
the time she began working for Fancher, the document
awards $500 each to James and Mary Curran.
Monday March 6, 1904
Joseph Ogurkowski goes public with a surprising
story. He announces he will be filing suit against
Preston Fancher for alienation of his wife's
affections. According to Joseph,
Fancher appeared in their lives in March,
1903, soon after the wedding ceremony, as a
friendly employer of May's stenography
skills. Some time in the next seven
months May had gone with Fancher to Mt.
Pleasant, Michigan where his company had
opened a new office. Upon her return
her attitude toward Joseph was different.
Cool, he said. When he returned in
October they met on the street, the last
time he'd see her alive, May acted so
distant and strange that Joseph made no
effort to see her again. After May's
death, Joseph was urged by May's family and
his to speak up. He talked to an
attorney and decided to go forward with the
suit to expose Preston Fancher.
"I want people to know about this man, and I
am not bringing the suit to get his money.
But I can only prove what I say by bringing
the matter into the courts. Fancher's
attorney has already made a proposition to
me, but I would not listen to it. Fancher is
now traveling with a kinetoscope company and
I expect him back in Detroit next week. His
wife is living here at the present time."▼5
Wednesday March 23, 1904
May's sister-in-law, Mary Curran, is named executor of
her estate.
Wednesday, July 27, 1904
Baby boy Ogurkowski died of measles at the Grosse Isle
hospital. He'd been taken there after May's death to
receive proper nourishment. Once the measles illness
was discovered, hospital administrators
would not permit him to be moved back to the city.
His first name was not published.
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