Addie Hoyt Fargo Newspaper Resolutions

Following are the newspaper resolutions related to the death of Addie Hoyt Fargo.
The first one is the Woman's Club.  Sounds like Addie was pretty active with this group.  Must have been difficult in between all the spousal abuse Rosemary claims happened.  Of course all that rhetoric is unfounded and false.

DAR recognizes Addie for her contributions in the second resolution.  I still wonder if Addie became a member because of one of E J's relatives.  I know he had a relative that served in the Revolutionary War.  Not sure about Addie's relatives since Rosemary has spent substantially more time on E J than collecting the history of her own family - at least in her blog. 

The last part is from the annual high school Alumni Reunion.  This article gets cut off after a bit but the relevant part is near the bottom.  It states regrets for Elsie and Mattie (two surviving daughters of E J) Fargo's forced absence.  Most probably that would be because they were quarantined in the house......that would be the logical conclusion.....even if it's not the most dramatic.

 

Addie Hoyt Fargo Complete Obituary

Obitiuary from Newspapers Follows

With some help from a friend I was able to recover the complete obituary for Addie Hoyt Fargo.  Rosemary has carefully used bits and pieces to make her false case that Addie was the victim of foul play.  She doesn't have any evidence to support that notion but continues to wander around the wilderness with "experts" to see if she can drum up any shred of information to support her premise.   Nothing is supported by historical documents or logical thought.  More on this later when I blog about "follow the money".

The obituary, probably written by the editor of the paper, is the account of Addie's death from disease.  Oatway is quoted that the disease may have been contracted on a recent trip to Portage.  I can't imagine what would be in Portage in 1901 that would interest Addie unless it was a women's club of some sort.  Portage was not the major hub of fashion, or much else at this point in history.  More of a shipping port along the Wisconsin River.

The next paragraph or two talks about Addie's relatives and family.  Not a lot about her relatives.  Of interest is the passage "a faithful, affectionate wife, the pride of a devoted husband".  There isn't any reason or evidence to suggest the relationship between the two was different than described in the obituary.

 

The last two paragraphs describe the funeral which is far different from the dramatic writings in the Addie Hoyt Fargo blog.  Relatives and friends attended to show sympathy and place roses on the casket.  Hardly the dramatic "thown in a shallow grave in the dead of night"; or whatever Rosemary incorrectly writes.  The burial services were conducted by Rev. W. W. Warner.  Sounds like a proper burial to me and any other person that can put together two logical thoughts......unless a person were to have a profit motive - like Rosemary.  More on that subject later.

Again, I'm going to point out the coffin had a viewing window for the mourners to see the deceased.  Not one person left historical record that anything was unusual with the death or funeral of Addie.  Quite the contrary, the obituary clearly states all actions and activities were transparent.  The latest ridiculous argument from Rosemary about not having a funeral director involved doesn't make any sense since there was a formal funeral.  I'll expose that blog entry separately when time permits.  

 

Addie Hoyt Fargo Cause of Death Confirmed

This article in a local paper tells the story by people who had direct contact with a person that lived in the house at the time Addie Hoyt Fargo died.  The conclusion that Addie died of black diphtheria has more credibility than anything than anything Rosemary has ever written.  I'll be posting more articles that challenge the veracity of the false information Rosemary has been publishing on tbe Addie Hoyt Fargo blog over the next week or so.  

“No Funeral Director Was Involved in Addie’s Burial…”

Refutation of the Addie Hoyt Fargo blog dated 2/04/12

Once again Rosemary has gotten reference material from, probably, a very honorable person by misrepresenting the facts surrounding the grave of her distant relative.....and very likely not reporting the conversation contents accurately.

Two notes to mention before going on.......
1. In a pevious blog I stated that Rosemary couldn't care less about the people she negatively affects.  Mr. Bowles' credibility could be at risk if Rosemary had not qualified the conversation correctly.   I've tried to reach out to Mr. Bowles to ask him several follow up questions to no avail.
2. In one of the previous Addie blogs Rosemary states that in a conversation with Dr. Peterson he definitively told her Addie did not die of  diphtheria, contrary to the forensic report.  I spoke with Dr. Peterson and he said the conversation occurred but he never told her that Addie did not die of diphtheria.  He stood by his forensic report.  The reporter from the Lake Mills Leader spoke with Peterson about the same time and received the same response from him.  Again, Rosemary didn't care at all about Peterson's reputation.  But this points to the great lengths Rosemary will go to further her search to make money out of this somehow.  Peterson told me that Rosemary would be happy with only one conclusion - and she didn't get that from the exhumation.

Back to the untruthful and unfounded statements in this blog.  I thought most of  this had been put to rest but apparently the Desperate Housewives of Norfolk aren't done fawning over Rosemary.

Starting at the beginning.  Rosemary simply is not being truthful when she states the grave was 34 inches deep.  There is photographic and video evidence that proves 34 inches is where the power digging stopped and the first artifacts were found.  Again.....hand digging continued from that point.  This is how poor Mr. Bowles got roped in and fortunately Rosemary makes it clear she was searching for information on a grave 34 inches deep.........saving Mr Bowles' reputation.
Mr. Bowles answered accurately to the question he was asked.  The question was inaccurate.  I particularly like the part where Mr. Bowles states "Something isn't right here".  Once again he is correct.  Rosemary gave him bad information and he was sharp enough to question that information.  I'm sure the rest of Bowles statements were laundered by Rosemary for her purposes. 

Another Bowles statement of interest is the depth of a casket from top to bottom.  He refers to this being generally 24 inches.  Whether Rosemary intended or not.....she confirmed the grave likely was 5 feet (shovel depth) deep.  The bottom line is that the grave was deeper than 34 inches.  I appreciate the confirmation.

I stand my earlier statement......it is impossible to determine the exact depth of the original grave since most of the contents were compressed into a 3 X 3 foot area in one corner.  While it's tiresome to continue to respond to same false claim about the grave's depth I can keep it up as long as Rosemary keeps telling the same tale.

The embalming question has been asked and answered.  Why this is being revisited is beyond reason.  At the exhumation hearing the lack of embalming was openly discussed by the judge.  Of course Addie wasn't embalmed.  The practice was to get the contagious disease in the grave as soon as possible.  The funeral director wouldn't be comfortable handling the body (and body fluids) any more than necessary.  Since embalming was an option that step was skipped.  Rosemary claims embalming kills many diseases.....but the embalmer is exposed to the disease throughout the complete process and the location would also be at risk of contamination.  Figure it out for pete's sake.

After that Bowles or Rosemary makes some inaccurate statements, probably because the poor man was led into making summary judgements based on the false informatoin given him by Rosemary.  The burial was quick because of disease and not for any other reason.  I'll research this further in the future but I believe there was a funeral attended by friends....  There was a viewing window in the casket to see the deceased without being exposed to disease.  There is probably something easy to find in the Lake Mills Leader describing the funeral.  I can see a big gala if the person was older and died after many years of life but this was a young woman struck down by disease at a relatively early age.

Mr. Bowles errs (unintentionally) when he makes the statement that a funeral director was not involved.  This statement, again, was the result of inaccurate and false information Rosemary gave him.  Expect Rosemary to run with this in future blogs as if some expert with ALL the information and background made statements.  That's how is reputation will be tarnished.  The interesting part is the document with the indication of Hansen and Hildebrandt.  Somehow, someway Rosemay has derived, without any historical record, that only a casket was purchased.  How does that work?  Addie climbs into the coffin and E J kills her, I guess.  There are just way too many holes in this theory to make any sense.  Of course there was a funeral director involved.  There was a sexton and the sexton's job was to verify the burial permit (I believe).  Rosemary continues to provide the evidence that invalidates her theories....keep up the good work. 

The case presented by Rosemary in this blog is way over the top, again. I feel badly for Mr Bowles being sucked into this scam.

Now to the shoes and jewelry.  According to historical record Addie was feeling better during the day before she died and was up and around.  Very likely she laid down after becoming tired and didn't bother to take off her shoes.  That accounts for the shoes.......
The jewelry argument is answered similarly.  Addie was up and around....not getting dressed to go out or for dinner.  She simply didn't put on her jewelry.  When she died she didn't have it on....there was a hurry to get her in a coffin before others in the house were exposed.  Perhaps jewelry was put in the coffin, maybe not.  It's not relevent either  way.

The focus on the jewelry is inconsequential to anything else in the wildy awry tale of Addie, as told by Rosemary. The only reason to keep harping about it must be because Rosemary thinks she should get 'something' for her efforts and the dramatic effect it creates. I would guess it either got buried or discarded.

I can tell you the complete grave was not exhumed.  There could still be artifacts, along with the remaining skeletal parts, in the grave.   Many of the metacarpal and phalange bones were not found as well as vertabrae, upper jaw and a host of other remains.  Any number of artifacts could still be in the ground at that grave site, including the jewelry.

Eleven Signposts That Suggest A Suspicious Death #2

In this particular signpost Rosemary uses some fairly strong language to convince the reader that Oatway conspired to cover up Addie's death.  Surprisingly, this is one of the few times logic and accuracy creep into what is normally invalid assertions.  As I stated under signpost #1 there is substantial differences between law and enforcement. 
There isn't any historical record on the distribution of responsibility but it seems unlikely that the doctor would be responsible for the burial permit.  Seems like a disconnect between the two tasks would be more appropriate.
The more people involved in the burial process the less likely there was a cover up....figure it out.  There's the funeral director, the doctor, the grave diggers, Robert Fargo, the cemetery sexton
To state definitively that Oatway lied without any supporting evidence is not only unfair but irresponsbile for a historian...............this statement should be qualified as an assumption and not a statement.
All the rhetoric about fumigation seems unrelated to the other claims in this signpost and doesn't directly support the primary argument.....  Fuigation is listed here for foundation for making outlandishly unsupported statements later.
The more people involved in the burial process the less likely there was a cover up....figure it out. There's the funeral director, the doctor, the grave diggers, Robert Fargo, the cemetery sexton, the fumigators, the hired help, other member of the household and a host of other locals.  The notion that all these people were in on some conspiracy and nobody said anything except Oatway when he was on his death bed (a later claim) simply doesn't make sense.
On a personal note:  It still looks like the "32" burial permit was written by someone else.  If you look at the '2' in the body of the death certificate there is a loop at the top and at least some of the numbers have quite a tail on them.  The '2' in '32' lacks the loop at the top and tail at the end.  Since there was such a strong emphasis and discipline on penmanship in the 19th century many writing styles were close.  Robert Fargo may be the person who actually entered the number on the death certificate.  Worth looking at sometime when I'm in Lake Mills and can find some other comparisons.  This observation is a curiosity and not meant to launch some other conspiratorial investigation.

Eleven Signposts That Suggest A Suspicious Death #1

Signpost #1 actually contains historically accurate information at the beginning but then devolves into some sort of conspiracy theory rhetoric.
All of the information in the first two paragraphs are based on historical documents.  There was a state law requiring certain protocal when people died and were buried......but not any indication of whether that protocol was enforced......  Lots of legislation doesn't get enforced for many reasons today....I can only imagine that was more likely a century ago before electronic records.
A question that I would raise is whether it was Oatway's job to assign the burial permit number.  I'm not a handwriting expert but the "32" (and some of the other writing at the end) seems to be a different 'hand' than the rest.  In the division of responsibility I guess it could be possible the Robert Fargo was the keeper of the burial permit numbers and Oatway was responsible for the statement of cause.  It seems odd to me that a doctor would have that much vertical responsibility.  If he did it's no wonder it got screwed up.
Addie wasn't the only person without a burial permit in the cemetery.  There were several others in about the same immediate point in time.  I have no reason to second guess the findings at this URL:

http://www.aroundnorthernkentucky.com/genealogy/Addie-Hoyt-Fargo-1901-Murder-Mystery.html

This URL is actually pretty entertaining.........and has lots of accuracy.

At the end of signpost #1 Rosemary proceeds to draw conclusions to support her claims of foul play saying the absence of a burial permit is "compelling" evidence.  I think not, since there are others interred without a burial permit or the permit was issues after the burial.  I guess Rosemary's research didn't look at the broader picture.
Oatway didn't "falsify" the death certificate, he wrote what he believed was correct.  Rosemary makes this statement and I guess the idea is the burial number is wrong, or something.  It's an unrelated statement hanging out in space that she uses later to build a conspiracy.  Oatway would have signed anything put in front of him.  He was a doctor, not a bureaucrat, and nobody was holding his feet to the fire .  The time of day when the documents were created is not indicated.  If it was 3:00 AM I could see that mistakes could happen..but it could have been after burial for all that is known today.  Could have been many days after burial (or months) when Oatway decided he should catch up on his paper work........
In item 1c where the funeral director is now complicit in the cover up.  Of course there was a funeral director involved.  He supplied the casket, if nothing else; since no embalming took place. This is such a reach it's laughable.

I've mentioned this before......applying today's standards to more than a century ago is irresponsible.  There isn't any decent historical record on division of responsibilityand yet Rosemary continues to indicate that today's standards apply.  That is wrong.....
The reason we have checks and balances today is because there wasn't any enforcement initially.

See the signposts at:
http://www.searshomes.org/index.php/2011/11/24/eleven-signposts-that-suggest-a-suspicious-death/

Eleven Signposts That Suggest A Suspicious Death (Overview)

This is the URL to this entry in the Addie Hoyt Fargo blog date 11/24/2011, in case you can't get this to open in a browser window.

http://www.searshomes.org/index.php/2011/11/24/eleven-signposts-that-suggest-a-suspicious-death/

In this particular entry Rosemary stitches together a handful of historically accurate events together with conspiracy theory and assumptions to present a case that Addie was murdered.
While there is some historically factual information ( probably the last entry that has factual information in the entire blog) the expansion of these to create a fabric of conspiracy doesn't hold together.

Just before the first signpost there is a statement along the lines of:  "facts we've discovered along the way".  Then the blog diverts from the facts..................whenever it needs to in order to make the argument.

 Once again, Rosemary leaves out the relevant parts of Mary Wilson's book that make it clear that this was a rumor that she first heard circa 1981. More on this can be found in other parts of the Enoch J. Fargo blog.

I'll tackle these one or two at a time since I actually have some other life activities that keep me busy.....and going after all 11 at once makes my sides hurt from laughing.

When you read the Addie Hoyt Fargo blog separate out the facts from the theory and assumption and you will find the entirety of the facts is one fairly short paragraph.

The key to understanding the Addie Hoyt Fargo blog entry is to look at the circular logic used to support the key assumptions.  I'll point these out along the way.  Essentially, in one signpost there is a qualified statement and then in a subsequent signpost the statement is treated as factual information.  Interesting but doesn't make it a statement of fact.