Family loyalties involve certain obligations. They are duties we perform out of love, as this simple story illustrates: One of two brothers fighting in the same company in France fell by a German bullet. The one who escaped asked permission of his officer to go and bring his brother in. “He is probably dead,” said the officer, “and there is no use in your risking your life to bring in his body.” But after further pleading the officer consented. Just as the soldier reached the lines with his brother on his shoulders, the wounded man died. “There, you see,” said the officer, “you risked your life for nothing.” “No,” replied Tom. “I did what he expected of me, and I have my reward. When I crept up to him and took him in my arms, he said, ‘Tom, I knew you would come – I just felt your would come.’” There you have the gist of it all; somebody expects something fine and noble and unselfish of us; someone expects up to be faithful. Merry Christmas to my brother Rick. I won’t forget you. Merry Christmas to all.

By 1030pm on Friday evening I finally completed the additional chapters needed for the mail-order bride book and sent them off to the publisher. I hope that’s the last on that subject for a while. I need to concentrate on completing the book about women outlaws of the Mid-west. I’m woefully behind on that book and it is due March 10. It would appear I’ve been playing catch up all year. Writing is my passion however and I can’t imagine doing anything else. No matter how far behind on a deadline I slip. This week promises to be as busy as they last 40 plus have been. Today I shall attempt to move the shell of a Volkswagen vehicle into the church sanctuary. We are doing a play entitled A Ride with a Perfect Stranger and need the vehicle as a prop. Months ago I thought it would be quite impactful for the congregation to see a car in the church. The play does in fact take place inside the vehicle. Now I’m having second thoughts. I just pray it all goes well as I have no backup plan. Looking back on this year I can see how the situation with my brother has deeply affected me. The toll it’s taken on friendships I was once able to nurture and the toll it’s taken on my health have been substantial. This ordeal has changed me so and I’m almost unrecognizable to myself. I pray for a bright outcome but never sense the Holy Spirit is giving me confirmation on that – perhaps because in this case there is no real positive outcome. Hearts will still be broken over all that was lost. Rick will never be the same physically or emotionally. None of us will ever be the same. “This world breaks everyone,” Hemingway once said, “and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”  Hope the readers of this post will take a look at the featured video posted.  There will be more to come in 2012.

Desperate brides, dental surgery and death threats…the last two days have involved a bit of all three areas and then some. Every time I submit the new book about mail order brides I am told by the editor that I’m 4 or 5 thousand words short. So I write a few more chapters and turn those in and another word count shows that I’m still 4 or 5 thousand words short. I’ll be back at it again today. I am going to submit a chapter about the Harvey Girls. If I’m still 4 or 5 thousand words short you’ll hear a scream of frustration from coast to coast. Yesterday’s visit to the dentist was a treat. And by treat I mean horrifying. I’m not a good patient during a simple cleaning removing several fillings and replacing them with new ones to save my molars really sends me over the edge. After poking my gums with a sharp instrument for several hours the doctor pointed out to me that my gums were bleeding. I felt the need to mention that they weren’t bleeding when I came in and that maybe the problem was him. I feel better today. The death threats have eased up somewhat. For a couple of days I was receiving emails that explained that “my days were numbered.” Whose days aren’t number? In the midst of the hate mail and name calling I received an email of encouragement I want to share. I do this not to suggest I’m deserving of such kindness but to point out that there are angels disguised as human beings who offer encouragement when it feels all hope is lost. “Hi, I attended some of your wonderful seminars at the SASS convention and I was deeply moved by your terrible experience with “Missouri Justice” and I applaud and pray for you, for what you are doing to help your brother. His story is tragic and needs to be told as there are so many men out there who have been unfairly incarcerated by terrible women who use the law to warehouse their husbands or boyfriends in hellish conditions, just because they can. You are brave and a woman of incredible strength, I feel the Lord is working through you to not only help your brother but to help others, and to get recognition to change the law into a process that reveals the offenders and champions the innocent. You go girl!!! Best wishes Sierra Lady S.A.S.S.” God bless you, Sierra Lady and thank you. Now it’s time to return to Object Matrimony, which is the title of the mail-order bride book due to be released next year.

The hardest aspect of writing is writing. I spend the day reviewing the research I’ve done on a particular individual and desperately try to create an original way to tell their story. That’s what I hope to do with Victoria Woodhull today. My goal is eight pages by the days end. I am anxious to speak with a gentleman who emailed me this weekend who is a relative of Harvey Logan from the Wild Bunch. Maybe there’s an untold story there. I’m excited to start digging. Of course nothing I write can compare to the pithy, succinct, hate-ridden emails I received this weekend. One example of such an email read, “Die, Die, Die, B___, B___,B____ for sticking up for your brother.” My personal favorite was “You should be repeatedly raped and thrown in a grave for defending your brother.” What started it all was the following email – complete with a bogus email address so there was no way to respond. All subsequent emails contained a fake email address as well. The tracking device on my computer system and the one built into the website quickly traced the author of the letters to a home in Norborne, Missouri. They initially tried to hide their location at a spot in Dallas, Texas, but again…the tracking devise. As I’m focusing on writing this morning I have to applaud the author of the hate mail. They decided not to be long winded with their thoughts. They were brief, to the point, and guilty. I can smell their fear all the way in California. In spite of the hate mail I’m going to continue to champion my brother. The emails make me believe we are on the right track. If the false accuser of my brother was secure in her testimony there would be no need to write such letters. Here is a copy of one of the first emails – certainly the only one tame enough to share.
Your Name
Sydney Lindsay
Your Email
syd.linds99@gmail.com

Message
You are seriously an awful person for continuing to defend your brother. Shame on you.

Apart from the fact the email address is a fraud (which given the author I’m not surprised) the use of the word “seriously” makes one believe the author is under the age of 20. As a published author I’d edited this piece by removing the word “seriously”. It’s not needed. I wish I could critique the other emails in this journal entry but they were too graphic to include here. And now it’s time to continue with my own writing. I’m overwhelmed with work and I’m grateful for that.

I am amazed sometimes how much life can be crammed into a week. Work, Bible study, rehearsals for the Christmas play at church, phone calls and emails with the lawyers involved in Rick’s case, lunch meetings about the condition of today’s prison system, private investigating assignments… I’d love some down time but need to be at an architectural committee meeting first thing this morning. I’m going to make plans to go to Monterrey soon and spend some time on Cannery Row. I don’t think I’ll have time to visit historic Monterrey for a few months but I can dream. I’ve been working on a book about women outlaws of the Mid-West and focusing on a lady named Victoria Woodhull. When she was arrested in 1872 for obscenity, she was one of the most notorious female outlaws at the time. And what was considered obscene at that time consisted of Woodhull sharing with readers of her newspaper the notion of “free love.” She believed women should be able to select her own lovers – such a controversial idea in the late eighteen hundreds. A few times during the day I check to see how many people have visited my website. I average about 65 visitors a day. Yesterday however I had 209 visits. I was very excited until I did a check and found out the hits came from one location in Lees Summit, Missouri. The user is a repeat visitor to the site who works at a hospital. I guess it’s to be expected. As Voltaire once said, “Fear follows crime and is its punishment.” That fear will only intensive as the year progresses. I’ve been waiting a long time for justice to be served – even longer to write about it. The Plea will be the full story of what happened to Rick and I’m more anxious to write about that than I’ve been about writing anything in a long time. It almost seems as though the desire to write at all was leading to this pivotal point. Amazing how God works.

“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.” General George S. Patton, Jr.,in Patton by Francis Ford Coppola. Patton never was one for tact, but this quote reminds me of the events that took place today seventy years ago. I’m grateful to the men and women who fought for my freedom. I’m thankful for those souls in faraway countries today that are protecting this nation. I pray that the people in this country never forget the price that was paid for freedom. WWII Vets are passing away at an alarming rate and with them goes the history of that time. My grandfather served in WWII, my father in Vietnam, my brother Corey in the Gulf War, and my brother Rick served in Desert Storm. I spoke a bit about Rick and his service to our country last night at a women’s ministry mixer. Rick was one of the most patriotic men I ever met. His pride in country, as have mine, eroded away when we saw how the justice system really works. Part of the lesson at last night’s event was to write down the name of one person who was hindering you in your walk with the Lord. We were challenged to write down the name of one or two people we couldn’t forgive. I know who they are. I see their faces every day in my mind’s eye but I couldn’t bring myself to write their name on a paper. These two women have taken so much – more than they will ever realize. I have my own war against them that will hopefully come to a close in the New Year. I will not rest until they pay for the lives they have ruined. They grossly underestimated the devotion to what is decent and right. As Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto said to his superiors upon learning of the success of the attack on Pearl Harbor, “I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.” The war rages on.

Saturday night and I can’t wait to be home. Although I met some wonderful people at the SASS Convention in Vegas, I’m not a Vegas fan. It’s been a long trip. It’s been a long year. Watching It’s A Wonderful Life while I wait to leave for the airport. I love the movie but George Bailey is never able to leave Bedford Falls. Happy ending not withstanding I always felt badly for him because of that. People at this conference were incredibly long suffering and let me prattle on about the books. At some point, and for reasons that escape me at the moment, I talked to the audience about my brother. He’s always at the forefront of my thoughts especially so at this time of year. Each man’s life touches so many other lives and when they aren’t around it leaves an awful hole. I’m on the lookout for a miracle.

Next stop Vegas. The Single Action Shooter’s Society convention gets underway this week at the Riviera Hotel and I’m schedule to speak about lady gamblers of the Old West, mail-order brides of the frontier and Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. I’m looking forward to visiting with others who enjoy talking about the Wild West. This is the last year SASS will be holding a convention. Low attendance and a poor economy prompted the organizers of the event to call it quits. SASS itself will live on however. I find myself completely over extended and will have to cancel a few signings in the next few months. I’m not quite sure how it happened but I’ve fallen way behind. I hate not living up to commitments I made with regards to book promotions but the situation with my brother is reaching a critical point and I’m forced to rearrange my life for that. In truth, my life has become just that. And with every adjustment I have to make because of the false allegations leveled against him I become more resentful. Every day is a fight against that. Wednesday I’ll be engaged in another fight of sorts – travel. Whatever glamor used to be associated with the idea of traveling by plane has gone for me. It now has all the allure of hanging out in a Greyhound bus station only minimally faster. It’s still much more comfortable than travel in the Old West. It’s difficult to comprehend that a little more than a century ago the horizon for most people was limited to the spot where fate had deposited them. For the affluent, traveling via steam packed, Pullman train or stagecoach was often a costly ordeal where consideration of human comfort and safety was at best an afterthought. The most fearful means of transportation was also the most widely used – the railroad. Train wrecks due to broken trestles, poor track, exploding boilers, faulty signals, and careless engineers and switchmen were a daily occurrence, producing an accident rate in the United States five times that of England. In 1890 railroad-connected accidents caused 10,000 deaths and 80,000 serious injuries. And while the primitive technology had built-in dangers, railroad management was the real villain, prompting George T. Strong to diarize: “We shall never travel safely till some pious, wealthy, and much beloved railroad director has been hanged for murder….” I feel the same way about the folks that run the airlines.

He introduced himself as Wheelchair Joe and he was eager to talk. I hadn’t expected to meet anyone like him when I volunteered to help with Gold Country Calvary Chapel’s Thanksgiving meal for the homeless. I never really expected to get out of the kitchen of the Veteran’s building where the event was being held. I was a dishwasher – not a server. But I had a few minutes between pots and pans and decided to wander about and meet some of the people who came to have Thanksgiving dinner. Wheelchair Joe was waiting in the back of the room by himself. He told me a story about the front of his wheelchair falling into a sinkhole and he couldn’t get it out. He was quite stuck. He called for help but no one came to his aid. Finally, Joy Sidebottom (the amazing lady who organized the dinner) stopped to lend a hand. Wheelchair Joe was thankful for the woman he referred to as an angel. He told me how thankful he was to have a place to spend Thanksgiving. His ex-wife and children had abandoned him years ago. It seems his step-daughter falsely accused him of a crime. Scared and wanting to spare his family the pain of going through a trial he had taken a plea. He had spent more than 15 years in prison. When he got out he had nothing. His parents and only brother had passed away. He had no one and no place to go. He lives on the streets and is dependent on the kindness of the Joy Sidebottoms of this world. I shared the story of my brother with him and he was moved to tears. We joined hands and prayed before the meal was served and I returned to my dishes. Nothing happens by accident with God. I watched Wheelchair Joe have a second and third helping of turkey, sample a couple of pieces of pumpkin pie, then wheel himself to the care package area. He loaded his lap with a bag of groceries, thanked Joy for her kindness, and reluctantly wheeled himself out of the building into the drizzling rain. I cried then. A lie cost him everything and try as he might he’ll never be able to get back what was taken from him. Wheelchair Joe wasn’t a bitter man though. He wasn’t seeking revenge. He just wanted a chance to talk about his life and for a moment believe he was valued by someone. I admired his strength of heart and found myself wishing I could be like him, void of anger or resentment. I miss my brother and hate what was done to him. Rick and Wheelchair Joe have a great deal in common. Before we parted company Wheelchair Joe reminded me of something Socrates once said. “False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.” I know forgiveness is the only cure for the infection, but I’m not there yet. I’m thankful I got to meet Wheelchair Joe. What an example of the heart triumphing over the human condition.

Thought I’d share the following article I’ve been working on for the second edition of Hearts West: Mail Order Brides on the Frontier. Marrying the wrong person could mean death or at the very least 20 years in prison. Hearts West II will be released Christmas 2012. When Carroll B. Rablen, a thirty-four year old veteran of World War II from Tuttletown, California, advertised for a bride he imagined hearing from a woman who longed to spend their life with him hiking and enjoying the historic, scenic beauty of the Gold Country in Northern California. The ad he placed in a San Francisco matrimonial paper in June 1928 was answered by Eva Brandon. The thirty-three year-old Eva was living in Quanah, Texas when she received a copy of the matrimonial publication.
If Carroll had been less eager to marry he might have noticed the immature tone Eva’s letters possessed. If he’d taken the time to scrutinize her words he might have been able to recognize a flaw in her thinking. According to the July 14, 1929 edition of the Ogden, Utah newspaper the Ogden Standard-Examiner, one of Eva’s first correspondences demonstrated that not only did she seem much younger than thirty-three years old, but she also had a dark side. “Mr. Rablen, Dear Friend,” the letter began. “You wrote about a son I have. He has had no father since he was a month old. The father left me. I haven’t seen him. If a man leaves me I don’t want to see them. And I’ll make sure I can’t.”
Eva left Texas for California in late April 1929. She and Carroll were married the evening of April 29, 1929. The dance that followed the nuptials at the Tuttletown school house was well attended by Carroll’s friends and neighbors. They were happy he had found someone to share his life. Eva twirled around the room dancing with anyone who wanted to join her. She was elated with her situation. Carroll on the other hand chose to wait outside for his new bride in the car. According to the Ogden Standard Examiner, Carroll was slightly deaf and despondent over the other physical ailments that kept him from fully enjoying the festivities.
When Carroll’s father, Stephen Rablen began regaling guests with his rendition of the song “Turkey in the Straw” on his fiddle, Eva excused herself and went outside to visit with her husband. She took a tray of sandwiches and coffee to him. He smiled proudly at her and commented on how thoughtful it was for her to bring him some refreshments. Carroll helped himself to a cup of coffee, blew across the top of it to cool it down then took a sip. He made a bit of a face as if the coffee lacked something. He took another drink to determine what it needed.
Shortly after Carroll swallowed the brew a third time, he dropped the cup and began to scream. Eva watched him slump over in the front seat of the car. Carroll continued to scream. Wedding guests poured out of the building to see what was wrong. Carroll’s father pushed past the people to get to his son. “Papa. Papa,” Carroll repeated, reaching out for Stephen’s hand. “The coffee was bitter…so bitter.”
Emergency services were called to the scene but by the time they arrived Carroll had slipped into an unconscious state. Attendees at the reception told reporters for the local newspaper that Eva simply stood back and watched the action play out around her. She wore no expression at all; no worry, concern, anxiety, nothing. An ambulance transported Carroll to the hospital and Eva road along in the vehicle with her husband. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Doctors suspected foul-play because his illness came on so suddenly. An autopsy was performed and the contents in Carroll’s stomach revealed the presence of poison. The cup he drank coffee out of was also analyzed and traces of poison were found there as well.
On May 1, 1929, the day of Carroll’s funeral, the Sheriff of Tuolumne County returned to the spot where the groom died. In a patch of grass only a few spots where Rablen’s automobile was parked, a bottle of strychnine was found. The bottle was traced to a drugstore in near Tuttletown. The register showing the purchase of the item had been signed for by Mrs. Joe Williams. The description of Mrs. Williams given by the clerk at the drugstore suggested Eva Brandon Rablen bought the item.
The sheriff asked Carroll’s widow to accompany him to the drugstore where without hesitation the clerk identified her as the purchaser of the poison.
Authorities escorted Eva to the police station and she immediately claimed her husband had poisoned himself because he was brokenhearted over his health problems. Stephen arrived at the station soon afterwards and told police that he suspected his daughter-in-law killed his son over a $3,500 insurance police. He accused Eva of finding her victims through mail-order bride advertisements and suggested she killed her last husband, a mail-order groom named Hubert Brandon. Stephen demanded Eva be arrested for murder.
Eva was arrested for the crime, but not on her father-in-law’s orders. A handwriting expert had compared the signature on a drugstore’s registry with one Eva provided authorities with at the station. The two were a match. Eva was charged with premeditated murder.
Newspaper articles about the homicide referred to Eva as “Borgia of the Sierras.” The public was ravenous for specifics about the killing. “Quarrels, quarrels, I was sick of and tired of them,” Eva told a judge about her marriage. “We talked things over. It was decided we should both commit suicide. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Finally I decided to poison him. It was the best way out, I thought. Now they want to hang me? I could only put him out of the way because I felt it was the only way to get my freedom.”
Eva was sentenced to life in prison at San Quentin for murder. The day the authorities escorted her to the ferry that would take her to the penitentiary she was all smiles. Reporters and inquisitive spectators on hand at the dock asked Eva why she killed Carroll. She politely told them she couldn’t give them the information they wanted. “I can’t tell you why I confessed to putting strychnine in my husband’s coffee. I told the court all and I want to tell all.”
Eva was helped onto the ferry that would transport her to San Quentin. Sheriff Jack Dambacher of Sonora County and his wife decided to travel with Eva to prison. “I feel fine,” she told her traveling companions, “not a bit tired. I’m not at all downhearted or discouraged.” Eva’s eleven year-old son, Albert Lee waiting at the dock with his aunt and uncle to say goodbye to his mother. Eva showed little emotion as she held her child close to her. “I will be all right,” she told him. “I’m going to study Spanish. I’ve always been crazy to learn Spanish. Then if I get along well with that I can take on other subjects.” Eva’s sister assured her that she would take very good care of her boy and promised her that those who lived in the Sonora area would help with Albert as well. “He will not suffer for what wasn’t his fault. We will see he wants for nothing.”
According to the Examiner the 1929 murder of Carroll Rablen by his mail-order bride Eva Brandon is the most notorious case of its type.