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Boy of 10 Sets Tot Up and Fires Bullet
Thru Her Body.
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Special to the Journal.
St Cloud, Minn., Nov. 12--Theodore, the 10 year old son of Mr and Mrs T. Gottwalt, near Rice, Saturday, probably fatally shot his 4-year-old sister, Leon. The mother of the children had gone to town and the father was out in the field.
The boy put his little sister in a chair and taking a 32-caliber rifle aimed it at her breast and fired. The bullet passed clear thru the body of the little girl, piercing her lungs. When the boy realized what he had done, he picked up the little girl and called his father. The girl is still alive, but her chances for recovery are small.
--Minneapolis Journal, November 1906
There's something called "Presentism", whereby we judge something that happened years ago by today's standards or experiences. "For example, Thomas Jefferson is often judged harshly as a sexist even though the notion of complete equality between the sexes was almost unthinkable in his era.' Gordon-Reed calls it the 'why wasn't Jefferson like Alan Alda' question." Via
We look at that article and wonder about leaving a 10 year old to watch his little sister; about parents far from the house, and mostly, about leaving a loaded gun around unsupervised children. But we also know this same scenario played out thousands of times in thousands of homes in those years with no tragedy, no little sister hurt, and mom and dad home for chores and supper, right on time, without incident.
We know about this because it was reported in the newspaper.
We also know that Leona recovered, and that both kids grew up, married, and had regular long lives.
While researching what happened later, Larry found that Theo and Leona's mom was Catherine Janson Gottwalt. She was related to me thru mom.
Theo and Leona's AUNT would have been Rose Hesch Gottwalt,
wife of Louis E.Gottwalt.
Isn't that cool?
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