About noon, on a warm Chicago summer day in the year 1904, a new and happy little family arrived to take up residence at 3406 West Monroe Street, Chicago, Illinois. They were moving into a house which had just been completed, and whose construction they had watched with loving interest. Dr. and Mrs. (also Dr.) Wynekoop were bringing two baby sons into this new home.
During the first few years that followed, one of the baby sons was taken by death — but in recompense another son and a daughter were added to the household. Later on, another daughter was added, by adoption.
There must have followed days and months and years of childish prattle and laughter. Picture books. Mud pies with the usual resulting smudgy faces and hands to be washed many times a day. And playmates — yes, there must have been playmates to add to the houseful of children at 3406 West Monroe Street. Then came school days, with the young Wynekoops trudging off every morning, happily filled with tasty and nourishing breakfasts, carrying well-stocked lunch pails — and a new little one to start in the “Baby Grade” every year or so for quite a time.
Alice Wynekoop’s children gave her many happy years. Walker, the eldest, became a respected businessman in a Chicago suburb; married and had two children of his own. Catherine, the youngest of Dr. Alice’s own brood, studied medicine, eventually taking up surgery.
Of the adopted child, Mary Louise, who died young, we know little.
Although Earle was older in years than his sister Catherine, he seemed to be the baby of the family. Imagine him a not-too-well little boy, handsome, but just a bit on the whiney side — and demanding his own way in everything; adoring his mother, who saw to it that he was always given his way.
During the years when she was bringing up her children Dr. Alice Wynekoop was also practicing medicine, along with her husband, Dr. Frank Wynekoop. He died, however, before the job of raising all the children had been finished.
Dr. Alice carried on with her practice. She joined clubs — The Women’s City Club, and others; she did charity work, most of it for children, in hospitals and clinics. She founded a sorority for the purpose of aiding women medical students in need of financial assistance. She maintained her office in her home, in a basement suite built for that purpose, accessible from West Monroe Street.
It was while Catherine was just finishing her medical training and after Walker had married and settled in Wilmette, Illinois, that Earle met Rheta Gardner, on a visit to Indianapolis, Indiana, where she was one of the entertainers at a concert. After his return to Chicago, he started a correspondence with her.
Scarcely a year later, Earle persuaded Rheta to come to Chicago, and asked her to marry him. In spite of the fact that Rheta was eighteen years old, Dr. Alice, Earle’s mother, insisted that the young couple obtain the consent of Rheta’s father (Burdine H. Gardner, an Indianapolis flour and salt merchant). It was given, somewhat grudgingly, and Mr. Gardner even attended the wedding.
The marriage of the two very young people was the occasion for a family party. But Rheta refused to spend her wedding night in the old mansion on Monroe Street. After a night in a hotel the young couple left for a honeymoon.
It must be remembered that Earle was not earning his own living and certainly was unable to support a wife. The only solution was for Earle and Rheta to live with Dr. Alice in the house which she and her husband had built more than twenty-five years before. During the honeymoon therefore, Dr. Alice redecorated and refurnished a suite of rooms on the second floor to be ready for the young newlyweds.
Perhaps at this point, we’d better pause and try to picture the house at 3406 West Monroe Street. It shouldn’t be too difficult to imagine it, since there are many like it still standing in Chicago, good substantial stone houses. Three stories, an English basement and a flight of stairs leading up to the first floor. Inside a lot of fine, expensive — and probably dusty — millwork, thick heavy doors and costly hardware, antiquated and inconvenient lighting fixtures which had once been the pride of the family, leaky faucets, slow drains and clawfooted bathtubs.
How about the people who lived in the house? There was, of course, Dr. Alice who was (a) a benevolent, warm-hearted and unfortunate woman, (b) an eccentric and peculiar character, or (c) a ruthless woman, who would murder her helpless daughter-in-law for a small life insurance policy — depending on which interpretation of her behavior you read. There was a daughter, Dr. Catherine Wynekoop, at that time not yet a full-fledged doctor. There was Mary Louise, the adopted daughter, a shadowy little figure — it is difficult to imagine even what she looked like. A Miss Catherine Porter — a woman of about Dr. Alice’s age — was rooming there and being treated by Dr. Alice for cancer and heart disease. She shared a two-thousand-dollar bank account with her doctor and devoted friend. There was also Miss Enid Hennessey, a middle-aged school teacher and her aged father. Of Miss Hennessey, more later.
From every indication it appears that Rheta was not a happy bride. And the events following her marriage were hardly reassuring ones. Miss Porter died. Mary Louise died. Miss Hennessey’s father died. Dr. Catherine left the household to become a resident physician at Cook County Hospital.
But worst of all, Earle was away from home most of the time. Later it was learned that he was interested in other women and that when, in the summer of 1933, he finally found a job at the Chicago World’s Fair, his drinking and the friends he made were of great concern, also, to his unhappy young wife.
For Rheta was unhappy. What wonder — a young wife, practically deserted by her handsome husband, and left to the companionship of a devoted but aging mother-in-law and a middle-aged school teacher. Their conversations must have been highly educational, but very dull for young Rheta. She was given to introspection. Her mother had been confined in an insane asylum when Rheta was only seven years old, and had finally died there, some ten years later, of tuberculosis. It was this not very pretty picture which must have led Rheta to fear that she, too, had tuberculosis, and to instill into her mind the dread of many other diseases.
Rheta must have been afraid of a lot of things. Loss of her young husband’s love. A lifetime spent in the old mansion on Monroe Street. Illness. Even insanity. But she couldn’t have been afraid of murder, because according to the evidence, she was killed by someone in whom she had implicit trust.
At about ten P.M. on the evening of November 21st, Arthur R. March, a police officer in charge of Squad Car 15, received a radio call directing his car to go to 3406 West Monroe Street.
“We went directly there and were met at the front door by a lady who told us to come inside... The lady we met first we later found to be Miss Enid Hennessey, a school teacher and a roomer there. When we got inside we met the defendant, Dr. Wynekoop. She was seated in a chair in the library. Mr. Ahearn, an undertaker, was there. We asked the defendant what happened. She said, ‘Something terrible has happened; come on downstairs and I will show you.’ We went downstairs.
“When we got down, the basement was lighted and there was a light inside the operating room. Mr. Ahearn, myself, Officer Walter Kelly, Officer Wm. Tyrrell and I believe Miss Hennessey came with us. In the operating room we observed the body of the girl lying on an operating table.”
The printed transcript of any evidence makes the scene of a crime seem like a rather calm and quiet place. In this one the sensitive and melancholy Rheta Wynekoop becomes, impersonally, “the body” or “the deceased.” In it Dr. Alice Wynekoop, who may have been a financial conniver, a family dictator and a cold-blooded murderess — or a sick, bewildered and frightfully distressed old woman — becomes just as impersonally “the defendant.”