Romance gone wrong
Slaying of Clara Olson, 22 and pregnant, broke the heart of aWisconsin town
As hundreds of volunteers combed the fields and hills of southwesternWisconsin, a local farm girlwas found buried face down in a shallowgrave on a knoll called Battle Ridge, on Dec. 2, 1926.
As if heading to a special occasion, she waswearing her Sunday best: a newly bought dress, hat and shoes. The protrusion of high heels in the yellowsubsoil caught a searcher’s attention. Her horrifically beaten body, under examination, yielded a clue to a crime that transfixed the nation’s newspaper readers.
“Out of the bosom of Clara Olson there dropped as doctors performed an autopsy late today a letter,” the Tribune reported.
The letter thatwas tucked into her dress read: “Now we’ll not leave for good but will go and get the ceremony over and then come back in aweek or so and let them knowif they don’t know.”
The unsigned letter appeared to be from Erdman Olson, no relation, whose family worked a farm not far from Clara’s family.
The previous August she had written to his parents, saying:“We are in a pinch and have to get married if God is willing and you folks are willing.”
Clarawas, in fact, several months pregnant when shewent missing on Sept. 9. After hoping she’d showup, her father, Chris, went to Gale College inWisconsin, where Erdmanwas a student. When Chris cornered him, Erdman said Clarawas in St. Paul, Minnesota, and promised to bring her back in three days. If he didn’t, the father said, the sheriffwould hear about the situation.
Even then, Chris begged Erdman to marry Clara and come live with her family, the Tribune reported. “I told him … to go ahead and get married and come home to my house. I said, ‘I have plenty of room here, my boy. You can live here and I’ll give you a piece of ground and you can grow some tobacco.’ ” Erdman’s fatherwas a prosperous tobacco farmer.
Following the visit, Erdman left campus for amedical appointment and disappeared. In a letter to his parents, he said: “These people cannot prove anything definite, although theywill try. Do not let them try to pull anything over on you.”
As the press noted, the socioeconomic tensions inherent in the Olson slaying paralleled the plot line of a celebrated TheodoreDreiser novel. The protagonist of “An American Tragedy” murders a pregnant girlfriend several rungs down the social ladder, lest his future prospects be impaired.
Clara’s father had nine children and made a modest living froma 370-acre farm. “They all merge into one picture of the soil with stories of Clara going into townoccasionally, but with little social life,” theTribune observed. “Not books but milking and houseworkwere her lot, perhaps her choice.”
A few miles down the roadwas the farm of Erdman’s father. “He is a younger, harder, more progressive type of farmer, and had 280 acres and buildings valued at $75,000,” the Tribune noted.
Clara and Erdmanwere also different types. “Shewas of joyous nature,” the Trib
une reported. As for Erdman, according to the sheriff, “he had amean disposition, but the sheriff might have been prejudiced.”
Erdmanwasn’t popular in college. Expelled for a prank, hewas readmitted on probation. His major accomplishmentwas singing the title role in the operetta “The Gypsy Rover.”
Clara and Erdman began keeping company in the spring of 1925. Though he liked to dance, he didn’t take her to the country dances thatwere popular with their age group. Hewas 18, and shewas 22.
Instead Erdmanwould phone, asking Clara to go for a ride in his Ford Roadster. Then he’dwait outside until she joined him. He had never been in her family’s home. Sometimes he’d disappear on her.
In her letter to his parents, Clara pleaded: “I wrote Erdman a letter some time ago, and told him Iwanted to see him, but have not seen him come down.”
The earliest sign of an impending tragedy came on Sept. 9, when Clara received the letter from Erdman thatwould be found on her battered body. After reading it, she intently studied an old geography schoolbook. Her sister asked what shewas looking for.
“O, a place,” Clara replied. Erdman wrote they’d be married inMinnesota.
After dinner, she helped milk the cows. About midnight, she stepped out; her father assumed shewas going to the outhouse. An hour or two later, Chris awoke from a bad dream and asked his wife if Clara had returned. Shewent to their daughter’s roomand found it empty, the Tribune reported.
The next morning, one of Clara’s brothers traced tire tracks fromoutside their home to Erdman’s home. He told Erdman that Clarawas missing. Did he come over to pick her up?
“It must have been someone else,” Erdman replied.
Meanwhile a letterwas found in Clara’s room explaining her absence: “Please don’t take it seriously as it will mean nothing, only a little surprise. I amtaken good care of and will be back soon.”
Instead, her corpsewas found. At the inquest into the slaying, Erdman’s father said his son couldn’t have killed Clara because he’d gone to a dance without her. The district attorney, to a courtroom packed with spectators and reporters, concluded his remarks with a PerryMason-like performance.
He read aloud Erdman’s letter to Clara. Jurors found it damning upon hearing the words: “Do as I tell you to and everything will beO.K. If you don’t your chance might be shot and I might make a scarce hubby.”
The county commissioners, embarrassed by the notoriety their community was getting, authorized a reward for information on Erdman’s whereabouts. So, too, did the governor, and as the rewardmoney increased, so did the number of tipsters whowanted to claim it.
Erdman supposedly fled to Canada. Or was itNorway? He reportedly killed himself in a Chicago hotel. The sheriffwas sent on a wild-goose chase to Charleston, South Carolina.
None of the tips, which continued for years, could be validated.
Through the media, Erdman’s father urged his son to return. He insisted that his son couldn’t be the murderer because he had been seen at the dance. The authorities noted hewas there only briefly, as if to establish an alibi.
Why did he disappear? According to his father, thatwas Clara’s father’s fault. He was hounding Erdman into a forced marriage.
Chriswasmore charitable when speaking about Erdman. “I forgive young Olson,” he said. “My family is better off than his is, even ifmy little Clara is gone.”
After the autopsy, her remainswere brought to her family’s home for thewake. The casketwas closed because the body had deteriorated during itsweekslong burial on Battle Ridge. Atop the casket were a few flowers brought by a cousin. On thewall behind itwas a photograph of Clara and her confirmation class at a nearby Lutheran church.
On Dec. 7, 150 cars lined up behind the hearse for a ride through a howling blizzard to the church. Six young men from Clara’s confirmation class carried the casket inside. Snowfell on 300 mourners who couldn’t get into the packed church. Those inside heard the pastor recount the tragedy that had awaited Clara.
“Shewent out to meet her sweetheart,” the Rev. Martin Finstad said. “She had just bought a new dress, because she thought shewas going on herwedding trip. It turned out to be a sadwedding trip, both for her and for him.”