Jim Stingl
It’s bad luck to have your misdeeds on a page that many tuck away and save for decades.
Whenever I see a keepsake newspaper front page, like the Apollo 11 moon landing or the John F. Kennedy assassination or another major story, my eyes are drawn to the relatively minor articles sharing the page.
A week ago, the Journal Sentinel reprinted the Milwaukee Sentinel front page from July 21, 1969, with this screamer headline and rare exclamation point: “Men walk on moon! Triumph for mankind.”
A far less triumphant example of mankind was farther down the page: “Suspect arrested in bank robbery,” with a mug shot of one Ralph C. Stearn.
It’s his bad luck to have his misdeeds on a page many newspaper readers save for decades.
He and another guy, both in their 60s, robbed the Tri City State Bank in Oak Creek. I found a followup article in the Journal Sentinel archives saying that Stearn had spent more than half his life in prison for bank robberies, prison escapes and once plotting to hold the governor of Michigan hostage during a prison visit.
Anyway, Stearn got 15 more years in prison for this armed holdup, shattering any illusion he ever had of being remembered like Armstrong or Aldrin.
The day President Kennedy was killed in Dallas, Nov. 22, 1963, The Milwaukee Journal put out an extra edition. “Kennedy is slain,” is the still-chilling banner headline.
But wait, what’s that story right under Kennedy’s photo? The one titled, “Infant develops taste for beauty, shakes up mom.”
It’s about a 15-month-old Milwaukee boy named Anthony Sharkey (I would quibble with the headline writer calling him an infant) who got into a box of Christmas ornaments and tried to eat one at home on North 11th Street.
“Mrs. Sharkey saw her son chewing and picked the pieces of glass out of his mouth. To be on the safe side, she called
police who took Anthony to county emergency hospital,” the article says.
When Prohibition was repealed, the Dec. 6, 1933, Journal shared the huge and welcome news that “Dry era ends.” You can imagine taverns back then taping that newspaper to the wall. But lower on the page, we're introduced to local yahoo Frank Kelley who is claiming that self-defense was the reason he beat up his grandmother, Dora Kelley.
“She swung at me with a soup ladle, and I had to protect myself,” he told the judge, who “half rose from the bench in indignation at Kelley's explanation.”
It takes especially bad timing to find your own homicide case on the front page alongside the news that serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer had been arrested, Milwaukee's crime of the century.
The July 23, 1991, Journal tops the page with Dahmer, of course, but just below that you find, “3 boys questioned in driver's death.” The culprits were not named because they're juveniles, but they were accused of tossing a rock from an overpass on I-94 near Eau Claire, killing a motorist below.
How exciting it must have been to read the news about the Wright brothers' successful flight in the Dec. 18, 1903, Milwaukee Journal. Headline: “A flying machine that does fly.”
But sharing the top of the page, with a headline just as big, was this local story: “Woman is shot by her husband.” Mrs. Fred Wagner survived, you'll be relieved to hear. Yes, back in those days the newspaper referred to a woman by her husband's first name, even when he shoots her. Fred's motive: “Says he was crazed by bad food,” a secondary headline says.
Sometimes the little stories that make it onto souvenir front pages are more oddball than incriminating. The Aug. 6, 1945, the Journal has a banner headline, “Atomic bomb loosed on Japan.” On the same page we hear about Lawrence Helmueller, a priest who taught at Marquette High School.
He was walking outside when he felt a stinging pain in his right shoulder, leading him to think a boy had thrown a stone in his direction. Hours later he noticed blood on his clothing and went to a hospital where doctors removed a .22caliber bullet.
And on the Journal front page from April 16, 1912, that reports the sinking of the Titanic, there's also this: “Daring climber goes to top of city hall flagstaff.”
Harry Thomas, a steeplejack who lived on Walker Street, shimmied up the pole “in celebration of the election of the non-partisan city ticket,” whatever that means. Thousands of people stood and watched.
Had Harry picked a slow news day for his ascent, we wouldn't be talking about him 107 years later.