An Old Timey Podcast - 40: Nell Donnelly Reed Conquers All (Part 3)

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

In the final episode of this series, we hear how it all shakes out. The trials end. The messy love square between the Donnellys and Reeds implodes. Kansas City Mafia boss Johnny Lazia meets his maker. The Donnelly Garment Company thrives, then dies. Through it all, Nell Donnelly Reed rises to untold prominence, but still manages to keep her secrets.Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Kristin pulled from: “Nelly Gone: KCQ traces the kidnapping of Nell Donnelly,” by Kate Hill for the Kansas City Public LibraryThe book, “More than Petticoats: Remarkable Missouri Women,” by Elaine Warner The book, “James A. Reed: Legendary Lawyer; Marplot in the United States Senate,” by J. Michael CronanThe book, “Called to Courage, Four Women in Missouri History,” by Margot Ford McMillen and Heather Roberson“First A Lady,” by Jennifer Wilding for the Kansas City Star magazine“Nelly Don’s unexpected legacy,” for the Fashion Conservatory“Nell Donelly Reed,” Historic Missourians“Nelly Don’s zero-waste apron design,” run-sew-read“Nelly Don: Self made in America,” seamwork.comThe book, “The Snatch Racket,” by Carolyn CoxThe book, “The Devil’s Tickets,” by Gary M. PomerantzObituary for George Blair, Kansas City Star, June 10, 1977“Causes for hate,” The Kansas City American, Dec. 24, 1931“Mrs. Donnelly is found, safe,” The Kansas City Times, Dec. 18, 1931“Mrs. Donnelly’s chauffeur tells of the kidnappers’ treatment of them,” The Kansas City Star, Dec. 18, 1931“Link Mrs. Depew,” The Kansas City Star, Dec. 23, 1931“Mrs. Donnelly was released last Friday,” Southwest Mail and Weekly Post, Dec. 25, 1931“Depew speaks for Mele,” The Kansas City Times, July 16, 1932“Paul Donnelly is dead,” The Kansas City Star, Sept 8, 1934“Estate of Donnelly v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue,” case-law.com“Rich young widow weds,” The Windsor Star, Jan. 13, 1937“Reed Ranch,” reed-ranch.com“The murder of John Lazia,” ganglandwire.comAre you enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Then please leave us a 5-star rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts!Are you *really* enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Well, calm down, history ho! You can get more of us on Patreon at patreon.com/oldtimeypodcast. At the $5 level, you’ll get a monthly bonus episode (with video!), access to our 90’s style chat room, plus the entire back catalog of bonus episodes from Kristin’s previous podcast, Let’s Go To Court.

Hear ye, hear ye. You are listening to an old-timey podcast. I'm Kristen Caruso. And are you telling me a shrimp fried this rice? It's Norman Caruso. And on this episode, I'll be talking about the kidnapping of America's best businesswoman. Part three! Whoa! If you've been paying attention, she's been kidnapped and she's been rescued already. Yeah. Yeah.

Now you don't even need to listen to this whole... thing. Yeah, what's the point of this episode anyway? There's no point to any of it, Norm. And yet here we sit, ready to podcast. I've got my three beverages and you've got one because you don't have ADHD. That's right. You told me I couldn't be in the club the other day. I did not. Yeah, you did. I said, man, I wonder if I have ADHD and you were like, I don't think you do. You can't be in our club. No, fake news. Fake news. I am cracking down on fake news. I'm feeling very empowered. Um, assholes have all the power now. I've been waiting for this moment my whole life.

And I'm here to tell you that I'm pretty sure I told you that you could be in the club, but only because of all the ADHD. We forget to kick me out of the club. Oh, that's right. You just, you would forget to kick me out. Yeah. That's what you said. I'm just saying, if you're sitting down to podcast and you've got one beverage, your case for ADHD isn't strong.

You're probably right. Thank you. Folks, did you know that every. month we do trivia for our patrons at the $7 and $10 level with fabulous prizes for the winner. And this month's theme, Romantic Comedies. Oh. One of my guilty pleasures, I love romantic comedies. I'm just glad you can admit how much you love romantic comedies.

There was a time, sir. Yeah, there was a time in my life when I was in denial about it. I wasn't comfortable with who I was. And so I was like, no, I don't like romantic comedies like 20, seven dresses and 13 going on 30. Someone else came in here and put this on my TV and I, you know, I'm just powerless to change the channel, you said. Well, I would always be like, oh, I just have it on as background noise while I do something

else, but I wasn't doing anything else. I was watching the movie. That's my excuse with porn. Oh, I just have this on, you know, while I'm doing my important work. Yeah, you just watch porn while you work. No, I'm not even watching it. It's on the background while I do my taxes, okay? That's what's happening.

Wow. You'd make a great CPA. You'd have a lot of fans. Can you imagine? A lot of customers coming in. With the combination of how bad I am at math, how bad I am at paying attention to detail. And also there's hardcore pornography in the background on every screen. Everyone's taxes would be wrong.

Every single one. Anyway, Kristen, I want to test your knowledge of romantic comedies. Right now? Yeah, right now. Uh-oh. I've got just one question. Okay, okay. In the movie 13 going on 30.

Oh, God. What is the name of Matt and Jenna's favorite candy? I never saw that movie. Is it a made-up candy or is it a real candy? It's a real candy. Okay. Okay. Romantic comedy, so it's got to be something sweet.

It's candy. Of course it's sweet. Hey, hey, hey, hey, just, eh, but I'm thinking not chocolate. Okay, nothing poo colors. Don't question my process. What about white chocolate? Ew, no one likes white chocolate, so that's enough of that. Hot take.

Um, sweethearts. Or, now that's not the name of a candy even. Sweet tarts. Yeah, sweet tarts. That's what they liked. No. What was it? Razzles.

What the hell is a razzle? It's like the... You said it wasn't a made up candy. It's a real candy, razzles. It's like gum and candy. Hold on. I'm looking this. I haven't had razzles in a long time.

I don't even know if they make it anymore. Okay, everyone. Anyone who was with me on this, I apologize. It turns out, These are real candies. They don't look good. It's candy and then it turns into gum. That's right.

Okay. Well, that was their favorite candy. This should be removed from the market. So you're really bad at this. Yes. But our patrons are really good at trivia. And monthly trivia is just one of the perks you can get if you support this small, independent, sexy podcast on. Oh, I'm sorry.

I was just thinking how brilliant you are because by the time this episode, drops, the trivia will be that coming Tuesday. So hurry up and sign up on www. www. patreon.com slash old-timey podcast. Very good, Kristen. Thank you. Very good. As a non-threatening fan at the $5 level on our Patreon,

you get monthly bonus episodes of an old-timey podcast with full video and access to our Discord server where you can chitty chat the day away. But at the $7 level, you'll become a history ho where you'll get all that plus a signed thing. Thank you card with our signature stickers and access to the aforementioned monthly trivia party. But hey, you look like a straight shooter that's looking for a deal. And I tell you what, it is at that $10 pick by investor level.

You know, I've always considered myself to be an investor and very wealthy and smart with my money. So what would I do with it if that were me? Wait, what are you asking? I'm asking, you know, for someone who's really smart and sexy. who's a bit of an investor, a bit of a fat cat, if you will. What tier would I be on? You would give me $10. Oh, okay.

And say, sign me up for the pig butter investor tier. Uh-huh. Because you'll get everything I just said, plus early ad-free episodes of an old-timey podcast with full video, 10% off all of our merch. And every episode of Kristen's old podcast, let's go to court ad free. Excuse me, it's middle-aged. Thank you very much. Oh, your middle-aged podcast, I see. Anyway, head on over to patreon.com

slash old-timey podcast to sign up. Thank you very much. Oh, and Norm, I've got very good news. We've got an ad this week. What? Take it away. Doodoo. Doodoo.

Kristen. Yeah. Your father is notoriously cheap. It's true. And I want to know what's the best money lesson he ever. taught you. Oh, gosh. There are a lot of them. But since we're doing an ad for acorns, I will say, investing, you've got to give your money a chance to grow. That's what it's all about. And you can give your money a chance to grow with acorns. Acorns is a financial wellness app that makes it

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Let me tell you something, Norm. AI doesn't capture the chaos that is happening right here all the time. That's true. AI is like kind of soulless. Oh, I thought you were going to say something offensive, like, logical and blah, blah, blah, and doesn't have porn running in the background of the CPA office. I mean, AI could do that if you asked it to, I guess. It's true. It's true. Norm, are you ready for this episode or are you wanting to chit-chat some more?

We want to have a good time? Let's get to the story. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, we chit-chat after the story. That's how we do things on this podcast. Rules. All right. Here we go.

Previously, on an old-timey podcast. Oh, that's so much fun to say. Fashion designer and highly successful businesswoman Nell Donnelly and her chauffeur, George Blair, were kidnapped in the driveway of Nell's Kansas City mansion. Nell's husband, Paul, barely noticed that she'd gone missing. But when the first of her... ransom letters came in, he knew exactly who to call for help. His wife's boyfriend, prominent attorney and married politician James A. Reed. The situation was a little awkward. Earlier that year, Nell had become pregnant with James A. Reed's child. She wanted the two of them

to divorce their respective spouses, but James refused. He aspired to become president of the United States. And we all know you can't become president of the United States once you've been divorced. Anyhow. Plus, the Donnelly Garment Company was going gangbusters. It had more than a thousand employees. It made millions every year. A scandal might ruin everything they'd all worked so hard to achieve. So Nell told everyone that she was going to Europe to adopt a child. In reality, she went to Chicago and gave birth to a baby boy named David. She and Paul presented David to the world as their adopted son. So, yeah, things were weird.

And then the kidnapping happened, and the ransom letters came in, and Paul knew that if anyone could put an end to that terror, it was James A. Reed. That's because, at the time, Kansas City was run by a corrupt political machine that worked closely with the Kansas City Mafia. James owed his career to that political machine. He knew things. And so, when James found out that Nell had gone missing, he called up and threatened Kansas City mafia boss Johnny Lazzia. James said he'd make it his mission to ruin everything the mafia had

going for it. The drugs, the sex work, the gambling, the booze. Unless his beloved neighbor, oh, he loved his neighbor, Nell Donnelly, and, oh yeah, also George Blair, were returned safely. John Lossia responded by sending carloads of armed gangsters all over the the city searching for info. In the end, it seems they found what they were looking for. At 3.30 in the morning on December 18, 1931, three masked men burst into the cottage where Nell and George were being held. They told Nell that there'd been a mistake. She'd been kidnapped by out-of-towners. And then they ushered her to safety. The men led Nell and George out of the cottage and into a vehicle. The rescuers drove away, then dropped them off, and

Kansas City, Kansas. When police came to pick them up, neither Nell nor George could say much about the men who'd kidnapped them. Both of them had been blindfolded for most of the kidnapping, which Norm has a problem with, but we don't have time. This is just the intro. How are we still in the intro? But by some strange stroke of luck, Nell still held a towel that one of the kidnappers had given to her. The towel had a last name on it. The last name led police to a cottage in Bonner Springs, Kansas. the very place that Nell and George had been held captive for 34 hours. The guy renting the place was a man named Paul Sheet. He admitted that he'd allowed the kidnappers to use his home for the kidnapping.

He said that he'd been approached with the idea by a man named William Lacey Browning, and that William Lacey Browning had been approached with the idea by a man named Martin DePue. Soon a theory emerged. Martin's wife Ethel was a nurse. she'd treated Paul Donnelly in his home a year earlier. Perhaps after seeing everything the Donnellys had and how well the Donalys lived, Ethel and Martin had come up with the kidnapping plan. But by the time that theory came out, Martin and Ethel were long gone.

Ethel eventually turned herself over to police. She'd been at her sister's house in Pennsylvania. As for her husband, well, he took a bit longer to apprehend. He made it all the way to South Africa before being brought back kicking and screaming to Kansas City. So, with quite a few alleged kidnappers in custody, the DA's office got tough. They boasted that all these kidnappers were going to hang, baby! But it didn't work out that way. You seemed really excited to say that.

I did, but only because no one died, you know. Uh-huh. They put Paul's sheet on trial twice. The first time, the jury deadlocked. The second time, they found him not getting him. guilty. Meanwhile, with the threat of death looming overhead, William Lacey Browning, Martin DePue, and a guy named Walter Werner, all pled guilty. Ethel's situation was precarious. She claimed she had no knowledge of the kidnapping, so she decided to go to trial. And speaking of precarious,

investigators had a sinking feeling that they hadn't found all the kidnappers. Paul Sheet had said that he'd taken one of the kidnappers to his workplace, where the man had made a phone call to a local restaurant. He'd spoken in Italian. Police traced that call to the restaurant's owner, a man named Vic Benura. They were certain that Vic had something to do with the kidnapping, but when investigators went to look for him, they couldn't find him. So they went for the next best thing. Vic Benura's known associate, Charles Melee. In this episode? Charles Mele goes on trial.

So does Ethel. And the complicated love square between Nell and Paul Donnelly and James and Laura Reed collapses. Plus, we find out what happened to everyone in the end. Here we go! Are we all excited enough? Would you really call it a love square? I feel like Lura was not really doing much. What the f-mm?

What does that mean? Listen, buddy, listen, buddy. To be in a love shape, you don't have to be an active participant. You just have to be in it. If you're married to one of the participants, this is affecting you. We need more participation in the love square. I bet. Now if Paul starts banging Lura, now we've been.

We've got a love square. That would be just ridiculous. I don't know why I draw the line there. Like he's cheating on Nell constantly. Why would I have a problem with him going to Lura? If anything, it'd be convenient. He and James, high five on the dog run as they pass each other. And everybody's getting banged.

Everybody's getting happy. But that's not the way this story goes. Be back in five minutes. Ching! High five. Are you ready? I'm going to be really honest, that intro felt very long. It was a long intro.

I didn't want to interrupt you. I appreciate it. You were like, clearly this train is moving. I'm not going to try to slow it down by throwing myself on the tracks. Nope. Absolutely not. Even though you would be such a beautiful old timey woman tied up. Oh, thank you very much.

That's probably the nicest thing you've ever said about me. What? No, I say lovely things to you all the time. And sometimes it's too much for you. Oh, yeah? Yeah, Norm, you've been out of town for the past couple days. And when you came home, myself, the dogs, and Kiki the cat just stared at you lovingly. For I'm going to say, we thought it was an appropriate amount of time.

You were kind of like, okay, well, I'm going to go to sleep now. I did it. It was very sweet, very sweet. I'm glad to be home. But I am very excited to hear the conclusion to this fascinating tale. All right, I'll tell you. Okay, picture it. Twas 1932, and James A. Reed and the local DA's office were humiliated.

Why? Why do you think, big boy? Why do you think? I don't know. They got guilty pleas out of those dudes. Norm, they wanted people to hang. They were like, they were bloodthirsty. No, I don't think it was.

Okay, well, okay, so they're humiliated. What's next? Now what are they going to do? Norm, you, I can tell. I can just tell that your true crime experience is a little lacking, because you don't understand that there's nothing scarier than a prosecutor who just got himself in a dick measuring contest and found out he came up a little short. There's nothing scarier. These guys want blood. They don't care whose blood it is. Okay. Yeah, my true crime knowledge is lacking, I guess. Well, you're not a white lady, so I can't blame you there, you know.

But here we go. The kidnapping of Nell Donnelly and also George Blair had been an outrage. People needed to pee! They'd been clear from the start that the kidnappers were definitely going to die for what they'd done. But, you know, investigators didn't have much on Charles Mayle. Well, and he's just like somebody of the guy that owns the restaurant, right? A known associate, Norm. Yeah, yeah, the guy they wanted was gone, so, you know, why not this guy right here?

Yeah, that usually works out. Hey, hey, and you know what, maybe Charles Malay really had been involved. Okay, listen to this. Police brought him in for a lineup. As part of that process, they tried to replicate the conditions in which Nell Donnelly might have seen him. They turned off the lights. They shined a flashlight on each man's face. And in the end, Nell said that she recognized him as one of the men who guarded her in that cottage in Bonner Springs. Then she went further, which I'm telling you because you look skeptical and smug. She said, he has a deformed hand.

He covers it with a glove. And she was right. Charles Melae's right hand had been injured when he was a child, and as a result, it was noticeably smaller than his left hand. like Dunis on SNL. Rude. I don't know what this looked like, but probably not quite like that. You know, all of this could have been avoided if they just kept the blindfold on Nel Donnelly. Think how many people could have gotten away. So what you really want is for aspiring kidnappers to listen to this podcast.

Take note, aspiring kidnappers. Always leave the blindfold on. Suddenly, the case against Charles Mele was building. They asked him for a sample of his handwriting, which might seem a little odd to anyone who has been following this story closely. Norm, why is it odd? How closely have you been following this story? Or have you been tuning out and dreaming about Linda Evans? Well, it would be odd because what are they going to compare it to? Exactly. The ransom note was written by Mel, right? Norm, you're a full-blown history ho. Yeah. Nell had been forced to write.

her own ransom notes. Why would the handwriting of her kidnappers matter? Well, that's because investigators had held something back from the media like sneaky little sneaks. And it was the fact that James A. Reed had actually received a letter from one of the kidnappers. And, you know, since these were old-timey times, investigators couldn't wait to put their very real and super-scientific handwriting analysis skills to use. So they had Charles do a little writing and they compared it to the letter that James had received.

And, oh, my God. Lo and behold, they determined that Charles handwriting and the handwriting in that letter were a match. Similar kind of, yeah. What do they make them write in those samples? James A. re-dictated the letter he received and he had him write it out. Couldn't he like fake his writing? Obviously that's why this is so stupid. This is how I write and he just like makes it look terrible or different or on purpose.

The way they used to do it back in the day would be like these are similar and this sample shows signs of deception like they're trying to trick us. But you can't prove that. Well, no, you can't. This is all bullshit. But like, first of all, if I'm hand writing a letter that I don't want traced back to me, I'm not going to do it in my handwriting. I'm going to try to disguise it. Sure.

And if I'm at police headquarters giving a sample of my handwriting, it's going to be wingdings. The letter to James A. Read comic sands. You can't do wingings. I'm going to do my best. Write one wing ding right now. I dare you. I'm just going to do a picture of a butt and a star and a heart and they can, you know, do what they will with it. It'd be funny if they found some.

of Nell Donnelly's handwriting. They were like, it matches the ransom note. She kidnapped herself. It was a publicity stunt. We knew it all along. So, Bing, bang, boom, they had their case.

They've got them. Lock them up, boys. Yeah. Oh, don't worry, they did that. Now, did Charles have an airtight alibi? No. Don't worry about it, I say. Oh, they didn't even look into that.

Don't. Everybody just called it. Well, wait a minute. He should come up with that. That's on him, right? Yeah. Shouldn't Charles be like, yeah, I was with my friend Larry Lazzania the other night. Yeah, he should be. Watching porn and doing taxes. Yeah, as, no. Norm, you completely misunderstand.

Doing taxes while porn was on in the background. Yeah, I didn't even know it was there. I didn't even know it was. I pay so little attention. It's like Norman Caruso watching a rom-com. He's not watching it. It's just on in the background. We don't need to follow the plot line of the porn. Yeah. We just enjoy the noises. Charles Mele's trial took place in July of 1932, and by this point, prosecutor James Page was like, I am sick of losing. Hey, James A. Reed, will you please join me as a special prosecutor?

Check one, yes, no, maybe. And James A. Reed, who'd always known himself to be a very special boy, was like, absolutely. Yes. He only lost one case, though, James Page. He lost two cases. Well, and I am... No, just one. Just the guy that was like, yeah, I was renting it to him, but I didn't know about the kidnapping.

So the first case deadlocked. Yeah. I'm kind of counting that as a loss. That's not great if you deadlock. And then the second trial, he did lose. But the same guy. Yes. Yes, I am messing with the timeline a little bit here because these all kind of overlap.

But these cases are not going great. sir. Okay. This was supposed to be a slam dunk. In court, Charles's defense attorney argued that Charles couldn't have been one of the men who stood guard over Nell and George because Charles had been working in Kansas City throughout the kidnapping. When Charles took the stand in his own defense, he laid out his alibi and he did not hold back. He said he couldn't have helped with the kidnapping because, frankly, he was involved in other illegal activities at the time. He explained that he worked at the workman's hotel in Kansas City, where he oversaw a ton of gambling. He worked long hours. He oversaw betting on horse races during the day. Then at night,

he handled all the gambling by dice. I don't know a better way to say that, but we all know what I mean. The gambling what? By dice, you know, dice games. It would be hard to find an alibi, though if he's doing a bunch of illegal stuff because no one would want to incriminate themselves, right? Wrong. Multiple people testified that they saw Charles working in or around the hotel at the time of the kidnapping. If he wasn't at the hotel,

he was at a nearby restaurant getting something to eat. When asked how it was even possible that illegal gambling could be taking place in sweet little Kansas City, witnesses revealed that the Kansas City police were bribed $400 every month to look the other way. Adjusted for inflation? Nine grand a month.

That's it? Yeah, what? Oh, I'm sorry, Rich. I'm sorry. That's not that much. I'm sorry. Circle Drive. Hot tub. What else you got, Norm?

Gold chains? To bribe a police force, that's all it costs? Well, I'm, yeah. Seems way too low. Okay. Well, maybe you could start a whole new series where you teach people how to kidnap. and you teach police how to take good bribes. Yeah, maybe I will.

Maybe I will. And they'll say, I thought you were a non-threatening boy. I'm full of good ideas, though. I would never do these things. Yeah. I'm all talk. Uh-huh. Yeah.

That revelation was a little shocking and didn't reflect well on the people who had investigated Charles Malay. Mm-hmm. Another thing that the defense had going for it was the fact that Paul Sheet, who had confessed that he'd allowed the kidnappers to use his home. home for the kidnapping, was like, I can't identify this guy as one of the men who guarded Nell and George. And I recognize him.

Mm-hmm. You know what I think? What? I think James A. Reed tipped off Nell Donnelly about Charles and was like, we want to get this guy locked up. Yeah, he's got a little deformed hand. You think in the lineup? Yeah.

Pick him out. That's exactly what I think, too. I think that's what happened. That's funny. I was holding that back because I thought it was one of my tinfoil hat moments, but I really do think this kidnapping was extremely traumatic, obviously. Eyewitness accounts are always pretty faulty. They're imperfect for obvious reasons.

You know, even people who aren't witnessing something traumatic or going through something hard can have a tough time recalling exact details. And so, yeah, I think they found. the guy they wanted. Or a close, a known associate of the guy they actually wanted. Sure, sure. And maybe they were like, what about this guy right here,

Nell? This one, this one. Oh, you want that one? Oh, good job. Yep, that's him. Yeah. Especially if he has that alibi. I don't... Yeah, that's a really strong alibi. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. All this to say that the defense had a strong case. But things went downhill

when it came time to compare Charles's handwriting to that of the kidnappers. The prosecution's expert witness had been clear. The handwriting was similar. What more do you need? So the defense did exactly what you'd expect them to do. They brought in their own handwriting expert. Who said that the handwriting was different.

The problem? Their expert was an absolute moron. Oh, no. Total idiot named Dr. E.M. Perdue. Oh, well, why was he stupid? Well, hang on. I'm about to tell you in great detail, and you're going to love it. Dr. E.M. Purdue took the stand and brought a microscope up there, right up there with him. And on the stand, he took his time,

studying Charles' handwriting under the microscope, and then studying the letter that the kidnappers had written to James A. Reed. And after a while, he was like, mm, yeah, no, these aren't the same. Mm-mm, very different. My expert opinion, mm-mm, mm-mm. When the time came for the prosecution to cross-examine, Dr. E. M. Purdue. James A. Reed was like, stand down, James Page. Daddy's got this. So he got up and started asking Dr. E.M. Purdue about his credentials. And Dr. Purdue was happy to recite his accomplishments.

He was like, yeah, I went to Haman Homeopathic Medical School. I do everything. Physical therapy, osteotherapy. Oh, by the way, I'm also an attorney. Definitely a handwriting expert. There's literally nothing I can. can't do. And James A. Reed was like, okay, all right, great. Are you a member of the Jackson County Medical Society? And Dr. Purdue said, I object. He objected. And so then the judge,

of course, was like, you can't do that. Yeah, you're a witness. You can't object. And Dr. Purdue said, I have committed no felony. The attorney has no right. to ask me that question. If I admitted to being a member of the Jackson County Medical Society, I would be guilty of a felony. What is this guy talking about? Exactly. What in the ever-loving hell is this man talking about? Are you a member of the society or are you not? It's a simple question. What were those like bullshit medical schools called back in the day? Snake Oil University. No, I don't remember. It was, but yeah, there were a lot of There were a lot of them.

It sounds like this guy went to one. Yeah, it's basically the, you know, equivalent of I went online for three weeks and now I'm a doctor. Yeah, he went to Education Connection. Got me with the right college for free. That's right. Here's what happened next. Are you ready? Yes.

Read. When did you study comparative handwriting? Purdue. I didn't study comparative handwriting. I studied all of those things under the microscope. Oh, dear God. Read. What was the lowest magnification of the microscope you're using?

Purdue, 30 times magnification. Read. Don't you know you can't observe handwriting magnified 30 times under a microscope? In response. Poor, poor Dr. E.M. Purdue just did that weird little smile thing at the jury, you're like, when you're caught, and you can't be like, okay, you caught me, and you can't be like, I hate you, you just have to sit there. Was he like Urquil?

Did I do that? Basically. Oh, my God. And by the end of this exchange, the jury was laughing at him. Oh, dear God. At least find somebody a little more believable. He literally asks him, what credentials do you have as a handwriting expert? And he said, none.

Well, he didn't want to quite admit that. Here's the thing. I do feel this is what I hate in a court case. I bet you this guy was super cheap to get on the witness stand. And I bet you Charles Malay did not have a lot of money for a defense attorney. Yeah. And this was the best guy they could get. And he looks like an idiot up there because he is an idiot.

But that doesn't mean that Charles Malay is guilty. Right. But in the eyes of the jury, what are they supposed to make of that? Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's 1932. Handwriting analysis is definitely science. Afterward, James A. Reid called up witnesses who were like, yeah, don't listen to that Purdue guy. He's dumb. You can't be an expert at everything unless you are the cheesecake factory. And everybody knows that. And that's literally what they said, which, you know. Yeah. Yeah, the cheesecake factory does everything exceptionally well.

Okay. You say that like it's a joke. But it's a joke. I'm not joking. I know it's not cool to love the cheesecake factory. Never had a bad meal of the cheesecake factory. They do it all, baby, and we don't know how, and we don't ask questions. Other than, may I see that brick of a menu, please. It is a very large menu. Closing arguments were really ugly, and they didn't need to be.

Ugly. Yeah. They named Colin? What were they doing? Oh, yeah. In his biography on James A. Reed, the writer J. Michael Cronin points out that, you know, again, the defense had a strong case. For example, in her pretrial testimony, Nell Donnelly, kind of messed up. She'd said that Charles Malay had been in the back seat with her when she was abducted and that Martin DePue had been the driver. But when Walter Werner pled guilty, he admitted to being the driver. So perhaps her memory wasn't perfect. Understandably so. Yeah. He could have gone after that and not been the least bit disrespectful to her. Sure. But instead of using the closing argument to make any kind of logical

points about facts not adding up or about like, hey, Charles has a really strong alibi, the defense attorney got needlessly nasty, which is my nickname for you. No. No. He started. He started lying for no reason. Was he like, your mama so fat, she sat on a rainbow and made Skittles? And you know what? Everyone laughed. That's just mean. Everyone laughed, but they were like, what does this have to do with the case? You know, but they didn't stop him either because everybody deep down does love a your mama joke. James A. Reese said, this is just a distraction, folks.

It's a distraction. Please cut it out. I've got my own your mama jokes and frankly, we're running out of time and mine are way superior. And the defense attorney was like, oh, yeah, well, your mom is so ugly James A. Reed that she looked in a mirror and it shattered. Isn't, okay, I feel like I brought this up before, but isn't that the reason you got expelled from school in elementary school? Somebody said of your mama joke and you punched him? Yes, someone insulted my mother. Yeah, uh-huh. And I punched him right in the face.

Yep, he deserved it. Uh-huh. Three-day suspension. He got one day for provoking me. Really? Yeah, he got one day. I got three. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. I felt really cool because some of my classmates had to hold me back. Shut up. Are you serious? How many had to hold you back, Norm? Two. Wow.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then, you know, my mom was super mad at me because I got suspended, obviously. But then I said, here's why I got suspended. I was defending your honor. Right. And you know what? My mom wasn't that mad at me anymore.

Really? She actually, I think she kind of liked that I defended her honor. But I had to spend three days at my mom's job. She was like a secretary at a church part-time. Boy, that sounds thrilling for you. It was so boring. Did you drink up all the grape juice, eat up all those crackers? Nope.

She made me sit in the chair and just do homework. And I was not to talk. Oh. And it was really boring. And you've been on the righteous path ever since. I never got suspended again. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Learned my lesson. Very good. And I've gone down a path of peace and non-violence, non-threatening, some might say. Has anyone insulted your mother since then? I guess not. I can't think of an instance. So he's not been tested, folks. I, you know, I'm just opening it up.

If anybody's got your mama joke, let's see how. Oh, great. Now we're going to get your mama jokes in the reviews and comments, insulting my mother. And you're going to have to go all over the. this world, punching people. Yep. All right. That's it.

I'm flying out to you to punch you. I've never been to Utah, but I'm going now. Wow. I just got punched by the gaming historian. Spending $1,200 to come punch you. He's taller than I expected. Yeah, I get that a lot. Anyway, let's get back to the story, please.

Okay, so this defense attorney was being needlessly nasty. Yep, the yo mama jokes. He said that the kids. kidnapping had all been a publicity stunt for the Donnelly Garment Company. That, yeah, that's, that's... A lot of people thought that. He said that Nell Donnelly ran a sweatshop, which ran off the work of underpaid little girls. Well, that's not true.

That is bullshit. Those are all lies right there. Yes. James A. Reed should have said, this is preposterous. Reprehensive. Stood up and... Well, here's what he did.

Flopped his dong on the... table and say, well, here we go. By the time the defense finished their closing argument, James A. Reed was so pissed off that when he gave his closing argument, he referred to the defense attorney as a creature. This creature over here. In the end, the defense's tactics didn't work. The jury found Charles Maylay guilty, and he was sentenced to 35 years. Are you kidding me?

No. Yeah, I bet he's innocent. I say we do a retrial. Great. Mm-hmm. We contact the Innocence Project. Say, we need to look into this and they'll say, sir, that case was from 1932. They're like, we are really more concerned with people who are actually alive and actively incarcerated right now.

And we're like, hmm, fine, I guess. Because, you know, they've made a good point and we actually agree. But we can't let go of our anger. We could contact the job. The what? I was trying to say governor, and I called him the joviner. The governor of Missouri and asked for a post-humus pardon. It does make you sound smarter when you really land hard on that otherwise silent H.

Huh? Don't worry about it. Wait, posthumous. Did I screw that up to? Posthumous? We're not. We're leaving it in, baby. We're leaving it in.

I'm editing this episode. I know. Don't you dare. Don't you dare. Postomous? Everyone, Joe is... Did I say posthumous? Yes, everyone.

Joe is doing fine. Our editor is doing fine. Norm was just out of town, so Norm's editing this one because, you know, we're just doing this thing. Lickety split. Record, edit, boom. I'm going to dub over my voice in the edit and make sure I sound very smart. Don't you dare. I'm going to fix the jovener thing.

Here's I'm the jevener. The jevener and I'm posthumously. Yeah. A short while later, in September of 1932, Ethel DePue went on trial. It was the final trial in this kidnapping saga, and once again, it was not a slam dunk. Nell Donnelly testified that Ethel had been employed as a nurse in the Donnelly home for a brief time in 1930. One of the kidnappers who'd already pled guilty, William Lacey Browning, testified that two or three times he got together with Martin and Ethel to discuss the kidnapping. She'd been involved in the planning.

She knew what was going on. She'd talked about using the ransom money to buy a home back east. Police officers took the stand to say that Ethel had been a bit of a pill, frankly. She had been very unhelpful about, you know, giving them info to track down her husband. Ethel's defense was essentially that she had nothing to do with the kidnapping. If anything, it was her husband's idea. A friend... That's her defense?

What do you mean? I didn't do it? Yes. Well, you have to prove your innocence, right? You can't just be like, well, I didn't do it. No, they have to prove that you are guilty. Yeah, but. It's guilty or not guilty. It's not guilty or innocent.

Hang on. Hang on. I'm hanging. It sounds like the prosecutors have some pretty decent evidence of why she was involved. Like what? Like Mr. Browning saying, oh, yeah, I talked with her. And we talked about the kidnapping all the time because she wanted to buy a home back east. Oh, okay. Okay. And her response is, why didn't do that? Okay. You've got the word of a convicted criminal.

Mm-hmm. That's all you've got. You've got James A. Reed, too, though. What's he doing? He's looking sexy, flopping his dong out. He's not doing that. Saying posthumously and not posthumously. Yeah, and we're like, this guy seems smart. He seems to know what's going on.

This guy's pretty clever. A friend testified that she had seen the depuse on the day they fled Kansas City. They came to her house to use her phone. Martin was irritable. He was nervous. Ethel wasn't. It was Martin who insisted they had to get going right now. Come on.

Ethel, on the other hand, had wanted to stay a while. She'd been like, well, why can't we just spend the night here? Ah. So maybe she has no idea what's going on. Yeah. Hmm. How's it feel to have spoken too soon? Ethel testified in her own defense and said that she'd only found out anything about the kidnapping.

after it happened. She found out about it when she read a newspaper in Chicago on the way to Pennsylvania. She pointed out that when she got to her sister's house in Pennsylvania, she contacted an attorney. And the attorney advised her to turn herself into the police. And that's what she'd done. Investigators hadn't caught her. She'd gone to them. Oh, well, that's pretty good defense.

Yeah, suck on that, Norm. Hey, hey, I'm learning as I go here, okay? The defense brought out character witnesses who said that Ethel was a good gal. They brought out a jailhouse snitch who said that William Lacey Browning, the only person who had testified that Ethel was involved in the crime, had told him that she was innocent. Hmm. I will say you can't always rely on the testimony of the jailhouse informants, but still.

Are you calling me a stupid ho? No. Which, by the way, is now a custom flare on our subred. it? That is a wonderful thing. You know, I do think it's fun to call a straight man a hoe and even more fun to call him a stupid ho. And frankly, I recommend it to anyone.

If you're having a bad day, find the straightest man you can see and call him a stupid hoe. And just watch how he reacts. Yeah. Go up to one of your coworkers. She's a hey, why don't you quit being a stupid ho and work on these TPS reports? It's better if it's your boss, frankly. Oh, yeah, absolutely.

He'll think it's hilarious. Yes. And when you get fired, and of course you will, you'll have all the time in the world to listen to an old-timey podcast. Absolutely. Which is what this has all been about. The jury deliberated for 36 minutes. Not guilty. Yep.

Yep. And thank God. I mean, even if she was involved, they didn't have enough on her. Nah. Let Ethel go. The prosecution saw the writing on the wall. They hadn't gotten Ethel for the kidnapping of Nell Donnelly, and they hadn't gotten Paul for it either. And if they couldn't get either of them for the Donnelly kidnapping, they sure as hell

weren't going to get them for the kidnapping of her black chauffeur, George Blair. Oh yeah. What about him? Yeah, what about him? Did those people ever get charged for kidnapping him, too? You know, I believe they got charged, but these trials were just about Nell. And I think the hope on the prosecutor's part was, we're going to get them to hang. And, you know, if that happens, well, then who cares about the other charges? Yeah. But yeah. Again, if you can't get them for Nell, you're not getting them for George. Well, absolutely. It was wonderful that Nell Donnelly and George Blair had survived the kidnapping, but they didn't really get the justice they'd been looking for. And it's possible that when the justice system took over, it did more harm than good.

Charles Malay, who'd been sentenced to 35 years in prison, always maintained his innocence. And Martin DePue and Walter Werner, who'd admitted their guilt, told anybody who would listen for years that Charles had not been involved in the kidnapping. They had done it. We did it. He didn't. What about Charles's known associate, Vic Bonneroo? They never found him. I looked through newspapers.com. He skipped down. He slunked out.

I couldn't find anything. And it's kind of a common enough name that you don't want to make assumptions. When you see the name pop up elsewhere, obviously I'm assuming if you're on the run for a kidnapping, you don't pop up the next town over and use your real name. But yeah, I mean, he's gone. Vic Bonnero won the Pine Box Derby at the local boy's skimping. And it was a brief moment of glory before he was arrested and taken back to Kansas City. But again, I should say...

We got the wrong guy. This guy's eight years old. Yeah. I don't think it's him. Again, though, I should say, we can't assume he was guilty either. No. Here I am defending a guy. I'm just curious about the guy that called the restaurant. I was curious, too.

Talked in Italian. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. So they maintained that for years. This guy didn't do it. He really didn't. Did he ever get out of prison? Yeah.

Yeah, they all did eventually get out of prison. I'm so intrigued by old-timey times. They really wanted to kill you, but if they didn't kill you, they'd be like, we're putting you away for 35 years. And sure enough, like 12 years later, you'd get out and go have a normal life, which seems okay to me. Doesn't seem okay for Charles. He shouldn't have been there in the first place. Well, no, I agree. I agree.

Do you? Yes. Because you just said it seemed okay to you. I mean in terms of not locking people up forever. All in all, 1932 was a big year with all the trials and plea deals and acquittals. As we go on, we remember the acquittals. But it was also a big year personally for Nell and Paul Donnell and James A. Reed. Love triangle. Oh, sorry, love square. There's Lura in the corner.

Oh, yeah, anything you want to say about her? Nope. Okay. In October of 1932, James' wife, Laura, died. And he was like... He was like, oh, no. Oh, this is horrible. These are tears coming out of my eyes. I'm sure he was sad. A few weeks later, Nell told her husband, Paul, that she wanted a divorce.

Yep, there's the opening she needed. It was complicated. They owned the Donnelly garment company together. Sure, it was largely Nell's creation, but Paul had certainly helped. It had been his initial and significant financial investment that got the company off the ground. That's right. He was the credit manager at some shoe company, right? That's right.

Yeah. I think it was called Nike? No, Barton's equally popular. Got my Barton airs. But Nell had done. the lion's share of the work since then. She was responsible for ensuring that the company thrived while Paul was away at war. She was the one who created the handy-dandy apron, which kept her factory open year-round during the Great Depression. It was her eye for design, her commitment to

quality, her vision for a factory that offered high pay and unheard-of benefits that had allowed the company to thrive. But still, Paul had been there. He had contributed. And there's an argument that without his initial investment and support, Nell Donnelly might never have achieved what she did. Mm-hmm. Sure. So, Nell did what she had to do.

She bought Paul out of the company for a million dollars. Adjusted for inflation? $23 million. Oof. That's a hefty price tag. It is, but I was thinking, at this point they were generating about $3.5 million in profit annually.

So I, you know, it does sting when you see the numbers, but I don't know. It might be fair. It might be better than fair. I wouldn't say it's fair. What would you say? It's a lot of money, but like, don't you have to like evaluate the company?

And it's usually like what your profit is for five years. and that's kind of the value of your company. Oh, gosh, I don't know. So if they're making, how much in profit? About $3.5 million. Yeah, so you could, like, evaluate the company as worth, like, $15 million. So he should get, like, $7 million.

Maybe. Or something like that. That would be, that's a ton of money. Right. But, you know, if he was offered a million and he was like, yeah, I don't have to work again. Right, right. And I don't have to.

being this weird love love trapezoid or square whatever hexagon sure yeah you know maybe it was worth it to him yeah their divorce was final on November 15th 1932 in it Nell got sole custody

of the couple's adopted son David by the way everything I know about business is from Shark Tank so if anything I just said is wrong then go after Mark Cuban no I just saying if anything I if any business business majors just heard what I said and we're like, that is not how you evaluate a company.

Yeah, I don't know what I'm talking about. I probably heard it on Shark Tank and I was like, yeah, this is definitely right. And it's funny. In theory, I feel like we should know more about this. But the other thing I think we know is that, yeah, there can be a formula that exists. But if there are bad feelings, if someone wants to be, you know, has something else in their head, they don't have to agree to anything at all. Sure. And, you know, they could be like, hey, I don't want to wait, you know, 70 years for Shark Take to come on and teach us how we should do this. I'll just take the million dollars. Yeah, like I said, he could look at that number and be like, yeah, whatever, that's fine. It was all playing out so perfectly.

The dominoes were falling into place. Laura died. Then Nell got divorced. Oh, no. But maybe everything felt. into place a little too perfectly, a little too quickly, because people were talking. And since Nell Donnelly and James A. Reed were celebrities, the gossip didn't stay contained to Kansas City. Good history hoes might remember the name Walter Winchell from my Lucille Ball series. And from

the Hitler series. Was he in that one too? Yeah. Good grief. Yeah, a lady wrote to his radio show and said, I saw Hitler in the diner, and Walter Winchell sent the letter to the FBI. Okay, very good of him. Walter Winchell was a nationally syndicated gossip columnist and radio dude who announced Lucille Ball's pregnancy before even Lucy was aware that she was pregnant, and who helped us hunt down Hitler, who was definitely in a diner downtown. Looking real nervous. Mm-hmm.

The dude was big on gossip, small on ethics. And so just two weeks after Nell's divorce was final, Walter Winchell wrote a little something for his gossip column. It read, wonder if there is anything to the buzz that Mrs. Donnelly of Kansas City, who was kidnapped last year and ex-Senator Jim Reed may merge? Hmm, well, got news for you, Walter. They've been merging for a couple years now. When James A. Reed saw that column. He lost his shit. He wrote a letter to Walter Winchell that read in part,

A man who will couple another's name with a woman when the ashes of that man's wife are scarcely cold is about the lowest order of animal life. Oh, shut up. Yeah, it sounds a little defensive, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. It's like, dude, you were cheating on your wife. Yeah, you were cheating on your wife for years. Yeah. And yeah, this looks bad, but guess why it looks bad?

Because you've been doing something bad. Because you've been a bad boy, James Reed. Ironically, Paul Donnelly was the first one to officially move on. On February 14th, oh, Valentine's Day, 1933, just a few months after the divorce, Paul married a young woman, very young woman, woman half his age, named Virginia George. She was an actress, and she was an actress. and she'd been born in Wichita, Kansas. And according to multiple newspaper accounts,

it seems that the Donnellys had funded Virginia's studies. So, ew, perhaps Paul had been in her life for a little too long. That's how I read it. Funded her studies. Yeah, all the newspapers were pretty cagey about this, because, you know, you're talking about people with a lot of money, and you're going to do a little innuendo. One newspaper account read that Virginia,

Virginia, quote, had been a protege of his in her studies of dramatic art. Hmm. Yeah. Their marriage definitely raised some eyebrows. Oh, they got married. Yeah. Wow. Norm, are you paying any attention?

Well, I didn't know if they were just dating. Oh, hell no. They got married. No, they went down to Miami, Florida. They had themselves a good old time and they got married on Valentine's Day. Ooh. Okay. And they said, oh, is your father going to walk you down the aisle?

She said, how dare you? This is my new husband. Oh, Kristen. Such a hater of age gap love. I do not like it. There was a lot of talk about Virginia being a gold digger. But I think that the really interesting thing about their marriage was the pre-up. In it, Paul acknowledged that he had a drinking problem and could be unreliable. Wow.

And so they had it in writing that if Paul became unreliable, Virginia would be in entitled to withdraw money for herself. Interesting. I found that fascinating. Yeah. I'm guessing he's never going to get help for his drinking. If you put that in your freaking pre-up. You know, it really made me, these people were really, they didn't just show all their cards.

And I kind of wish they had because I'm curious. But it made me wonder about Paul. Like, you know, was that something she really pushed for? Or did he have an awareness about himself that he was like, I've got a problem. I'm probably not going to be a good husband. But I don't want you to be in a terrible position where bills can't be paid, where you can't have what you need. Right.

So Paul and Virginia went off east to have a lovely time. And just 10 months later, on December 13, 1933, Nell and James hosted a dinner party at Nell's swanky, Kansas City apartment, located at 5049 Warnel Avenue, Kansas City, Missouri. It's called the Walnuts. Or maybe just Warnel. I don't know that it's Avenue. Yeah, there we go, sure. It's the Walnuts.

Oh, yeah, those apartments? Mm-hmm. Yep. Those are very nice. So she got rid of her house? Well, this was after the divorce, so maybe they sold the house. I don't know. The thing is, Nell Donnelly had plenty of money.

It would not shock me if she had the house, the apartment, the whatever, you know. What are we doing with this dog run? What the hell are we doing with this thing? What are we doing? They invited about 20 of their friends for a dinner of venison and duck. And as soon as everyone finished eating, they were like, okay, everybody stand up. We have news, clinking glasses. Nope.

Oh, look, how convenient. We invited a judge to the party. Oh, we're getting married. Yeah. Jesus. This ain't no dinner party. It's a wedding. Tee-t-T-T-T-T-T-Tee.

A surprise wedding, and boy, was it a surprise because the groom was 72 and the bride was 44. So surprised. Had a heart attack. Yep. For real? No. No. He lived.

Did he have a heart attack? No, he didn't have a heart attack. He got married. Oh, well, you said yeah. Well, that was a joke. There's nothing funny about heart attacks, Kristen. Right, which is why I wouldn't have made that joke if he did die of a heart attack. Mm-hmm.

But he didn't. Instead, he just had venison and duck. Maybe he just chose one or the other. And then he got married. Was he in on this? I'm guessing he was in on this. Norm. Can you imagine?

Yes. To say yes. If he's getting married, I am like. Yeah, are you okay? I'm okay. You're a little off. You look a little under-caffinated. Uh-oh.

Well, I've got my tea here. Okay, well, you better drink up, big boy, because you are looking a little out of it. Uh-oh. Boss is getting upset with me, folks. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm trying to impress my hot boss. Nell and James, despite having a big flapping age gap, did seem to have a very happy marriage.

Don't describe it as a big flapping age gap. Oh, that's how all these other sources said it. Oh, I just, you know, copy and pasted their judgments. I'm not judgy at all. No. Their union meant that they could both finally live together with their biological child. That is good. Yeah.

Little David was two years old when his parents got married. And people around Kansas City definitely gossiped about the possibility that he was their biological child. I read something that Harry Truman and James A. Reed really hated each other. And at one point, Harry Truman wrote a letter to his wife being like, if that dude F's with me again, I might have to confront him with what I know. And the author was like, you know, we can't say for sure what he knew, but it was probably this. Really? Yeah.

Man, Harry Truman blackmailing James A. Reed? But James and Nell were committed to the lie. Nell had adopted David in Europe, for sure. And so, when James married Nell, he went. through the process of legally adopting his own biological son. Oh my God. Which, for those keeping track at home, means that little David had the very unusual distinction of being adopted by both of his biological parents years apart.

That is wild. It is so weird. Did he look like James A. Reed? Have you seen pictures? You know what, now that you mentioned it? Yeah, he looked exactly like him. That's so funny. I didn't even think about that.

Yeah, he looked. Incidence. Interesting. My adopted son looked exactly like me. Well, you know, that'll happen sometimes. They say couples start to look alike after a while and you don't accuse them of incest. See, he's just getting really defensive. Yeah. I do think it helps, though, when the dad is super, super old. Because I think a lot of the time, when it's really striking that people look alike, it's when you see them at the same age or, like, you know, closer together in age. Yeah, they never reach the same age. It's not how time works. Shut up.

You know what I mean, but like pictures. And I do realize that I made a really stupid point. And as the editor of this episode, I ask that you cut it and put in a much better point right now. Okay. Well, yeah, so James A. Read 72? Mm-hmm. Yeah. He must have not lived to see his son grow up very much.

Well, you are certainly getting ahead of the story. But the funny thing about it is 72. I always talk about adjust for inflation. 72 in the 30s, I'm sorry, that's 112. That's just what that is. Yeah, you're just dead. You are in the ground. He's a corpse.

A few weeks after they got married, the family of three moved into a new home together. Located at? 5236 Cherry Street. Oh, Cherry. 52.36 Cherry Street. I know all these streets because I live in Kansas City where this story takes place. You lucky, lucky. Man.

Oh. Mm-hmm. This was for sale recently? No, like 10 years ago. Yeah, that's recently. Okay. Yeah, it's a big, beautiful house. Big brick house.

Big ass garage doors. Dang, nice built-ins. Okay. You never know what Norm's going to appreciate about a place. Oh, and here's the bathroom with, looks like, some original fixtures. This is where James A. Reed shat himself and cleaned up. off his underwear. Wow. Incredible. Love the woodwork. You know, I got to say your rant about people painting woodwork in old houses really resonated with a lot of history hose. I'm glad.

They said Kristen is absolutely right. Those people should be arrested. Can you imagine if we had a jail that was just filled with people who really hadn't done anything actually wrong, just kind of annoying to us? And like the jail would probably be a pretty good community of folks because they'd just be like really decent people who had done something like something they thought was totally fine but it annoyed specifically you and that they had every legal right to do every yeah and they're like frankly we don't even understand how she found out that we that we painted the woodwork in our 1927 home gray but she did and boy is she bitchy about it so bitchy she put us in jail nell didn't talk

much about the kidnapping after it was all said and done and neither it seems did george at some point after it nell told george that he had a job for life after what they'd been through together he'd never be out of a job if he wanted one well that's very nice and george took her up on that offer nell seemed to throw herself into work and family life she did have metal bars installed on the second story windows of that house on cherry street because she was afraid of another kidnapping Yeah, absolutely. It looks like those bars are gone now. I don't know if you still have that up.

But yeah, that's understandable. Of course. Mm-hmm. Yeah, because your biggest fear would then be that your child would be kidnapped. Damn, this place has a gate. Yeah, it's beautiful. It doesn't seem like that big of a house, 1,800 square feet. Oh, that can't be right.

It's got to be bigger than that. Yeah, you're right. What the hell? Oh, I'm looking, what the hell? I looked at the wrong house. Fuck. I'm such a stupid ho. Oh, this house was way nicer than the one I was looking at. Well, what?

Okay, I thought it was so weird when you were like, it's got big garage doors. I'm like, uh, that's, I, I don't know what I was. Maybe I was looking at the carriage house of this house. Are you all right, sir? I'm a shell of a man. Okay. Well, now do you want to describe that house now that you've, you're actually looking at the right one? It's just a big, beautiful brick mansion, and it has everything you would

expect. A grand staircase, beautiful woodwork, hardwood floors throughout, very detailed trim, beautiful chandeliers. There's a baby grand piano. All right. All right. Yeah, it's a nice ass house worthy of a dressmaker and her hot lawyer husband. All right. One thing that now believed in very strongly was the importance of work-life balance. She once told a reporter that, quote, you can't be a well-balanced person if you insist on devoting all of your attention to business, even those details which can be managed by others, leaving no time free for your development as a human being. I appreciate that. I really do too. I need to take her up on that advice. Yeah, I can see that. I can see that for myself too. I think you've got to get away. You've got to

experience other things in order to ironically be good at your job and in order to feel fulfilled and happy. She believed in taking time off. So did James. So even though Nell was running one of the most successful garment companies in the world, and James was very busy traveling the country talking shit about FDR. I'd say because he was running for president. Well, because FDR won and James was a bitter little bee and he just buzz buzzed all over the place being like, the New Deal sucks. I think he's a communist, maybe. And he put a woman in his cabinet.

Oh, you know he hated Francis Perkins. Oh, I know it. They spent every summer up on their 7,000 acre ranch in northern Michigan. Ooh. Yeah. 7,000 acres? Good grief, right? What the hell do you do with it all?

That's several too many thousand, I think. It's a ton of land. It was where they got in touch with nature. It was where they hunted and fished and rode horses. It's where they had fun. But while Nell and James and David were creating a happy life for themselves, things weren't so great for Paul and his new wife. Oh, boy.

You may remember from the first episode in this series that Paul was rumored to be sterile, and he was rumored to know that he was sterile. and he regularly threatened now that if she ever became pregnant, he would die by suicide. Well, the story goes that in 1934, Virginia went to Paul and told him that she was pregnant. And he spiraled.

Paul was hospitalized on and off, and he ultimately did die by suicide while at a hospital in Hartford, Connecticut. Wow. Yeah. Do you know what hospital he was at? Yeah, I do, but I took it out of the script because I thought that would be unnecessary to include.

And I didn't, to be fair, I don't even know that it's still around. It was a hospital for treating nervous disorders, which I think was probably an old-timey term for mental health stuff. That's just me guessing. Okay. I only ask because in my bonus episode on the Incredible Life of General Tom Thumb. Yes, which is quite good. A hospital in Hartford comes up. and back then it was called the Hartford Lunatic Asylum.

Oh, I would have remembered that. Well, the name probably would have changed by the 30s. What one would hope? We need to improve our marketing. We are going to call it ye old nut house. And I think we can all agree that sounds a lot better. Yeah. That's the only reason I asked.

Yeah. His death created a bit of a problem. Virginia was pregnant with his unborn child. So not his. Well, I mean, if I get pregnant, under the eyes of the law, you're the dad. True. And this is before, you know, DNA testing, so. But then I say, Your Honor, look at this, and I pull my pants down.

Uh-huh. Kendall. Oh. Smooth. And the judge says, that is mighty smooth. He can't be the father. And the judge was drinking a cup of coffee at the time. So we still don't know.

Was he talking about your genitals, or was he talking about the coffee? And it was Maxwell House, too. Ew. Smooth. That complicated things with Paul's estate. It garnered a lot of media attention. But that media attention paled in comparison to the media attention that fell onto another key person in this kidnapping saga. I'm talking, of course, about everyone's favorite soft-spoken soft drink distributor slash Kansas City Mafia boss.

Johnny Lazzia. How's he doing? How's for soda business? Oh, it's great. It's great. After the kidnapping, John Lossia's life changed significantly. And that's because the city itself changed significantly. In the early 1930s, the city was wide open. The mafia ran this town along with a corrupt political boss. Somebody say they were in full swing. They were in full swing. Only a really cool person would say it, though. We can all agree to that. In October of 1932, Johnny Lazia made a big mistake. That fall, a bank robber named Vernon Miller asked him for help.

Vernon explained that his buddy, Frank Jelly Nash, do you get to choose your nickname? I mean, I would hope you wouldn't choose Jelly, had been captured by the feds. The feds were taking him to Leavenworth Penitentiary, but their path would take them through Union Station in Canada. Kansas City. Uh-oh, I know this story. Vernon wanted to rescue his friend. And that would, in theory, be pretty damn easy. After all, at this point in time, this is going to sound like a joke, but it's absolutely true.

Federal agents didn't carry guns. And if you pissed them off, you were kind of in the clear because they didn't have the authority to arrest anybody. So Johnny helped Vernon. He provided two guys, Adam, Eddie Rischetti, and Charles. 's pretty boy Floyd. Mm-hmm. Those were the men who would help free Frank

Jelly Nash from the feds. And on June 17th, 1933, when federal agents escorted Frank Jelly Nash through Union Station in Kansas City, the men were there waiting. And wow, they messed up.

They messed up badly. They killed four officers, and ironically, they also killed Frank Jelly Nash. Those murders created a huge scandal. The event is now known as the Union Station Massacre. Some people call it the Kansas City Massacre. And it was thanks to that massacre that federal agents now carry guns and are able to make arrests.

Yep. Big deal. It was kind of ironic. The whole reason that John Lazia had been so helpful in rescuing Nell Donnelly and George Blair from the kidnappers, was that he hadn't wanted anyone looking at Kansas City. He hadn't wanted anyone, especially anyone with any kind of federal authority, to start looking at all the stuff he had going on in the city. But the Union Station Massacre put Kansas City under intense scrutiny. And as a result, the corrupt political machine that ran the city,

the machine that had worked with John Lossia, and in no small part thanks to John Lossia, withdrew its support for him. He was officially no longer under any kind of special protection. And so he got in trouble for the thing that all mob bosses eventually get in trouble for. Taxes. Yep, tax evasion. Here's the thing, though, John only went to prison for a year. But when he got out, he didn't have that unshakable power that he'd once held.

And so, one night in the summer of 1934, he went out on the town with his wife Marie and his trusted bodyguard, a man named Charles Carollo, aka Charlie the Wop. Oh, my God. After a long night out, Charlie the Wop drove John and Marie home to the Park Central Hotel, located at 300 East Armour Boulevard, Kansas City. Yeah. Yep, I know this building. Are you looking at the right building?

Are you looking at a quick trip? Yes. It says, no. It says Park Central in front of it. This is definitely the right building. Yeah, so he was doing the kind of thing. It feels like it was way more common back in the day where people would just take up residencies at really nice hotels.

And that's what he had. Yeah. Charlie parked the car and John got out of the vehicle. Marie started to get out too. But then two men jumped out of some nearby bushes. They had guns. John pushed Marie back into the car. He yelled for Charlie to drive.

away. Charlie did as he was told, he sped away as the gunman shot Johnny Lausia again and again and again. They left him on the sidewalk to die. And even though he'd been peppered with bullets, Johnny Lausia didn't die. What? He got to the hospital and he lived long enough to ask the doctor, Doc, what I can't understand is why anybody would do this to me. Why, to me, to Johnny Lausia. who has been the friend of everybody. It's a real mystery, Johnny. We just don't know. You're just a soft-spoken soft drink distributor.

Why would anyone do this? I shouldn't have messed up that delivery order. They wanted Pepsi and I gave them Coke instead. No, you know, it would be Diet Coke. Because have you seen those people who love Diet Coke? They are nuts about their Diet Coke. That has a very distinct taste. It's true.

Yeah, even like if you, offer them Coke zero, Diet Coke drinkers will say absolutely not. They start insulting your mama and all of a sudden everyone's in trouble, all because you offered Diet Pepsi when they wanted Diet Coke. John Lossia's murder was never solved, but... So he eventually died from the bullets? Yeah, those were his last words. Okay.

A subsequent study of the bullets in his body determined that they were remarkably similar to the ones used in the Union Station Massacre. Mm-hmm. Which led people to wonder if it was members of his own gang who'd killed him, perhaps. Yeah, I've seen The Sopranos. We know how this goes. I know how, I know how, mafiosos go down. Mm-hmm.

Yep. You lose alliances. Can't be trusted anymore. Just a few years later, Tom Pendergast, the political boss who ran Kansas City, had his own downfall when he went to prison for... Tax evasion. Income tax evasion. You know what's crazy? What?

Is that when they were investigating Tom Pendergast. Are you about to make a stupid joke? The CPA had porn on, but it, you know, it wasn't back then it was on the radio. So it was literally just the noises. Sure, sure. And in retrospect, Tom was like, I shouldn't have trusted that guy. He said he was paying attention to my taxes. But you know what?

I think he was just there listening to that porn on the radio. And that accountant's name, H&R Block. Mm. Another fine Kansas City company. His parents named him H&R. Uh-huh. Not Henry. Little baby H&R.

Yeah. The famous Block family. All this to say that over the course of the 1930s, the city changed. It changed a lot. And for now, the change was for the better. She thrived. In 1935, Fortune Magazine named her, quote, possibly the most successful businesswoman in the United States.

Wow. And for good reason, the Donnelly garment company soared to new heights under her sole leadership. But you know what they say, Norm? Very famous saying, with great success comes great scrutiny. Not because of anything bad that you did, but because your new husband is kind of a major douche and we don't like him. What happened? That's the saying. And I don't think that's an actual saying.

Yes, it is. It's just like upset the apple cart. Okay, you didn't know that saying. and everyone came forward where they were like, Norm, that's a real saying. This one right here is also a real saying. Yeah, apparently it was in the movie Hot Fuzz, the Apple Cart thing.

Yeah. I've never seen Hot Fuzz. Are you serious? Yeah. Is this the one movie that I have seen that you've not seen? I think it is. It's the one movie you have seen and I have not. I love Hot Fuss. I know you do.

You've talked about it before, actually. You may recall that in 1932, James A. Reed had yet another unsuccessful run for president of these, United States. Yes. He lost to some no-name loser named Franklin D. Roosevelt. Mm-hmm. And James didn't handle it well.

Throughout FDR's time in office, James A. Reid traveled the country talking shit. Talking shit here, talking shit there. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah. Blah. Yeah, Mama jokes. Non-stop. Non-stop.

If FDR loved something, James A. Reid hated it. And the opposite, too. FDR was pro-union. So guess what? James A. Reid hated unions. Well, that's stupid. They're both in the same political party, right? Yeah.

Well, that's just crazy. Yeah, I'm not a fan of James A. Reed. Yeah, but he is hot. I mean, so I'm a fan of that. Okay. You're nice to look at James. James. But you wouldn't be a great president.

As a little revenge for James A. Reed being such an ass about unions, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union made a concerted effort to unionize the Donnelly Garment company. They'd already unionized most of the Kansas City garment manufacturers. I think it had been pretty easy. You know, if you're working in shitty conditions, of course you want a union. Yeah, but Nelly Don had very good working conditions. And I remember you mentioned in the first episode that like they were one of the few to not unionize. Right. Because things were so good. Yeah. Coffee and donuts every day in the break room. I am going to go over the benefits. I do think it is so funny that she offered benefits that were.

were unheard of the time. Medical. She offered, you know, tuition. She paid for people's kids to go to college, but you're like, she offered donuts. I would do anything for her. It's the little things that go a long way for me, okay? It's true. It's true. So they'd already unionized a bunch of Kansas City factories, but the one they wanted

was the Donnelly Garment Company because they wanted to hit James A. Reed where it hurt. Mm-hmm. In 1937, they dedicated $100,000 to the fight to unionize the Donnelly garment company. Adjusted for inflation, that is $2.1 million to get this plant to unionize. Big money. In a hearing, the union president said, quote, it will be the lot of our union to teach read a lesson in true Americanism. This whole thing really pissed off Nell Donnelly.

For one thing, her husband wasn't involved in her business. for another, she was a rare thing. She was a factory owner who actually did right by her workers. So she famously said, quote, if conditions in the factory were so bad, it wouldn't take $100,000 to unionize it. Attempts to unionize her factory dragged out for years. And part of the reason why it took so long

was that the Donnelly Garment Company workers weren't tempted by what the International Ladies Garment Workers Union had to offer. Boy, that doesn't roll off the tongue. They didn't get work on their marketing. Nell Donnelly was an excellent employer. She was way ahead of her time. She was arguably ahead of this time right now. She paid some of the highest wages in the industry. She provided a safe working environment. She offered unheard of benefits like medical care, life insurance. She paid for her employees to go to night school. She paid for her employees' children to go to nearby colleges every morning. Norm didn't forget this. She offered free coffee and donuts.

Yep. In the late afternoon, she offered lemonade and snacks. She opened an employee cafeteria, which operated at a loss every year. She purchased a farm where they could go have a picnic or hike or swim. She bought a rec center for them to use. These are all benefits that I've mentioned before. Here's one that I haven't mentioned yet. The opportunity to advance. The vast majority of Nell's employees were women. And when executive roles opened up, she did something kind of wild. She actually considered women for those positions, even if they didn't have the exact kind of experience needed for that role, which is key because no woman would in this time period have that experience. No one else would take a chance on her. Yeah. So for example, Nell hired a woman to work in the

payroll department. And she had a pretty basic job. But Nell, noticed that this woman was very detail-oriented. She paid attention to everything, very hard worker. And so when Nell needed a new factory manager, she hired that woman for the job. She was like, these skills will translate. And she'll work hard. She'll figure it out. The head of advertising had a similar story. She had started out as a stenographer. But Nell had noticed her talent and thought, okay, I think that could work for a much higher position. So all this to say that the people who worked for her were treated well, paid well, and believed that they had opportunities to advance. And that's why, as the debate over joining this union raged on, a lot of Nell's employees

signed a loyalty pledge. In fact, the Donnelly Garment Company employed 1,300 people, and 1,294 of them signed that loyalty pledge. Six of them? Yeah, six of them didn't. They used it to form the Donnelly Garment Company Workers Union. For the next seven years, a legal battle ensued over whether the Donnelly workers union, which wasn't really a union, could keep going. It was a loyalty union. I do want to say, and I said this in the first episode, but I'll say it again, I am totally pro-union.

And I don't mean to paint this picture-perfect image of her as an employer, because obviously nothing's perfect. But I do think this is so fascinating. I think that the vast majority of the time you do need a union. Absolutely. But there are cases like this where it genuinely seems like it wasn't necessary because she was treating people well. Yeah. In a perfect world, unions wouldn't be necessary.

Right. But most of the time you need them. Yes. Especially in this country. You definitely want to protect the workers. I remember at one of my old jobs, I asked my boss, hey, what would you do if I, like, tried to unionize? And he was like, oh, we'd just fire you. Yeah, that's what happens, unfortunately.

I was pretty shocked by that. You were? Yeah, well, I was a young man. I didn't really know much about the world. Yeah, I mean, that can be. That's like that moment when you find out that HR isn't your friend. Yeah. They're just hired to protect the company from a lawsuit.

Right. Yeah. No, that's rough. The idea that, like, you could be trying to get fair treatment for yourself and your coworkers, and that would get you fired. There's a reason Kansas City doesn't have a Starbucks on the plaza anymore. That's right. It unionized. Well, no, they try.

Oh, they tried. Yeah, they tried to unionize. And, yeah, Starbucks just closed the location. They said it was, you know, because, oh, we're in an effort to streamline our business. And there's a Starbucks nearby. It wasn't necessary. And it's like, everybody went to that Starbucks. Well, and also there's a Starbucks nearby.

There's always a Starbucks nearby. Yeah. That logic, we should close all of them down. Yeah. When the United States joined World War II, the Donnelly garment company made clothes for the U.S. military. I saw one source that said they made exclusively underwear, but I couldn't find the citation. But, you know, I'm sharing it because that is just fun. The GIs.

Look at my cute undies I got. Mine has a ruffle. These aren't Mother Hubbard undies. I like how you said the U.S. joined World War II. Like it was a fun activity. Can I join? What's the way to say it? Entered.

Entered World War II, yeah. Well, okay. I don't know. I've just never heard it say, the U.S. joined World War II. Fine. We'll come along. God. You didn't have to do the Pearl Harbor thing.

We were thinking about coming in anyway. That's my impression. Ah. So, you know, they're making undies for the GIs. while also making dresses for the ladies on the home front. And it was kind of funny. I mean, just like the Great Depression, the Great War, Nell got creative in the face of hard times.

Okay, this is a ridiculous story, and I pray to God that it is true. Okay, traditionally, when she had a new line of dresses, salesmen would fill their cars with trunks of dresses to show buyers. You know, they'd drive all over the country showing off these dresses. Yeah. But during World War II, that really wasn't feasible anymore. gas was hard to come by

and I'm guessing a lot of the dudes were off to war. So the story goes that Nell came up with an idea that was a little outside the box. She had the seamstresses create miniature, adorable versions of the new line of dresses and then put them in tiny suitcases and then sent the salespeople off

in buses to the buyers with those adorable little suitcases to show off their wares. You don't seem as charmed by that story. I'm confused how, why they did that. Okay, traditionally, they had to fill a huge massive trunk full of all these sample dresses. Yes. Here, here are all over the country. Here are all the garments we're selling. But that was no longer possible. Because of gas. Of gas and all that. So yeah, they did little mini versions that they could have in just a

really small little briefcase thing. So they just shrunk everything down. Yeah. Honey, I shrunk the dresses. But they still have to drive everywhere. They took buses. Well, couldn't they just put full-sized garments on the buses and show those off? I mean, maybe that was harder to do. I don't, listen, Norm. I'm just confused by this strategy. I thought it was a great, adorable story. Ma'am, I think you're going to look great in this dress. What is this? A dress for ants? It's tidy. No one can fit in this. Lady, you're a stupid ho. I can tell you that right now. We're going to blow it up big enough for you to wear, you're going to love it, you're going to look great, you're going to love the way you look, ma'am. I'll move on because you were not as charmed

by that story as I anticipated. Nell's factory was efficient. She borrowed ideas from auto manufacturing plants and aviation plants and applied those ideas to her garment factory. And it's a good thing they were so efficient because Nelly Dawn fashions flew off the shelves. And despite incredible growth, Nell never lost what had made her company so successful in the first place. Customers continued to love Nell's fashionable, size-inclusive, well-constructed, and yes, inexpensive clothes. Under Nell's watch, the company pushed the envelope. I'm not sure what year this is from, but I'm including it because, again, I find it to be a charming

story. Let's see if you're charmed. Okay. In one of their spring fashion shows. A model wore a lilac colored dress. Oh, she looked so good, but you need a little something extra, don't you? What colors lilac? Purple?

Light purple. Okay. And she rocked the runway with a French poodle that had been dyed to match her dress. Oh, very cute. Okay, you like that story? Yeah, I love it. By the way, where's James A. Reed? Is he still alive?

Hold on. Okay. But as it often does, life got complicated again, Norm and, 1994. That summer, they were out at Reed Ranch in Fairview, Michigan. And James insisted on going out fishing that morning. It was raining, and Nell really didn't think it was a good idea. But she always knew that when it came to her husband, there were some things you could tell him and some things you couldn't. And you just couldn't tell him what to do. You couldn't tell him he couldn't go fishing. So James went out fishing in the rain, and he developed pneumonia. He died that.

summer just two days before David's 13th birthday. He was 84? Oh gosh, I don't know his exact age, but yeah, he would have been in his 80s for sure. Yeah. Nell later said that the years she spent married to James were the happiest of her life. But with the love of her life gone, Nell pressed on. By 1947, the Kansas City Star reported that the Donnelly Garment Company was the largest company of its kind in the world. Wow.

Yeah. Right here in Kansas City? Isn't it unreal? I'm just waiting to hear what happens because this company does not exist anymore. It makes me really sad. It makes me really sad to have grown up in Kansas City and to have never heard of this woman had no idea. And it was the largest company of its kind in the world. And it was right here and we have no idea.

Yeah. So it must have had a very quick downfall. Is that nervous? It earned $14 million every year. Its New York counterparts made $6 million a year if they were lucky. Adjusted for inflation, Nell's company was making about $197 million a year. But Norm, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking business-smisness, which is actually not what you're thinking

because you were asking more questions about the business, but I, wrote this before you had that reaction. So here we are. Yes, I'm brilliant. You're thinking, tell me what Paul Donnelly's hot widow has been up to. I'm curious about her. Oh, her name's Virginia. Yeah. Virginia now. Yeah, I was thinking of her maiden name. Yeah. Yeah, what's Virginia up to? Meet Virginia. Oh, God. Do, do. Remember that song? I do remember that song. Say she walks. Oh, God, I hated that song and I hated even more now. Okay. After Paul died, Virginia continued to garner headlines. She married a French film producer named Jean de Covonagh. The Jean de Covonagh? Yeah, that's right. Wow. It was kind of a scandal.

She was a rich widow and she just married some French dude. Ooh la la. Ooh. The two became a power couple. They had homes in New York and Paris. They hobnapped with King George and Helen Keller. So she left Kansas City? Oh, yeah. She's two good for Kansas City now. Well, she and Paul both left Kansas City. Oh, shit. Yeah. You died in Hartford, sir. Oh, you're right. Damn. I am a stupid ho. No, you're just a little off. A lot of people had dismissed Virginia as a gold digger. She was a social climber. Not a lot going on upstairs, they said. But when World War II broke out, she and Jean and Virginia's two children were living in a Nazi occupied France, and that's when Virginia showed her true colors.

Oh, boy. She snuck information about the Nazis submarine base to the American military. Oh. You weren't expecting that way. I was not. The way you said she showed her true colors, I was like, what the fuck is this lady about to do? She was like, I would like to join that fart-filled bunker. No, she did something incredibly dangerous, incredibly brave, and she was arrested for it.

By the Nazis? I don't know the full story there. I tried briefly to find it, but I do consider her a more minor character in all of this. But I thought this was so interesting. And especially in light of what people thought of her, it's like, okay, you can think that about her. But she's taken info on the Nazis and she's getting it to the Americans. Well, and specifically on their U-boat bases, the U-Boats were a menace to the allies. Okay.

Huge problem. It took them a few years to figure out how to deal with U-Boats. So this is very, very important information. Well, and she went over to Switzerland where the Americans had some kind of base set up, and that's where she dropped off the information. Later, when the war ended, she used her money and her connections to other wealthy people to help rebuild French villages that had been destroyed by Nazis. So I guess anyone who talked shit on her can go munch on some carpet.

Which I realize sounds homophobic. It's not. It's based on what I said about Hitler. Yeah, there's the rumor that he was, like to eat carpet when he was super mad. Yeah. Turns out I was a little misguided. Don't worry about it. Anyhow.

It's just a mistranslation. But anyway. Nell ran the Donnelly Garment Company until 1956, at which point she sold it and retired. She was 67 years old. She'd had an incredible career. All in all, she'd created 75 million dresses. She'd run the largest dress manufacturer of the 20th century.

At its peak, an estimated one in seven American women wore a Nelly Dawn dress. Wow. Yeah. I looked him up on eBay. I did too. I mean, they're cool. Yeah. You can still get them too, like from the 40s and they're very stylish. Some of the advertisements are just gorgeous. And it's just cool to think of like, yeah, this was for normal American women.

This was not some highfalutin thing. Yeah, this was not a J.C. Penny dress. This was for the average American. Yeah, yeah. You wish you could go to J.C. Penny. Yeah. But the new owners didn't do the company justice. Mm. Under their leadership, the factory workers decided that maybe they did need a union after all.

Yeah, came in, said coffee and donuts every morning. No, we're not doing that anymore. In 1968, they finally joined the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. With Nell Donnelly gone, the company just wasn't the same. And ironically, the thing that drove the company into the ground was the very thing that Nell's instincts had told her years earlier not to do. The new owners took the fabrics that belonged exclusively to Nellie Don. Okay, remember, she used to take these trips to Europe all the time.

She'd see these beautiful silk prints. She'd see all kinds of stuff. And she would do these exclusive deals to get those really fashionable prints onto cotton and rayon. and whatever. Well, these new owners decided to take those exclusive fabrics and sell the fabric so that in theory, anyone could make their own shitty version of a Nelly Dawn dress. Yes, don't license it. Ultimately, in 1978, the business went bankrupt.

Yeah, they cheapen the product. It's not special anymore when you license it out. Yep. I don't know anything about dresses and I could have told them that. It's funny, I think she always did a great job of not talking shit. She was always known for being a very classy person. But I did read one quote about that where she was just like, yeah, I don't know what they were thinking.

Yeah. It would be so frustrating to see your creation go down like that. I would take that very hard. But also, I feel like I'm the kind of person that would refuse to retire. You would. I would be like, I am not selling my business. I will drop dead in here with the lemonade and the cookies every afternoon. They'd say, Norman, you're in an iron lung.

You can't move, you can't operate, you can't do anything. You're 150 years old. I am critical to this business. What had once been the biggest dress manufacturer of the century was now non-existent. Damn. In not a long period of time either. It just collapsed. In five years, it collapsed.

That's crazy. Not true. You see, 1967, she sold it. No, 56 she sold it. And 78, they went bankrupt. There's that stupid hoe coming out again. It's okay. You've had a rough week.

But Nell kept going. She stayed active. She joined the school board. She had wild ideas like, hey, let's hire the best teachers we can. Let's hire the best administrators, the best staff we can. Let's give them good working conditions. And let's pay them the most money we can afford to pay them. terrible idea obviously.

She served on the boards of the Midwest Research Institute, the Kansas City Art Institute, the Starlight Theater Association. She donated 731 acres of land to the Missouri Department of Conservation. Hell yeah. She named it James A. Reed Memorial Wildlife Area. Ah.

And the rude person in me wants you to know that that's a little ironic when you consider the fact that when he was mayor, he opposed building parks because he considered them to be luxuries. But luckily... He's rolling in his grave. He married a woman who understood that we all deserve a little luxury.

Mm-hmm. Nell spent the summer of 1977, just as she always had, up at Reed Ranch in Michigan. By that point, George Blair had worked for her for 48 years. Wait, George is still alive? Yeah, he's still there. Holy moly. She's still going, he's still going. Damn, she kept her word, too.

Yeah. He'd endured a lot during that kidnapping. It was always his life that had been on the line. And it was his wife, who the police shoved and beat when they suspected without evidence that she'd played a role in the kidnapping. But it seems that George and Nell had a bond. She'd told him that he'd have a job with her for life and he'd taken her up on that offer. And George Blair passed away at Reed Ranch in Fairview, Michigan when he was 74 years old. He'd been a board member of the St. Peter CME Church, which is still around in Kansas City today.

He was a member of the movie makers of Kansas City. I have no idea what that is. And the Merry Makers Club. What is that? Okay. Here's what I was picturing and loving. I was picturing him dressing up in outfits with some buddies to go cheer up sick kids. It's actually an African-American social group that does a lot of good works.

but I specifically was hoping for costumes and sick kids, and I didn't see any of that. You can't always get what you want. It's true, it's true. Whatever you're imagining in your head. Meanwhile, folks were uncovering some secrets. Oh. By the 1970s, the fact that David Reed was the biological child of his own parents, Nell and James A. Reed, was still not widely known.

He'd graduated from Stanford with a degree in physics. He'd gone to law school at the University of Michigan. Just like his adoptive slash biological father, David became an attorney and a politician. At some point, and I'm not sure when, Nell did tell him the truth. But it seems like this was still a shameful thing for Nell. And so David promised her that he wouldn't tell anyone about the affair or the fake adoption story until after she passed away. And I mean, it seems like David, much like his mother, was pretty good at keeping a secret because he didn't even tell his own children the story. But at some point in the 70s, a family friend told David's son Peter, the grandson of Nell and James, that, oh yeah, your dad was adopted in Europe.

And Peter was like, I'm sorry, what? He'd never heard that story. Peter was a really smart guy. He'd studied at Cambridge. he knew his stuff and he was determined to get to the truth of that family story. So he started doing research. He went through newspaper archives. He talked to family members. And once he thought he knew what the truth was, he did that uncomfortable thing. And he approached his grandma. By that point, Nell was in her mid-80s.

Peter loved his grandma and felt comfortable talking to her. But he knew that she could be a little cagey. She only told him what she wanted to share. That was kind of her deal. You didn't always get the full story. I love people like this, by the way. But one night when they were up at that massive ranch in northern Michigan, Peter got in a little boat with his grandma,

and they started paddling around the lake. And he said to her, I need to talk to you about something that's a bit personal. People have been trying to tell me that you and I are not related. People are saying that dad is adopted. And over the next few hours, Nell told her grandson everything about her first marriage, about the affair, about the plot to adopt in Europe, about the lie of the adoption in Europe to avoid a scandal. Peter appreciated her honesty. And he told her he understood why.

You know, in the 1930s, that kind of thing did have to be kept quiet. It all made sense. But there was still something that he didn't understand. He said, as the years went on, why didn't you tell a few people that he was really your son? Why maintain the secret? And Peter said that his grandmother looked at him as if he was, quote, a great deal more stupid than she had ever imagined. A stupid ho. And finally, she just shrugged and she said, we expected them to figure it out.

And that's how decades after James A. Reed died, decades after those lies were first told that the family learned the truth. And then, in 1981, when Nell Donnelly was 92 years old, she made the news again for shooting the first buck of the season. It was a seven-pointer. 92? She passed away 10 years later in 1991. Good God. She was 102 years old. Adjusted for inflation.

I know, right. She's a thousand years old. She's a deity. She'd been America's best businesswoman. She'd been a style icon, a champion of workers, a trailblazer, a good time have her. And oh yeah, one time some dudes kidnapped her. And that is the story of the kidnapping of Nell Donnelly. Nell Donnelly Reed, I should say.

I didn't know she lived that long. Isn't that wild? So there's probably... Is there a picture of her from like the 80s? Oh, absolutely. Oh, my gosh. They are seated and, you know, she's perfectly quaffed. And the picture of her from when she shot the buck, she looks great.

You would never guess she was in her 90s. Well, and you got money, you can. Sure. You look pretty good. Sure. Yeah. I love the Where Are They Now stuff. I do too.

Yeah, that's like one of my favorite parts of, like, wrapping up a story. I thought it was fun. was a little nervous about like, how do you follow a logical timeline in all this? And I'm realizing there are things I missed. Almost everyone who went to prison for the kidnapping got out in the late 40s. So they didn't serve, you know, life sentences. Savannah Blair, George's wife, died about 10 years after he did. I think it would be so wild to have grandparents like this. at that level, and then you hear this story that maybe you're not even related to them,

and you start digging, and you hear the truth, and the truth is so much wilder than fiction. By the way, Reed Ranch is still around today. You can go rent a cabin there. What? Yes, look it up. Relax and rejuvenate in the peace and solitude of Michigan's north woods. Reed Ranch. Oh, look.

And there's a picture of James A. Reefi. with Nell Donnelly in what looks like an old-timey limousine. Isn't that cool? Very cool. I believe it was for sale recently. Yeah. Should we buy it? Well, I said recently it's been sold.

I think we make them an offer they can't refuse, is what I'm getting at. I feel like we don't have the money for it. So what else could we offer, you think? Should we go up to them and be like, look, we are soft-spoken, soft-drink distributors? And I think you know what we're really saying here. Mm-hmm. Why don't you clear on out of here? Yeah.

Or you'll be sleeping with the fishes, as they say. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we'd have to really push the Patreon. Everyone? We're going to need you to all get three friends and then have them get three friends and then get three friends. And, you know, it's for a very worthy cause. It's because Norm and I want to own a ranch.

We want to buy 7,000 acres. in Northern Michigan. Now, do we hunt or fish or do any of those? No, no, we don't. Well, you've done a little fishing in your time. I personally find it all very gross and slimy. Yeah, well, I think what we can do is as people, you know, donate to our cause of owning 7,000 acres in Michigan, we can give out little plots of lay-in to the history hose. We'll just have a big, old-timey compound.

Oh, okay. That sounds like it could be the subject of a future documentary when inevitably the power goes to our heads. Yeah. And we turned it in, it would turn weird and sexual real fast. I give it a month. Well, I mean, you're, you're watching porn while doing taxes. Again, I'm not watching.

It's just on in the background. Okay. Well, do we want to talk about anything? Sure. What do you want to talk about? I guess I should reveal why I've had a rough week. Only if you want to. Folks, I got a call for my mom saying my grandma wasn't doing very well.

She's been in and out of the hospital recently. She's been having some problems. And my mom called me on Monday and said, hey, you know, grandma's not doing well. And the hospice nurse said, yeah, probably by the end of the week, she might be, she might be passing. Yeah. And so, you know, Kristen and I talked and kind of made a plan. And I was like, all right, I'm going to go up there. The next day.

The next day, Tuesday. And we'll just, you know. We'll figure it out. We'll figure out the recording stuff. So I, that woke up early Tuesday morning, loaded up the car. Right when I was about to head out, mom called me again. Grandma passed away. Yeah.

So it was a rough week. Yeah. And you went up, you went ahead and went up. I still went up. I helped with everything. Yeah. So I went up and got to be with my mom and my sister came to. And it was nice.

Very emotional. Did the funeral arrangements. My grandma had a very grandma kind of funeral arrangements. My sister was appalled at what my grandma picked out. But, you know, my grandma had all this picked out years ago. Yeah. But it was very basic. It was like, I want to be cremated, put me in this nondescript box, black box.

Nothing fancy. And throw me in the ground. And that was what she wanted. my sister was like, that is horrible. Can we pick out a better box? And we were like, that is what grandma wanted. It is such a funny family dynamic because Randy, you know, very fashionable, cares about aesthetics a lot.

And so it is so on brand for Randy to be like, whoa, no, no, no, we got to do something nicer. But, you know, like that just wasn't Grandma Babs' style. That was not my grandma. Yeah. Yeah. No. But, you know, we talked about in this story how, you know, sometimes you hear something about a family member or relative and it kind of paints a bigger picture of their life.

And I had many of those moments while going through my grandparents stuff this past week, like learning more about their life and what it was like. Yeah. It was cool. I will really miss my grandma. She was. Me too. Yeah. She was a good grandma.

Like, I know she, she had some quirks and she said some, some crazy stuff sometimes, but, like, she, she was also a grandma. Yeah. I just remember as a kid, she loved drawing. Mm-hmm. And we all just sat around the table and she would, we would, she had, she bought us these, like, drawing tutorial books. Yeah. And she could have easily said, here's this tutorial book you guys can draw, but she would always sit with us and draw with us. Yeah.

And I always thought that was really special. It is funny what stands out about a person. And like, it's funny you talking about some of the things she said, like, I think that's why I loved your grandma is, first of all, we had the same taste in books. I mean, we both hated the goldfinch. Sorry. Similar taste in books. She really said whatever was on her mind. She did.

Which, I mean, you can get away with at a certain age. And I don't know when that started or if that was just always her way. But she was a fun one. She was. Die hard Democrat her whole life. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And her sister was die-hard conservative.

Uh-huh. Yep. her sister called my mom after my grandma passed. I was like, oh, I can't believe, you know, can't believe she's gone. And she goes, do you think the COVID vaccine killed her? And my mom was like, no. And your mom said, no, I think it was the illegal immigrants. That's what happened.

Yeah. Anyway, I don't want to get into that. And it was funny. Her sister was like, your mom. Mom never wanted to talk politics with me. I don't know why. And it's like, I know why. Yeah.

Yeah. So, R.A. Grandma. Yeah. You were a real one. Grandma, bad. Yeah. I've enjoyed sharing stories of her on this podcast.

And it's so weird that she's gone because, you know, I'm 37 and she was always so sharp, you know. Yes. Yes. I think that's the thing is she was, she was the last of either of our grandpies. parents and it did kind of feel like she was just going to keep going forever because she always looked really good. She was sharp as attack and she texted, which she did. She did not like talking on the phone. She only texted. And even in her last few days, she was texting with me. Yeah. Yeah. We'll miss her. Yeah. That's all I can say, I guess. Yeah. Should we end on that note,

kind of a sad note? But I think it's an inspirational note because I think there's something about you sharing the story of remembering that she colored with you guys. And I think there's something about, you know, anybody who's an auntie, a grandparent, a whatever, like, having those moments with kids, you never know what they're going to remember. Kids remember those things for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And again, I know she said some wild stuff, but, like, she was a very loving, generous person. Yeah.

She really was. That was something I discovered, like, talking with her friends and, like, going through her things. It's like, man, my grandma made so many donations. Yeah. Because she got so much mail that was like, thank you for your donation. Here's your free gift. My grandma had about 600 daily planners. From the Audubon Society.

Yeah, from, like, all these different charitable organizations. Like, here's your free gift. She had magnets, stickers, everything. Yeah. You know? She was honest. Yeah. So if you want to celebrate her and you're a drinker, she loved Burnett's vodka, the cheap crap, nothing too fancy. Wild turkey.

Pull that off the bottom shelf. Yeah. She did enjoy that very much. So, hey, in honor of my grandma, please enjoy a piece of toast. Uh-huh. If you're feeling nervous. And, yeah. Should we end on that? Let's end on that. Let's wrap this up. All right. Kristen, you know what they say about history hose.

We always cite our sources. That's right. For this episode, I got my information from the article, Nelly Gone, KCQ, traces the kidnapping of Nell Donnelly by Kate Hill for the Kansas City Public Library. Reporting from the Kansas City Times. The book More Than Petticoats, Remarkable Missouri Women by Elaine Warner. The book James A. Reed, legendary lawyer, Marplot in the United States Senate. by J. Michael Cronin. The article First a Lady by Jennifer Wilding

for the Kansas City Star magazine. The book The Devil's Tickets, A Night of Bridge, A Fatal Hand, and a New American Age by Gary M. Pomerance, and a whole bunch of articles from newspapers.com. That's all for this episode.

Thank you for listening to an old-timey podcast. Please give us a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. And while you're at it, subscribe. Support us on Patreon at patreon. slash old-timey podcast.

Join the Reddit community, R-slash old-timey podcast. Follow us on Facebook and YouTube and Instagram at Old Timey Podcast. You can also follow us individually on Instagram. I'm at Kristen Pitts-Keruso, and he's at Gaming Historian. And until next time,

Tootoo, Tata, and Cheerio! Bye. Bye.