Unraveling A Mystery: Part 1 (1913)

In the last few years more and more images from newspaper archives have become available online.  Generally, most of these can be accessed through various genealogy databases such as Ancestry.com, Genealogybank.com, or NewspaperArchive.com either on a pay as you go basis or via a subscription.  Some sites are free like Chronicling America from the Library of Congress.

Often, family members appear in the news in relation to social events – a birth, a wedding, an anniversary, or a death.  Sometimes they are visiting relatives in another town and recovering from an illness.  Other times their names are included in legal notices regarding a parent’s estate or a lawsuit.  I have encountered a few instances where my relations are involved in something out of the ordinary.  Such is the tale of my great-grandfather’s teenage sisters, Alice, age 18, and Mary Agnes, age 14, in May 1913 in Decatur, Illinois.
 
From the Decatur Review, Friday Evening, 16 May 1913, page 16 (Decatur, Illinois):

 

GIRL SENT TO JAIL: REFUSES TO ANSWER

Had Mind Made Up, She Tells Judge.

"Because she stubbornly refused to answer questions put to her by the grand jury, Agnes Tinkler was ordered confined in the county jail until she makes up her mind to answer.  The order for her commitment was entered by Judge W C Johns in the circuit court Friday morning.

Agnes Tinkler was sent to Geneva as a delinquent about two months ago, after swearing out a warrant for John Judd for criminal assault.  The grand jury was investigating the case Thursday afternoon and the girl was brought from Geneva on a writ of habeas corpus to testify.  She refused to answer the questions asked of her.

HAD HER MIND MADE UP

This fact was reported to Judge Johns and he had the girl brought into court in answer to the court’s question as to her reason for refusing to answer the interrogatories of the grand jury she replied

“Because I say no and when I say I won’t do a thing I won’t do it and no one can make me do it.”

SHE’LL STAY THERE

When told that unless she answered the questions she would be sent to jail she said she didn’t care.  Judge Johns then committed her to jail and told Sheriff Nicholson not to make it too pleasant for her there.  He told her she could stay in jail till she got ready to answer the questions.  She is a half sister of Charles Tinkler killed a few days ago at the new Wabash shops."