September 6, 1905 - Is Man of Mystery
as published in the Duluth Evening Herald.
IS MAN OF MYSTERY
Middle-Aged Man Who Is of Interest to Physicians.
Making Bread and Pastry In Buffalo Stat Hospital.
Buffalo, NY, Sat. 6. - In the bakery of the Buffalo State Hospital is a middle-aged man who is ever a subject of interest to the physicians. He is usually active and goes about his work of making bread and pastry as intelligently as any expert professional baker who is credited with being rational.
At times there appears upon his face and in his eyes, as he is bending over the kneading-board, or carrying pans to or from the ovens, an expression of abstraction, a faraway look as if his mind were straying back into a hazy past in search of something almost or quite gone from memory.
Three months have elapsed since this man was found lying unconscious on a carriageway in Delaware Park, the supposed victim of footpad. Through the finding of a baker's union due-book, not far from where he lay - a discovery made by Express reporters - and the initials, G.G., which appeared upon the collar band on his shirt, he was identified as a man who was known in Detroit as George Gibbs, who belonged to the Bakers' union there: who has been picked up unconscious under similar conditions in that city within a year and had been kept a patient in a hospital there for several months, or until about five months before he was found in Buffalo.
When he recovered consciousness at the Sisters' hospital, he identified himself as John Holstein of Brooklyn, a mechanical draftsman, educated in Berlin, Germany, who had been in the United States seventeen years and had been employed in New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and other cities. When questioned, he said he had never borne the name of Gibbs, was not a baker, and had never been in Detroit.
In additions to the circumstances already mentioned as proofs that he had lived in Detroit as George Gibbs, a nurse from the Detroit hospital where he was confined positively identified him as Gibbs. Yet Holstein, as he called himself. seemed so sincere that all physicians and detectives who talked to him, credited him with believing he was telling the truth. The cases was set down as one of the dual identity, and the patient, after a couple weeks at the Sisters' hospital, was adjudged insane and committed to the Buffalo State Hospital.
At the end of three months, Gibbs-Holstein appears much improved physically and mentally. But the mystery of his real identity remains. Inspector John H Taylor, chief of the detective bureau, worked conscientiously for weeks trying to find the solution. He had almost daily interviews with him. He sent messages to the police in every city where Holstein had been, or thought he had been, but could find no one who knew him other that the baker for whom he had worked in Detroit, and the hospital attaches who had cared for him there.
Holstein remembered the name of a little sided street in Cincinnati where he said he had boarded with a Mrs. Zinser. He didn't remember the street number, but he have its location minutely with reference to neighboring buildings. Inspector Taylor telegraphed to the Cincinnati police. They found a Mrs. Zinser at the house described. but, oddly enough, she said she had never had a boarder named either Gibbs or Holstein. When his picture was shown to her, she failed to recognize it. That was the nearest the police ever got to finding anyone who might know him, though they visited the addresses in various cities that he gave them in evident sincerity.
"He tried to help us all he could to find out who he us. I am sure of that. But, poor fellow, he has lost himself completely," says Inspector Taylor.
The insane asylum authorities have also made different efforts to identify him and find his friends. He said be bad a brother in Brooklyn. They sent word to the address he gave. No Holstein or Gibbs lived there, and no one there knew the patient or any relative. He sad he has another brother in New York. Investigation at the address he gave proved fruitless.
The asylum authorities have talked with repeatedly, have tested him in various was and have been compelled to belief that he was not shaming or trying to conceal anything, but has has a lapse of memory, a characteristic of hysteria, the form of mental trouble with which he is suffering.
It is try that he is a mechanical draftsman, as is proved by many fine specimens of his work, which have resulted from the tests of physicians or from voluntary actions from idle moments. It is true that he has been well educated, as his speeches in various languages attest. It is not inconceivable that he was at one time a professional man of prominence in Germany, who met with some accident or other misfortune there, which caused him to come to America and to have lapses of memory here from time to time. The evidence of an operation upon his skull for a fracture shows in the scars left by the trephining. He had those scars when he was received in the Detroit hospital, so the injury and operation date back of that. He gave the approximate time, too, but the records of that hospital show he us in error.
The patient has improved, under his present careful treatment, improved mentally at least, to the extent of recalling the baker's trade. He remembers now that he worked as a pastry cook in various cities, bust still is void of all remembrance of working in that trade in Detroit, and still claims he is John Holstein, mechanical draftsman, of Brooklyn.
The doctors have hopes that further improvement will follow and that some time - maybe months, maybe years from now - he will arise from the grave of his lost identity and step forth as the self he knew many years ago.
Meanwhile. this unfortunate silently, uncomplainingly plods along as Gibbs-Holstein, the crazy baker.
IS MAN OF MYSTERY
Middle-Aged Man Who Is of Interest to Physicians.
Making Bread and Pastry In Buffalo Stat Hospital.
Buffalo, NY, Sat. 6. - In the bakery of the Buffalo State Hospital is a middle-aged man who is ever a subject of interest to the physicians. He is usually active and goes about his work of making bread and pastry as intelligently as any expert professional baker who is credited with being rational.
At times there appears upon his face and in his eyes, as he is bending over the kneading-board, or carrying pans to or from the ovens, an expression of abstraction, a faraway look as if his mind were straying back into a hazy past in search of something almost or quite gone from memory.
Three months have elapsed since this man was found lying unconscious on a carriageway in Delaware Park, the supposed victim of footpad. Through the finding of a baker's union due-book, not far from where he lay - a discovery made by Express reporters - and the initials, G.G., which appeared upon the collar band on his shirt, he was identified as a man who was known in Detroit as George Gibbs, who belonged to the Bakers' union there: who has been picked up unconscious under similar conditions in that city within a year and had been kept a patient in a hospital there for several months, or until about five months before he was found in Buffalo.
When he recovered consciousness at the Sisters' hospital, he identified himself as John Holstein of Brooklyn, a mechanical draftsman, educated in Berlin, Germany, who had been in the United States seventeen years and had been employed in New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and other cities. When questioned, he said he had never borne the name of Gibbs, was not a baker, and had never been in Detroit.
In additions to the circumstances already mentioned as proofs that he had lived in Detroit as George Gibbs, a nurse from the Detroit hospital where he was confined positively identified him as Gibbs. Yet Holstein, as he called himself. seemed so sincere that all physicians and detectives who talked to him, credited him with believing he was telling the truth. The cases was set down as one of the dual identity, and the patient, after a couple weeks at the Sisters' hospital, was adjudged insane and committed to the Buffalo State Hospital.
At the end of three months, Gibbs-Holstein appears much improved physically and mentally. But the mystery of his real identity remains. Inspector John H Taylor, chief of the detective bureau, worked conscientiously for weeks trying to find the solution. He had almost daily interviews with him. He sent messages to the police in every city where Holstein had been, or thought he had been, but could find no one who knew him other that the baker for whom he had worked in Detroit, and the hospital attaches who had cared for him there.
Holstein remembered the name of a little sided street in Cincinnati where he said he had boarded with a Mrs. Zinser. He didn't remember the street number, but he have its location minutely with reference to neighboring buildings. Inspector Taylor telegraphed to the Cincinnati police. They found a Mrs. Zinser at the house described. but, oddly enough, she said she had never had a boarder named either Gibbs or Holstein. When his picture was shown to her, she failed to recognize it. That was the nearest the police ever got to finding anyone who might know him, though they visited the addresses in various cities that he gave them in evident sincerity.
"He tried to help us all he could to find out who he us. I am sure of that. But, poor fellow, he has lost himself completely," says Inspector Taylor.
The insane asylum authorities have also made different efforts to identify him and find his friends. He said be bad a brother in Brooklyn. They sent word to the address he gave. No Holstein or Gibbs lived there, and no one there knew the patient or any relative. He sad he has another brother in New York. Investigation at the address he gave proved fruitless.
The asylum authorities have talked with repeatedly, have tested him in various was and have been compelled to belief that he was not shaming or trying to conceal anything, but has has a lapse of memory, a characteristic of hysteria, the form of mental trouble with which he is suffering.
It is try that he is a mechanical draftsman, as is proved by many fine specimens of his work, which have resulted from the tests of physicians or from voluntary actions from idle moments. It is true that he has been well educated, as his speeches in various languages attest. It is not inconceivable that he was at one time a professional man of prominence in Germany, who met with some accident or other misfortune there, which caused him to come to America and to have lapses of memory here from time to time. The evidence of an operation upon his skull for a fracture shows in the scars left by the trephining. He had those scars when he was received in the Detroit hospital, so the injury and operation date back of that. He gave the approximate time, too, but the records of that hospital show he us in error.
The patient has improved, under his present careful treatment, improved mentally at least, to the extent of recalling the baker's trade. He remembers now that he worked as a pastry cook in various cities, bust still is void of all remembrance of working in that trade in Detroit, and still claims he is John Holstein, mechanical draftsman, of Brooklyn.
The doctors have hopes that further improvement will follow and that some time - maybe months, maybe years from now - he will arise from the grave of his lost identity and step forth as the self he knew many years ago.
Meanwhile. this unfortunate silently, uncomplainingly plods along as Gibbs-Holstein, the crazy baker.
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