...sisters in black, and true crime...

 

I have a writing project underway and today's story is more of an aside to that work.

This tree is sort of spooky but not really.

It has piqued my interest enough so that I am reading Three Sisters in Black: The Bizarre True Case of the Bathtub Tragedy (1968) by Norman Zierold, which was an Edgar Award Nominee for Best Fact Crime (1969).

The story concludes with one of the most notorious criminals in 1910 being interred in an unmarked grave at Sunset Cemetery in Christiansburg, Virginia. 

While I'm not supposed to side with a killer, I have to admit that the wardrobe of the sisters is what originally interested me.

Known as the "Black Sisters," the women were seen as a peculiar family of sisters who wore all black clothing and black veils to hide their faces. As someone who wears black, I don't find this peculiar. There were other strange aspects to the sisters. They had odd eating habits where they wouldn’t touch any food until it was a day old. As someone who likes food, I find this very odd.

Newspaper: The Standard Union, August 12, 1910.

In 1909, a bathtub drowning in New Jersey became one of the most bizarre criminal cases in American history when police discovered the emaciated and abused body of Ocey Snead. The young woman was face down in the bathtub. Her death was said to be an apparent suicide by drowning. There was even a suicide note left behind. 

Ocey’s alleged suicide note, 1909, Public Domain Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Newspaper: The Knoxville Journal, April 21, 1946.

As the truth slowly came out, and hundreds of suicide notes written in the same handwriting were discovered, it became clear that Ocey’s mother and aunts, "The Black Sisters" were involved in the crime.

One of these sisters, Virginia Wardlaw ran the Montgomery Female Academy in Christiansburg. She was said to possess "hypnotic control" over young girls. Investigators believed that the murder was planned and intentional since Wardlaw, at the time she inquired about renting the house, asked specific details about the size of the bath tub.

Wardlaw also insisted that once she took possession of the house, she did not want the owners visiting the space. She also wished to move all of her belongings at night.

Wardlaw and her sisters, Caroline and Mary, were accused of murdering family members for insurance money.

In order not to be convicted, Virginia Wardlaw starved herself to death before the judge in the case could rule against her. 

Wardlaw's body was sent back to Christiansburg, Virginia to be buried in a private family funeral. 

Today the grave is not marked, or perhaps over the years it was damaged. I've seen various stories about that and about the place being haunted. Virginia Wardlaw's Find A Grave profile includes some spooky stories in the biography, which aren't included in this write up as I could not find a source. Trust me, I really wanted to find an old newspaper article about the sisters going to the cemetery "making gestures skyward and murmuring incantations" but I did not find a thing in the papers.

...Coffin up the cash on BLACK FRIDAY...

When you read “Black Friday” you most likely think of shopping. If you do, you can thank the retailer in the 1980s who successfully transformed a very negative phrase into the positive discount shopping day. You may have heard that Black Friday references the “in the black” that retailers used in their old ledgers… in the black meaning that they were making a profit and in the red meant that they were losing money. I even remember learning about checking in middle school and being told to use red ink if you ever overdraft your checking account. I remember my parents correcting my teacher by instructing to never ever do this. If you don’t have the cash, don’t write the check… but I digress.

The first recorded “Black Friday” comes from 1869 after the American Civil war during the Reconstruction era. The U.S. gold market crashed. James Fisk and Jay Gould planned to profit from buying up all of the U.S. gold and basically hoarding it to drive up the prices. It worked for a while until President Ulysses S. Grant released the reserves flooding the market with gold. Prices dropped within minutes with thousands left financially ruined, and one even committing suicide. Come on! We’re seen It’s a Wonderful Life; we know that financial ruin can be awesome if Clarence isn’t around. Wheat and corn harvests also decreased in value by 50%, and the entire U.S. economy for years.

Nearly a century later, “Black Friday” was a term that related to the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia, PA. “Black Friday” was used by police officers to describe the chaos from tourists visiting the city before the big game.

It took decades after this to spin a chaotic event into an in the profit/ in the black kind of day.

I normally don’t go out shopping on Black Friday anymore. Without little children who require big ticket items or designer toys, I don't worry much about major savings. I do go to the mall, just as I often do right before Christmas, because I love watching the madness especially when I do not need a thing. Two years ago, I spontaneously got engaged by looking at jewelry on Black Friday with my fella *giggles*. So, Black Friday is another one of our anniversaries :D

This morning with my fella as his mom's nursing her back to health for the last few days, I have been on my own. I miss him but it's been a full semester since I've actually been alone in my house... or alone for a few days! I've had a great day. I went to get a haircut and then headed to my folks’ to have my car oil changed. While this might sound weird, oil changing days are major father-daughter bonding times for me. It's where we share stories and come up with car problem-solving solutions. I wouldn't change these times for anything.  After that, I went to two graveyards from my youth that I’ll post about later this week, and then I went to the ABC store (Virginia Department of Alcohol Beverage Control… e.g. you can’t buy alcohol anywhere else in this state) which does have a Black Friday sale. So now I’m having a peppermint chocolate martini (apparently the drink of the season for me!) while I write this. Umm, excuse any tipsy typos :D

Did you go out shopping on Black Friday?