Yours Truly, E. Alice Pitezel

After posting about a letter from Edwina Booth to her father, Edwin, I decided to stick with this letter theme and post about another, though much sadder, letter. A letter from Alice Pitezel to her grandparents.

At the time the letter was written, Alice and her sister, Nellie, were traveling with H.H. Holmes. Her brother, Howard, had already been killed. Being in hotel rooms for days on end, Alice passed the time by writing letters to her grandparents and to her mother, Carrie. She would then give them to Holmes to send. However, Holmes never sent them, instead keeping them in a small tin box for unknown (aka sociopathic) reasons. When he was arrested, the letters were found in his possession, confiscated, and given to the police. Because each letter had a date and place written on top, detective Frank Geyer was able to follow Holmes' twisting path across the country and find the dead bodies of Alice and her two siblings, sealing the fate of Holmes.

Many of the letters Alice wrote described her loneliness, homesickness, and sadness that her mother was not responding to her and had yet to come and visit even though Holmes had been promising to bring her. Holmes would leave the children alone for days to plot his next move. Aside from moving the three Pitezel children from city to city, he was also moving his "wife," Georgiana Yoke, and the children's mother, Carrie Pitezel, keeping up the charade that her husband, Benjamin, was still alive (Holmes had already killed him too). At one point, Carrie was staying less than a block away from her children with neither party knowing of the other. Below is a real photo of Alice and a newspaper sketch of her. She was 14 years old but some sources say she was 15.

Detroit, Michigan

Oct. 14, 1894

Dear Grandma and Grandpa,

Hope you are all well. Nell and I have both got colds and chapped hands but that is all. We have not had any nice weather at all. I guess it is coming winter now. Tell momma that I have to have a coat. I nearly freeze in that thin jacket. We have to stay in all the time, Howard is not with us now. We are right near the Detroit River. We was going a boat riding yesterday but it was too cold. All that Nell and I can do is draw and I get so tired sitting that I could get up and fly almost. I wish I could see you all. I am getting so homesick that I don't know what to do. I suppose Wharton walk by this time don't he? I would like to have him here. He would pass away the time a good deal.

Yours truly, 

E. Alice Pitezel  

Until next time.

XOXO, Kate

Benjamin and Carrie Pitezel

Dear Universe,

It's P-I-T-E-Z-E-L not P-I-E-T-Z-E-L. Please get your shit together and print one CORRECT spelling.

Signed,

Aggravated historian

Victory! I have finally memorized the correct spelling of Pitezel (and just in time for my Pitezel post).

I haven't had much time to update this blog due to having one hell of a stressful week. But now that spring break has finally arrived I can get back to posting here and on my American Civil War blog. Speaking of, you can find my Down Yonder Diary here:

http://downyonderdiary.blogspot.com/

Anyway, I am currently working on a longer post about the childhood life of H.H. Holmes in his hometown of Gilmanton, New Hampshire. But since that post is not finished at the moment and I want to get a new post up, here is a short one about some new pictures I found of Benjamin and Carrie Pitezel.

Benjamin (who has his picture featured on the header) was Holmes' assistant and one of his final victims. Holmes was eventually tried and executed for the murder of Benjamin.

One thing that you will quickly learn about me, I am a romantic. I love the relationship of Carrie and Benjamin (or Benny as he was affectionately called by his wife). The more you read about them, the more you see how dedicated and devoted they were to each other, even when times were tough. Their love story was so caring and romantic, one of the reasons their separation was so tragic and heartbreaking. Why, Holmes? Why did you destroy the beauty?

There are not many images of the Pitezel family. In those days, unless you had money (which the Pitezel family did not) you didn't take many photos because it was still very expensive. The most common image seen of Carrie is this one taken in her later years.

There are two common images of Benjamin, usually shown together to compare his features before and after he became a compulsive drinker and a worn, beat up shadow of his former self.

 

However, I stumbled upon these two images the other day. I'm not sure when Benjamin's photo was taken but the one of Carrie shows her much younger and I've never seen another that does.

I hope they have found each other again. 

Until next time.

XOXO, Kate