Oldest Newspaper in Alaska._____Member of Tlie Associated Press
DEVOTED TO THE BUILDING OF A BETTER NOME AND THE SECOND DIVISION.
NOME IS T1IE STRATEGIC WORLD FLIGHT AIR BASE—ESPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR COMMERCIAL AND MILITARY AVIATION
THE NOME DAILY NUGGET
Volume 36. Number 227. NOME, ALASKA, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1935. Per Copy Ten Cents
Aunt And Uncle Meet Death Poison
INDUSTRY MUST ALSO BE IN FOR RECOVERY
Mother Won’t Allow Doctors For Suffering Daughter
YOUTH POISONS AUNT
AND UNCLE; — BODIES
FOUND SAN PEDRO BAY
Put Poison In Tlicir Coffee Then Placed
Bodies In Car And Run It Off A Pier
(By The Associated Press)
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 26, — The bodies of Mr. and Mrs.
Henry Steinhuer, each about sixty years of age, were recov
ered from the waters of San Pedro harbor Wednesday night,
a few hours after their nephew Leroy Drake. 19, confessed
to Detective Lieut. Frank Condaffer, saying that he saw
them die of poisoning.
He said he placed the bodies in an automobile and allow
ed the machine to plunge off the pier. The youth told the
police that his aunt and uncle “keeled over” from poison
at their home last Friday night, but denied that he had ad
ministered the poison. However, he offered no explanation
of how they came by their deaths.
Condaffer said that Drake told him he kept the bodies
in the house for more than four hours before he decided to
take them to San Pedro and plunge the automobile carrying
them into the water. He said he did this because he was
“panic stricken”. Condaffer said the young man would be
held on the suspicion of murder without bail, declaring that
he had confessed he had forged his uncle’s name on checks.
Young Drake was the beneficiary under his uncle’s will
and was also the beneficiary of the life insurance policies.
He is an astronomical student.
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 26, — Drake confessed later to
day, to Detective Condaffer, saying he had slipped the
poison into the coffee of his aunt and uncle just before’
they drank it. He attempted to hide their deaths by shunt
ing the bodies into the ocean in their auto.
He was booked on the suspicion of murder. Drake said
he hud little hope of escaping a prison term for the theft of
an automobile and feared he would disgrace the couple so he
planned their death, and determined to kill them by poison
in their coffee, which both of them drank.
Body Miss Frances
Royster Is Found
Lake Near Seward
SEWARD, Sept. 26, —The body of
Miss Frances Royster, of Albemarle,
North Carolina, and recently a diet
ician at the Seward Hospital, was
recovered Wednesday from Bear
Lake near here.
She was the outing companion of
Oarl F. Green,brook, coast guard
seaman, both of whom were drown
ed September 7th. Greenbrook’s
body was recovered Tuesday. An
inquest is being held here today.
President Going
Trip Pacific Coast
WASHINGTON, Sept 26, — The
President had his favorite fishing
equipment packed for a vacation
trip to the Pacific Coast. He leav
es here tonight, and will probably
stop at Boulder Dam.
A talk on power views and the
coal strike is believed to be due for
primary consideration today.
Harry Hopkins and Harold Ick
cs will go on the first stage of the
President’s journey, with him.
ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH HAS
INTERESTING STORY TO TELL OF
FLIGHT TO ORIENT VIA ALASKA
(By The Associated Press)
NEW YORK, Sept. 26, —“And for
three weeks I thought, I have been
brushing my teeth in boiled wat
er.”
Which was the first reaction of
Anne Morrow Lindbergh to the spill
which almost changed America’s
Public Hero No. 1 and his wife into
muddy corpses floating down the
flooded Yangtze River in China.
Mrs. Lindbergh tells the story of
her 1931 flight to China with her
famous husband in “North to the
Orient,” her first books, published
late in August.
The Hangkow Spill
... Before China was reached there
had been adventures with her radio
sertding and receiving set, nights
spent in isolated Canadian cabins or
anchored off odd bits of Alaskan
coast, visits to Russian homes, a
dangerous forced landing in the Jap
anese archipelago, and an adventure
near Nanking when an errand of
mercy almost sacrificed the Colonel
and two doctor companions to sull
en Chinese flood sufferers.
The spill was at Hangkow, where
the British plane carrier “Hermes”
had arranged an emergency hoisting
apparatus and had taken the Lind
bergh’s Sirius plane aboard to pro
tect it from the flooded Yangtze,
(Continued on Page Two)
FOUNDER OF TOWN BETTLES ON
KOYUKUK RIV. WILL SPEND THE
WINTER WRITING ALASKAN EPIC
Cordon Betties To
Write Book About
48 Years In Alaska
Forty eight years in Alaska, the
greater part spent in the great Yu
kon Valley, still going strong and
lithe and wiry as a wild cat, and
preparing a book on his epic ex
periences in the Northland, Gordon
Betties, one of the most famous of
Alaska’s pioneers, left Anchorage
recently on his way to Chenega, be
tween Seward and Valdez, his fu
ture home.
Mr. Betties, known to every sour
dough from Point Barrow to Ketch
ikan the man after whom Betties,
on the Koykuk is named, and par
ticipant in many a historic pre
Klondike event, is reputed in trad
tion to have dug the Yukon River
along with Jack McQuesten and
A1 Mayo.
Denying the digging allegation,
excepting that he, with Jack and
A1 did dig in for the gold in early
days, Mr. Betties, rugged of physi
que and nimble and keen of mind
and with an endless fund of pioneer
tales recently greeted Jack Kennal
ly, one of the luckiest veterans of
the Circle City and Dawson days,
and George Light,’ old timer of the
Koyukuk and others of early vint
age at the Anchorage Hotel. And did
they spin yarns and tell of early ex
ploits in the days when every man
in the Yukon was a he-man and
brawn was the mark of prowess.
Gorden Betties is but one of the
some half dozen survivors of the old
guard that was at Forty-mile in
the first days of the gold strike on
the famous old Yukon stream. Frank
Buteau now at Fairbanks, Bill Lig
gett, Skiff Mitchell and perhaps one
or two others alone survive with
Betties. Bill McPhee Jack McQuest
en, Arthur Harpe, Billy Lloyd How
ard Hamilton Hurt and others of the
old brigade of trail blazers have
crossed the great divide.
Betties stampeded from Juneau to
the Fortymile via the Chilkoot Pass
and the upper Yukon route, in 1887,
spent a winter at Fortymile, then
drifted down the Yukon and cross
ed to the Kuskokwim and spent
most of the year from 1888 to 1889
in that vast valley. In the summer
of 1899 he went to the mouth of
the Tanana on the Yukon, then
known as the old station or Nuk
lukyet. There he engaged in trading,
and with the aid of Jules L Prevost,
missionary started the first newspup
er ever published in the Yukon val
ley, known as the "Yukon Press".
Prevost got the funds in a miss
ion collection, and sent outside and
got the press said Betties. 1 had been
a printer-newspaper man on the old
Detroit Free Press so far back I
have forgotten the date, but I knew
how to get the paper off. The press
we used is now in the museum at
(Continued on Page Three)
WILLIAMS POINTS TO A
SPIRIT COOPERATION
TO GET BETTER TIMES
Industry Must Also Benefit In Addition To
Working Man To Insure Real Recovery
(By The Associated Press)
WASHINGTON, Sept. 2(1—Harry Hopkins’ right hand
man, Aubrey Williams said that unless industry “shares in
creased business with the workers” the unemployment pro
blem will not be solved by the business pickup.
He declared that there had been a business gain, but
generally speaking, it has put comparatively few people to
work. He attributed that phase of it primarily to the in
creased efficiency which permits employers to produce
more goods than before with fewer men.
“Unless industry is willing to adopt a deliberate policy of
sharing increased business with the workers, there is not
much hope of the workers getting anything out of the busi
ness pickup”, he stated.
He continued by saying that there had been a drop in
the number of people on relief but attributed this largely
to the “hardboiled policy” under which the rolls are “being
combed of ineligibles.”. However, he said, as fast as they go
from relief to jobs, we get as many new ones on relief who
have exhausted their savings. The problem of unemploy
ment is just as serious as ever, despite favorable business,
indications evidence. Even the national industrial confer
ence board says there is more unemployment now than
a year ago.
MOTHER BARRICADES AGAINST
AUTHORITIES. DAUGHTER HAS
APPENDICITIS— WANTS NO AID
13 Year Old Girl
Suffering Doesn’t
Want Medical Aid
(By The Associated Press)
PERTH AMBOY, New Jersey,
Sept. 26, —A mother's fears locked
medical aid out of the threshold,
while fifteen year old Margaret Ker
ston fought her own battle with
acute appendicitis.
“I won’t let them take my baby
away from me,” was all that Mrs.
Anna Kerston, widower, would say
from behind a barricaded door of
her home.
Authorities could find no author
ity to enter her home and take the
girl to a hospital to perform an
emergency operation, which physi
cian said was necessary.
Both the woman and her daughter
it is said, have a fear of hospitals,
after the death of Mrs. Kerston's
mother, recently, following an op
eration.
If you intend building a cache,
storm shed or garage, etc., it will
pay you to read the Nome Lumber
Company special in this issue.
121 Dead Japan
(By The Associated Press)
TOKYO, Sept 26, —Rivers are
rising in the wake of rains and
typhoons as forty one more persons
were reported killed, ijiaking the
total dead 121, from current storms.
Lewis Has Relapse
(By The Associated Press)
MOSCOW, Sept 26. —Senator
Lewis suffered a relapse last night,
and his condition gave rise to new
apprehension today.
Llerjjy Send Raps
In To President
Answer Recpiest
(Bv The Associated Press)
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, —Dis
patches from widely scattered sec
tions indicated that clergymen off
erings varied, sometimes critical, in
their suggestions in response to the
President’s request for their ‘coun
sel and advice’.
A San Francisco pastor suggest
ed that President- Roosevelt re
main true to the constitution.
A Chicago rabbi said that the
President's letter was as practical as
well as a good political move.
Dr David Steele of Philadelphia
accused the President of “playing
politics on a low plane, a move with
which you have made us all famil
iar”.
League Forbids
War Before Dee.
4 Italy - Ethiopia
(By The Associated Press)
UNDATED, Sept 26, — The Leag
ue Council gave notice to Italy and
Ethiopia today that they cannot
start war until December 4th, with
out violating the League covenant.
If either starts aggressive hostil
ities before then, then that nation
will be deemed to have committed
an act of war against all the mem
bers of the League, automatically
calling for punishment by the other
nations.
The action was taken in tense ex
citement after the Italian delegat
es had walked from the building.
The other delegates were left in
the dark as to the meaning of this
new gesture by the Italians.
Before leaving they walked to the
bar and ordered drinks. They drank
a toast to Rome, an act said to be
without ‘significance.’*
FOR SALE—Model T touring car
1927, in good condition. Call at
residence of Chas. U Jones.