The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1897-08-27

our years after OLD thomas Bell SO
strangely fell to his death, his oldest
sen, Fred Bell, went over the same bal
ulster rail on the third story and fell
70 the hall below, where his father was
killed. Fred Bell did not die, but
broken limbs and bruised joints kept
him a cripple for eight months. He fin
ally recovered, but he never explained
the accident.
There was a story Of a midnight
hunt for burglars, during which the
young mar stumbled over the railing.
Tut the Bells never told any details.
The fall is as much a mystery as the
other one four years before, though
Fred Bell is not naturally a close
mouthed young fellow. Nobody knew
that there was strife in the big house
until the other day, when Fred Bell
filed a petition in the Superior Court
praying for the removal of his mother
as the guardian of the persons and es-
tates of her children. He asked to be
appointed in her stead, and charged
his mother with drunkenness and in
~decency." He had much to say about
the domination of the old negress in
the household. But to go back 20 the
case of Sarah Althea Hill Terry. When
her husband was shot dead, she re-
turned to their home in Fresno. and
lived alone in a pretty cottage her hlls-
band had furnished for her. Judge
Terry was a man of culture and taste,
and had wealth enough to give his
wife almost anything she wished. But
the widow began to do eccentric things.
and one day she was missed from
Fresno. They broke into the cottage
and found a wreck. Mrs. Terry had
been mae there alone for nobody knew
how long. He handsome dresses, laces
and ribbons were twisted around the
chandeliers, pictures were torn down
and bric-a-brac and household silver
hung aimlessly in grotesque places.
The walls were covered with crazy
writings, zigZags, spirals. The woman
had disappeared. She turned up in San
Francisco and wandered in the streets
with a bunch Of wire in her hand,
through which she thought she was
telepl. Oning to her lead husband. A
gcod many people began to get wor-
rled. Mrs. Terry had wrongs enough,
Heaven knows. Suppose she should
start in to square them, as crazy folks
sometimes do, with pistol or knife.
The police were asked to restrain her,
but she had disappeared. The press
took up the search. But The demented
woman had vanished Of: the face of the
earth apparently.
Two weeks passed and then a clever
young reporter called at the Bell house.
At first Nanny Pleasant denied all
knowledge Of Mrs. Terry's wherea-
bouts. but at last she confessed. For
fourteen days she had watched over
the poor raving maniac. Somehow she
found the Bell house, and. Nanny
Pleasant took her in and Kept her
from the law. which sought to- put her
in an insane asylum.
There is plenty to be said to- NANNY
Peasants discredit, but her care for
this wrecked woman stands out white
and clear. Nanny was true to her
from first to last, and she nursed her in
the Bell house as tenderly as a mother
would her child, and to this day, when
the ono beautiful, accomplished wo-
man is a hopeless lunatic in one of the
state insane asylums, forgotten by
everybody else, Nanny Pleasant still
keeps track of her.
A young law partner of Judge Terry
was Porter Ashe;. the turfman, him
self a figure in a sensational marriage
and a more sensational divorce. When
the widow went crazy Porter Ashe was
made the guardian of her estate. Nam
my Pleasant was; his friend and he
knew the inside of the Bell house.
After a time tom Williams, a
young millionaire, who had been a
close friend Of Judge Terry's, charged
that the estate had been wasted. An
investigation followed, and little
enough of the estate was found. Moth
ing wrong could be discovered in
Ashes accounts, but he withdrew from
the enthusiastically and Williams
became Mrs. Terry's guardian. Ashe
m Williams have been fierce enemies
ever since. They were both race horse
men, and in a sense rivals, and the bit
terness between them has often led
San Francisco to expect a tragic ending
to their misery. There are other stories
connected with the old place, tales of
extraordinary orgies that made the big
u Infamous twenty years ago.
Nanny Pleasant knows them all, but
Nanny Pleasant Ices not tell.
Murderer Caught in a Lumber cann