The Norfolk weekly news-journal., 1908-01-17
BIG SATCH[L Of GOLD.
PILGRIM CARRIED 1T BY A STRAP
OVER HIS SHOULDER.
JOHN VANvAssALER HAD IT

Left for Belgium a Week Ago Carry
ing His Gold and Accompanied by
His Wife and Two Small Children.
A Story OF Accumulation.
Carrying a little over $4,000 in gold
coins packed away in satchel at
tached to his body by a strap over his
shoulder. John Van Vassaler left Nor
folk with his wife and two children
for a visit In Belgium.
Van vassaler's story reads like an
echo OF the money furry. incidentally
1t might hold the elements of trag-
edy, for an unschooled man takes his
life in his hands when he travels
quarter way around the world with
$4,000 in leather satchel Van Vas
saler left Norfolk a week ago. His
departure from Norfolk with his little
satchel Of gold was not chronicled for
fear that an evil message might be
clicked over the wires to some shifty
thug in Americas metropolis.
1t was sleepless night that Van
Vassaler spent in Norfolk on the eve
of his departure. A nervous man--or
he would not have insisted on the ring
| ing coin-Van Vassaler saw on that
last night carefully laid plot to rob
him. He was restless and he guarded
his gold with loaded revolver.
The man drew his thousands in gold
| from a Norfolk bank. Most of the
amount was paid in 500 gold pieces.
In all, the coin weighed about sixty
pounds. The gold pieces were stacked
and wrapped in cloth to prevent tell
| tale gingle.
Month after month in the last few
years the family fortune of the Van
Vassalers has grown. But thousand
dollars was deposited in the Heintz
bank that failed at Butte, Mont. So
when that Belgium trip came up and
Van Vassaler set out again to his ma
tive country, where he will spend the
winter and return to Norfolk, he took
his gold in handbag and set out
across a continent and an ocean.
The story of the gold that filled that
hand satchel is a story of laborer's
hire, of saving-and Of fortune telling.
While the husband labored at his
work the wife told fortunes and the
family cash box filled and filed. Mrs.
Van Vassaler has told fortunes all
over north Nebraska. At race meets
and county fairs she has piled her
trade. And it is a prosperous trade
for in a day she adds from $40 to $25
to the family hoard.
| 1t was on rainy night In Broken
Bow that the fortune telling era
opened and the Van Vassaler fortunes
began to look upward. Van Vassaler
and his wife had been with some small
show and the cash box rang empty.
Then came careless tale of the "easy
money" that came into the path of
i the fortune teller
"If others, why not me?" Mrs. Van
Vassaler went out on the street and,
all ignorant of the arts of the seventh
daughter of the seventh, she fell to
preying on the credulous. That night
she told fortunes for ten cents along
the street and she came back with
81 go.
| rOI lOHS JlIuS JHe fortune teller
never asked more than a dime. Then
she became bolder and ventured a
quarter. Sometime in the Rosebud
country in fair times fortune telling
struck an upward market and destiny
was retailed out at fifty cents tell.
Long as she worked her trade Mrs.
Van Vassaler never deceived herself
1t was a hard working profession.
And with the husband it was to laugh
He was hard working man, was
Van Vassaler. He has been in Nor
folk three years. Among others he
has worked for J. w. Ransom. A
good workman he got from forty to fif-
ty dollars a month. And what was
taken in in this family stayed in and
helped to make that pile of gold coin
that rode out of Norfolk with the fam
| ily
| When the Van Vassalers left Nor
folk they had tickets to Belgium where
relatives live. They expected to be
back in Norfolk in the spring.