The Mathews journal. (Mathews C.H. [Court House]) 1903-1937, 1911-04-06
HAD NUMEROUS
BANK ACCOUNTS
NEIGHBORS TELL ECCENTRICI-
TIES OFWOMAN W no STARVED
WITH FORTUNE IN BANK.

NEW YORK Special Soda
Water Frank" OF 4SS East Fifteenth
Street, who says he once paid taxes
on a million dollars worth OF prop
erty in New York. but is now run
ming a little secondhand store, at
more than seventy years of age paid
81 yesterday for the household eff
fects Of Mrs. Augusta Freitag.
She was the woman who was found
dead in her two-room fiat, apparent
~ OF starvation, at 52S East Fifteenth
Street, Tuesday night, but among
whose ragged and broken effects the
police found money, papers and bank
books representing $4,000 to $45:-
600.
After the police and nor brother
in-law, f. Buergal, proprietor of the
Grantwood Hotel at brentwood, N
j., and Mrs. Sophie Grau, the house
keeper, had searched through the two
trunks and her bureau the mystery
or why woman who had so much
wealth had hidden herself in a dark
little rear tenement on the lower East
Side was as great as IL was when the
police first discovered that she was
an owner Of real estate an1 had half
a dozen bank accounts.
her body was taken from the
Morgue to an undertaker's yesterday
at the order Of her brother-ia
All day the housekeeper was wonder
inS what sh ould be done with the
many cats that made the rooms OF
Mrs. Freitag tfeir headquarters She
used to pick UP all the stray cats in
! the neighborhoOd and take them
home. Often she went hungry her
self that they should have enough 70
eat.
Looking very much older than she
really was. and dressing in Srayed
garments OF a fashion many wears
! gone out she appears to have been
strange combination OF misery
greed and open-handed generosity
when she heard Of someone who Nrs
i'll. Her broth in-iaw could tell
York.
one OF the mysteries unsolved was
the disappearance OF her husband
two years ago. Herman Freitag. very
old and i'll, had made a fortune with
her IN his younger days in the opera
ton OF cigar stores, cafes and hoseis
in New York. but all their savings
appeared TO have been in her name
and two years ago, after a dfsa gree
ment with his wife over something
that the neighbors heard them lis
cussing for days, he took $500 and
went away. hobbling down the street
on his crutch, for he was a cripple
the old woman watching him rom
the doorway and finally turning away
and going 10 the dark little fat to cry
for days.
One day she read In a German M
per of poor woman deserted and
left on a sick bed with seven chill
dren, and she disappeared for a week
from the house. A butcher boy found
! her after four days. with her dress
pinned up and her tat arms bare
scrubbing the floor of the sick wo-
mans rooms and feeding the new
baby.
She went to telephone and call
/ ed up some number far uptown and
a woman dressed in the height Of
/ fashion came in an automobile and
| left food and clothes enough to nut
the family on its feet again. Then
/ Mrs. Freitag appeared a her .wo-
/ room fiat again and fed her cats
She told me once in a burst OF
confidence" said one of the neigh
bors. that she and her husband had
made much money in Wall Street and
that her husband had been a sport
! ing man in his youth ard that theirs
mad been wonderful love match.
She was always going from one t.
another OF her hanks taking out !;
rev hundred dollars from one anC
nnt' NJ II into some other bank.
SIZE used TO give money to beg.
/ cars. found. but iisst summer she
lost 90 cents and the. cried about 1,
for days"