New-York tribune., 1920-04-13
Father Crins, Two
Faint, Over Girls
Story Of Cruelty
Branded, Beaten, Starved
and Generally Tortured
by Family, Says 17-Year-
Old Minnie Callande1'

Minnie Gallander, seventeen years
old, told of crueltie. practiced on her
at her home at $50 Grant Avenue,
Brooklyn, yesterday in New Jersey
Avenue police court, Brooklyn. Her
father, John Gallander, clay modeler
on the vaudeville stage, who is charged
with felonious assault in his daugh-
ter's complaint, sat smiling through
the recital, although Minnies story
caused two women in the audience to
faint.
Gallander asserts that the girl's
story is false, and intmates that she
was put UP to it by relative who is
seeking revenge upon him. Some of
Minne's statements were corroborated
by her half-sister Anna, fourteen years
old. Both girls are in the custody of
the Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children. The hearing was
adjourned to April 81.
Until she ran away from home two
years ago, Minnie said, she was the
butt of the family, her stepmother
now dead, her half-brothers and her
father joining in the sport of torturing
her. When they were tired of the
amusement, she said, she would be
locked in cupboard and once her step
mother showed her a pit in the cellar
and said that would be Minnie's grave
and no one would know what happened
to her. Once she was locked in the cup
board 'cr three days, she said, and
might have died but for Anna, who
smuggled some food to her
"My father and my stepm never
liked me, | guess said Minnie "for
they would not send ME to school and
beat me most every day. When l beg
ged for food they made me stand
against a wall while they threw knives
and forks at me. Once father told me
TO stand still and he threw long stick
with nail in the end Of it at me. The
nail stuck in my head right here"
She pointed to one of several scars
on her scalp and went on with her
story.
"But that's not all. Ny stepmother,
when | begged for something to eat,
heated a knife and branded my arms" "
When she cried out with pain. she
said, her father cursed her and told
her stepmother to stop the girls
mouth. This the woman did. Minnie
said, by contriving a gag from towel
and a stovelid litter. SO famshed did
she become, Minnie said, that when
she was able to steal out Of the house
she used to prowl among the garbage
cans of the neighborhood seeking
scraps.
In her affidavit she recounted as fol
lows the events of day in May, 1918
shortly before she ran away fror7
! home:
"That the said John Gallander die
throw at her and violently struck hel
with cooking pot, a small iron,
knife and fork and tin plate, arc
that he also threw al her and strucl
her with stick containing nail. thu
nail remaining sticking in her head OF
the left side, and that thcreupon ant
! then and there continued to hurl at he
and struck her with other missiles ant
that her stepmother did also then an'
there actively participate in the sal,
felonious assault and with the eviden
lander, her stepmother did violently
pull the said stick away and therewt
struck her most violently.
That she the stepmother) thereupol
heated knife until it appeared red
glowing with the heat and therewitl1
in the presence of her father, struc
, her upon the left arm, soaring it Sc
, verely. That the hurts and pains wer
beyond endurance and she screamed
whcreupon her father, in apparent pas
sion, explained: Shut that -
- mouth Whereupon her step
mother, In obedience to his command
, put towel in the deponent's mouth b.
means of stove litter, securing tn
effectively hold it. That deponent thel
could only moan, but could not scream
or plead to be relieved Of her distress
ing pain and Sufferinp"