The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1954-02-08
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and tailor shops for bloodstains. /"
AZ the same time precincts il
New York City were aIerted %
watch for a .22-ealiber rife or tar.
get pistol.
bodenheim was shot in the chest.
The woman was stabbed, and beat.
en- almost beyond recognition. Both
we're fully clothed when found
after the rooming house proprietor
sawed off a paddock which had
been placed on their room door
from the outside.
On the dead novelist's chest was
. copy Of the best seller The
Sea Around U.s." by Rachel Car
son. No weapon was found.
A medical examiner said the
couple had been slain in the "a
hours before discovery Of the
bodies.
The Staying climaxed Boden-
helms up-and-down career. He last
made headlines two years ago
when arrested for sleeping in a
subway. Bleary-eyed and broke, he
spent the night in jail. Friends
finally put up his SIS bond.
In the 1920s' he was q prominent
figure in the literary world of Chi
cago and Greenwich Village.
He and author Ben Hecht helped
found the Chicago Literary Times,
an irreverent chronicle Of Chicago
before the depression. The two also
were members of Chicago's old
cultural mecca, the Dill Pickle
Club.
Others who frequentsd the Dill
Pickle included playwright Charles
Macarthur, Sherwood Anderson
and others.
In Beverly Hills, Calf, today,
Hecht asked, "Who would want to
kill Bodenheim?" He added: "No-
body would have any reason to kill
him that ! could understand"
Bodenheim twas a great friend, I"
Hecht said, asserting that he last
saw him about two years ago but
that he had had a recent letter
in which he told of being sickly
and impoverished. Hecht said they
met in Chicago in. 1911 or 1912.
Bodenheim, born in Herman.
vile, Miss. had no formal educa-
ton. He became q bitter critic Of
American civilization.
His novel "Replenishing Jessica"
caused a sensation in 1925. Later
it resulted in charges against the
author for publishing an indecent
work, but he was acquitted on
grounds that he had received no
royalties from the books sale.
Among the novels he considered
his best were ''Blackguard,"
Cray Man." Georgia Mays and
Sixty Seconds" His verse in.
cluded "Minna and Myself"
His peak was in the 1905. BY
1885 he was broke and on. relief;
at Bellevue Hospital he was dag
nosed as an acute alcoholic.
Later he joined the federal
writer's project of the WPA but
was suspended in 1910, charged
with having falsely sworn that he
was not a member Of the Commu-
mist party.
In 1912, he published 4 novel,
Lights in the Valley"
He was first married in 1918 to-
Minna Schein, the inspiration for
'Minna and Myself" They were
divorced in 1888, and a year later
he married Grace Fawcett Finan,
a widow. She died about three
years ago.
Acquaintance of Bodenheim and
the Pagan woman said she became
his third wife recently.
Police said a copy Of q job ap-
plication found in her effects stated
she graduated from the University
of Michigan, had been q reporter
for the Washington ID. c. Daily
News from 1910 to 1871; a com.
parison shopper for Crowley.Mil.
ner, Detroit, in 1871 and 1912; q
researcher for NeWsweek maya
zine from 1913 through 1915; and
a woman's page editor OF the
Lansing (Mich). News from 1915
to 1947.
There is no such paper in Lans.
ing. However, John r. Judd, pub.
Usher of the Michigan Veteran Re.
View-a community newspaper pop
llarly known as the South Lans-
ing News-said a Ruth Pagan
wrote a few stories for the paper
while attending night school. Judd
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