posted 06-10-2005 02:46 PM            

I have identical buckles that Foster made in copper and a smaller embossed oval set in sterling as well. I have never seen anything other than buckles with these marks.

Has anyone seen other buckles or any other items by this maker?

posted 06-11-2005 01:58 PM            

Here is a link to a pair of shoes with their handwrought Arts & Crafts buckles:

quote:

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Madeline Yale Wynne shoes with buckles

Madeline Yale Wynne (1847-1918) was an accomplished artisan who was part of the Arts and Crafts movement in Deerfield, Massachusetts at the turn of the 20th century. She handmade the silver buckles that adorn this pair of 20th century shoes. The owner wore the shoes with colonial-type clothing at historic occasions in town

Madeline Yale Wynne
(1847-1918)

Madeline Yale Wynne moved from Chicago to Deerfield, Massachusetts, in 1885. She was the first person to restore one of Deerfield's old houses, and she lived in "The Manse," as she called it, from 1885 until her death. Her knowledge of Boston's and Chicago's arts and crafts societies helped promote the Arts and Crafts Movement in Deerfield. She helped shape the Society of Deerfield Industries (1901-1926) and played an integral part in it until 1917. Her artistic talents included metal work, enameling, painting, embroidery, wood working, basketry, writing, and music.

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She was active in both Chicago and Deerfield according to Sharon Darling in "Chicago Metalsmiths".

PS. If you are on a PC, you can right click with your mouse on the photo, select "View Image" (or "Save Image As" to download to your computer), and you will get the original photo which is larger and has more detail.

posted 06-20-2005 11:49 AM            

I saw those shoe buckles when I went to Deerfield. I also saw period photographs of folks attending parties dressed in colonial dress. It seems that the fascination for our colonial past became quite the rage with some folks. Deerfield has quite a collection of Madeline Wynne's work as well as a spectacular collection of early American Silver.

posted 03-04-2008 04:18 PM            

F.E.Foster Shoes & Co was founded by Frederick Earl Foster.

She also found an advertizement for the same shoes in the Chicago Daily Tribune dated April 25, 1923. The shoes were promoted as "A Foster Street Colonial"

They came in "Rough Calf with black Lava Buckles" or in "White Buckskin with shell Pearl Buckles"

My buckles appeard on their "Black Calf or Patent Leather with hammered Silver Buckles"

Seems the mystery of my buckles is solved. I suspect that they jobbed the silver buckles out to some Chicago silversmith.

Fred

posted 05-31-2008 10:51 PM            

Today I received an email of a pair of buckles identical to the ones I own and with the same Foster in script letters as shown in the previous images. The image I received has a twist. The Foster mark is struck over the mark of the maker of the buckles.

I am comfortable that The Foster Shoe Co. hired KALO to make buckles for some of their shoes. This was possible because of the generousity of freinds and their willingness to share their discoveries.

posted 03-15-2012 09:44 PM            

quote:

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Lonely Hearts Murderer

Harry F. Powers was convicted in the murder of Asta Eicher and her children.



Eicher was a widow, who struggled
to raise her two daughters and son.



Men dig for bodies of other victims
of Henry Powers in West Virginia.

Long before there was a craigslist or dot-com dating, there were places where men and women who were too shy or busy to meet face to face could find romance. Calling themselves "matrimonial bureaus," these organizations were known mostly as the "lonely hearts clubs," and they flourished through the middle of the 20th century.

Such was Detroit's American Friendship Society, which opened its doors in 1927. By 1931, it had earned more than $100,000. The business continued to thrive, even after the country plunged into the Depression.

For an annual fee ($4.95 for men, $1.95 for women), members got a listing of available matches, mostly widows and widowers, with a description of their most attractive features - whether real or not.

Among American Friendship's clients in 1931 was a man who, based upon his written profile, should have had no trouble attracting the ladies.

"Wealthy widower," the ad read, "worth $150,000. Has income from $400 to $2,000 a month." His profession was listed as "civil engineer."

"Own a beautiful 10-room brick home, completely furnished with everything that would make a good woman happy. My wife would have her own car and plenty of spending money. Would have nothing to do but enjoy herself."

Cooler heads might have figured this was too good to be true, but not Asta Eicher, 50, a Chicago widow with three children - Greta, 14; Harry, 12, and Anabel, 9. Eicher's husband, a silversmith, had died eight years earlier, and since his death she had dedicated herself to raising her family.

In a flash, they disappeared

In July 1931, for the first time in years, she had told friends that romance had again entered her life. But other than her new love's name, Mr. Pierson, she offered few details.

That same month, she asked William O'Boyle, a boarder, to find another place to live. The excuse she gave was that the pudgy, pig-faced little Pierson, who had been hanging around the house for weeks, was moving in.

Then she and her children disappeared. No one paid much attention until August, when O'Boyle went back to Eicher's house to pick up some tools he had left behind. Eicher and her children were gone, but the man O'Boyle knew as Pierson was there, and he was emptying the house.

O'Boyle called police, who asked the stranger about the missing family.

The man introduced himself as "Cornelius O. Pierson, of the Fairmont Hotel, Fairmont, W.Va." The Eichers, he said, had moved to Colorado, and had left him behind to settle their affairs. He produced a letter that appeared to be in Eicher's handwriting, saying he had paid her property taxes and mortgage, and that he should tidy up the house to prepare it for renters. But when he could offer no real details on the whereabouts of the family, police decided to probe a little more.

No one in Fairmont, W.Va., had ever heard of him, and it seemed that the trail was about to go cold. Then investigations at Eicher's house yielded a few clues, in the form of love letters.

The letters led them to a small property near a West Virginia hamlet called Quiet Dell, where Pierson lived under the name Harry Powers, with his wife of four years, Luella.

It would soon become known as the "murder farm."

Powers insisted that the Eichers had gone west, but then just a few seconds later, he sputtered that the widow had traveled with him to West Virginia.

The conflicting stories raised suspicions, so detectives kept sniffing around. They learned that two months earlier, Powers had built a garage on the property. When they took a look inside, they found jewelry, clothes and other items that had belonged to Eicher.

Soon after that, the widow and her children were found. On Aug. 28, police dug up four corpses, wrapped in burlap sacks and buried in a shallow grave. A day later, they found the body of another woman in the garage. She would later be identified as Dorothy Lemke, 50, a divorcée from Northboro, Mass. Like Eicher, Lemke had gone missing in July.

So many victims

Inside Powers' home, there was a trunk-load of correspondence from more than 100 love-starved widows and spinsters from all over the country. Letters and photos found in the trunk suggested that he had been operating as a love racketeer for more than a decade. A roll of film left in a camera was developed, yielding images of Lemke and Powers together.

After a brutal grilling by police, Powers confessed to the five murders. After promising marriage, he had driven Eicher and her kids from Chicago to his farm. He locked them up for a few days, then took them to a room where he had suspended a noose from the rafters.

One by one, they were hanged. "I was permitting little Harry Eicher to watch the killing of his mother and the others, but in the middle of it he let out an awful scream," Powers told police. "I was afraid the neighbors would hear it, so I picked up a hammer and let him have it."

Lemke had arrived a day after the Eichers. She was ushered into the garage, locked up and later hanged.

Digging around the farm produced no more bodies, but there was a strong suspicion that Powers had killed before. Asked once how many he had murdered, he shrugged his shoulders and muttered, "I don't know."

Other women came forth with stories of how Powers had wooed them.

Bessie Storrs of Olean, N.Y., told The Associated Press that her wedding had been planned for the day that Powers had been arrested.

Other women said that they emptied their bank accounts when their mail-order bridegroom proposed.

As soon as he pocketed their cash, he vanished, leaving the ladies sadder and wiser, but alive.

Bank accounts held by Eicher and Lemke had been cleared out just before the murders, leaving little question as to a motive.

Quick conviction, then hanging

In anticipation of enormous crowds, the trial, which started on Dec. 7, 1931, was moved from a courtroom to the 1,200-seat opera house in Clarksburg. Powers seemed unconcerned as the trial opened, chewing gum and yawning through the first day. By the time he got on the stand, however, he was in tears. He said that his miserable marriage had driven him to seek out mail-order sweethearts. But he denied the killings, recanting his earlier confession.

After deliberating for one hour and 50 minutes in the opera-house dressing room, the jury found him guilty. The penalty was death by hanging.

In jail, the prisoner produced a detailed confession. And, on the gallows, March 18, 1932, Powers was given the chance, as are all condemned men, to offer a last statement. But for once, the Don Juan who had spewed out thousands of words to women all over the country had nothing to say.

"No," was all he uttered before the trapdoor opened and he plunged to his death.

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I skimmed the article myself mainly just to understand the parties involved. It's not the kind of thing most people would go out of their way to read thoroughly.

posted 07-26-2014 10:35 AM            

quote:

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Danish Times -- September 04, 1931
Mrs. Asta Eicher and Her Three Children Murdered

The bodies of Mrs. Asta Eicher and her three children Grete, Harry, and Anabel were found in an abandoned garage in Quiet Dell, West Virginia. Mrs. Eicher and her children left Park Ridge June 28, and until the discovery of the bodies a few days ago, nothing had been heard of them.

It was only after an investigation by the police, that the gruesome murder was uncovered, the murderer arrested, and a confession secured.

Mrs. Eicher, a widow, was born in Copenhagen in 1880, she lived at her home at 312 Cedar Street, Park Ridge, for a number of years. Her husband was born in Switzerland, but had lived a number of years in Denmark, where he married Asta. They had lived here in the United States for about twenty-five years.

Early in the summer Mrs. Eicher started to correspond with one Harry F. Powers of Quiet Dell, Virginia, whom she knew as Cornelius Pierson. They had become 2acquainted through a matrimonial agency in Detriot. Some time later, Powers visited her home in Park Ridge.

Powers promised to marry Mrs. Eicher, and because of this she visited him in Virginia.

On the twenty-third of August, Powers returned alone to Park Ridge, where he proceeded to move Mrs. Eicher's furniture out into the garage. He told the neighbors that the children had left for Europe, and that he and Mrs. Eicher were to be married. He claimed to have power of attorney to sell the house and furniture. The mayor of Park Ridge, Mr. McKee, did not like Power's appearance and had him arrested, but the police thought there was no reason to hold him, so he was released at once. The following day they went to Mrs. Eicher's house and found several valuable things missing. They also found part of the correspondence between Powers and Mrs. Eicher. Now the police realized something was wrong.

Powers had disappeared and the police immediately wired Clarksburg, Virginia, which town had been mentioned in the correspondence as their future home. Here it was found that Powers had used an alias, and that the license plates on his car were stolen.

In a few hours, the police of Clarksburg discovered that the wanted man, Cornelius Pierson, was none other than Harry F. Powers. The trail pointed to Quiet Dell, where Powers lived with his legal wife.

Powers was arrested, but denied knowing Mrs. Eicher and the children, but during the questioning the police investigated, searched the house and garage. In a basement under the garage the mutilated bodies of Asta and her children were found. Powers had used a hammer to murder his victims.

For sometime Powers denied everything, but later confessed everything.

This brutal murder of four Danes from our settlement, has naturally startled the Danes everywhere.

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