Virgie Longs to Be a Boy

Detroit Free Press, November 3, 1907 (enlarge)

I was going to write out a synopsis for this interesting article but since there's really no preface or follow-up that can be gleaned from the realm of the written page I should probably leave the original document to speak for itself.

In the spirit of page hits I will add that this is an early foray into transgenderism in Detroit. I won't espouse an opinion on the matter because this is an historical account and not a matter of debate. Not that the Free Press hasn't been fraught with errors in fact since its inception but this is their version of the events leading up to Alice Virginia Marsh's transformation into a boy for a week.

Also, as a matter of aesthetics and utility, the article has been formatted into two columns. It was originally one long strip of text which formats horribly on Blogspot.

All Around Detroit: Tea Leaf Lane

The Owosso Argus-Press, August 27, 1930 (enlarge)

The Detroit of 1893 was at the cusp of the new industrial revolution while still mired in the superstitions of the past. An economic crisis and a steady influx of immigrants would exacerbate both trends.

Tea-leaf readings were a fashionable trend at that time but would grow into a burgeoning industry. With it came public and internal scrutiny from the Spiritualist ranks.

By the 1930s tea shops featuring free readings were numerous and coming under attack by law enforcement. So popular were the renderings that the theatrical production of Tea for Two had live readings during its dates at the Paramount.

The crackdowns were unsuccessful as the courts ruled that since the service being provided was free of charge the unlawful act of "fortune-telling" for profit could not be forbidden.

The top article above by William H. Beatty focuses on the area east of Woodward in Detroit on Broadway in the early 1930s which encompassed seven tea shops in one block dubbed "Tea Leaf Lane".

Several of these are anonymously profiled. They entail some interesting facts and characters. One such person was "a turbaned, dark-skinned gentleman" from Ann Arbor who graduated from the University of Michigan and set up shop in Detroit to start his business career. Catering to intellectuals his shop floundered. Bring on the tea leaf readers and voila! his enterprise became a hit and more importantly, financially tenable.

Who were these readers and willing specimens of his fortune-telling? The best seers were Scottish bred. Far outweighing the stereotypical gypsy these Scots answered to mainly women thrill and curiosity-seekers and sob sisters with the earnestly-inclined accounting for a small portion of their business. Of course, these were only gratis side-amusements that accompanied a ham on rye or a cup of tea and surely not a serious portent of the future. At least that's what the proprietor's right hand man was claiming to the fourth estate.

"Witch" Arrested When Child's Hip Is Found Broken" Peculiar Stories Are Told About Josefa Lalofski, Who Refuses to Explain

Detroit Free Press, May 31, 1914

Josefa Lalofski was called the "Witch of Poplar Street" but her reputation was more in line with Rose Veres than Gundella in that she practiced a crude form of quackery rather than the subtle craft of the witch.

Superstition was a lucrative business in the burgeoning colonies of immigrants in Detroit of the early 1900s and charlatans prospered from the ignorance of the newcomers either through financial reward or fear itself.

In an 1908 article entitled Under the Witches' Spell a Free Press reporter detailed the superstitious beliefs prevalent in the lower strata of the Polish, German and Belgian communities of Detroit. From harsh beatings of children to chase out the devil to the wearing of shawls by women and cleansing of house and its wares for the same purpose, so-called witches and witch chasers were highly prominent in these sects though serving in an underworld capacity so as to avoid detection by city authorities.

Josefa Lalofski was the Germanic version of the witch and witch chaser. She believed herself to possess the power to heal and her reputation preceded her. Especially so since her services were gratis. While the article doesn't delve into precisely why Lalofski appeared at the residence of John Demps--often times both parties involved in rituals gone wrong were fearful of consequences from occult dealings; the practitioner from the police and the victim from both the witch doctor and the Devil himself--it's likely that she had been summoned by a concerned neighbor or relative of the family.

Either way, the remedy meted out by Lalofski for Demp's 10-month-old daughter's ills was to bend her tiny leg backwards until heel and head almost touched. The child reacted in agony and a practitioner of medical science in the form of Dr. F. N. Henry arrived to diagnose the child with a displaced hip and not the broken back that the witch had surmised from her examination.

Lalofski was arrested and a follow-up blurb a few days later indicated that Demps wanted to press charges but the determination would be left up to the District Attorney. I've been unable to track down further information on the matter. Since the Free Press was notorious for misspelled names it's possible that more details will emerge from the shadows.

Judge Fines Man Who Called Woman Witch: John Says He Did it Because Kraut He Ate on Her Advice Made Him Sick

Detroit Free Press, February 8, 1917

I've long collected articles on the occult and paranormal that pertain to Detroit but have refrained from posting them in hopes that I could compile more information and publish a proper article concerning the matter. Time constraints and other pursuits have thwarted that endeavor. Thus, my recent spate of article posting.

This is no barn-burner but it ties into a previously posted article concerning the apparently erroneous charges against Celia Wrobleski [sic] of being a witch. Similarly, Rose Veres was called such a creature for years before time proved that she was indeed such a monster though psychological defects were likely more to blame than the occult. Miss Wrobleski seems to have been nothing of the sort.

Ancillary research into Miss Wrobleski's (I believe that is the proper spelling) origins in Detroit lead to several possibilities: a one-year-old and six-year old girl, a few teenagers and one older woman who would have been around 26 at the time of the article.

Curiously, this last young woman was born in East Tawas in the 1890s. The same town where Detroit's most famous witch Gundella was born in 1930. Gundella, aka Marion Kuclo (née Clark), said that she descended from a long line of green witches originating in Scotland. Might there be a connection? Probably not but now the notion is out there for any curiosity seeker with the wherewithal to find out whether there was or wasn't.

As for John Burchacki he ate some tainted slaw recommended by Mary Biskupa and became violently ill. He could have just as easily blamed food poisoning or his already sour stomach but instead went the witchcraft route espousing that Mrs. Biskupa was a practitioner of the ancient art. His slanderous accusation earned a $15 fine in Justice Sellers' courtroom.

The tie-in to the Wrobleski story was the MacGuffin in this article:

"We bring this case only to prevent repetition of such an outrage as that perpetrated upon Miss Celia Wroblewski, the girl the superstitious believe turns into a lion and a bear." remarked Charles Turie, the woman's lawyer.

Under the Witches' Spell: Hundreds of Detroiters Believe in the Existence of Evil Spirits and do Strange Things to Cast off the Influence, Often Undergoing Torture

Detroit Free Press, August 2, 1908 (enlarge)