*March
20, 1907 – Charles Howard, St. Paul, was stabbed in the breast
with a butcher knife by his 18-year-old daughter, Fern Howard, early this
morning, and is in critical condition at the City Hospital; physicians do not
believe that he will recover.
The girl claims that Howard was threatening his
wife with the knife and declares that she seized the weapon as her father
poised it over her mother and wrested it from his grasp. Then followed a
struggle during which the girl stabbed her father, the blade penetrating his
left lung. Mrs. Howard and her daughter were remanded to the Ramsey County Jail
today by Judge Hanft to await the outcome of the father’s injuries.
St Paul City Hospital1
Mrs. Howard and her daughter’s statements of what happened were denied by Mr. Howard
in his statement to Assistant County Attorney P. J. Ryan, who was called to the
City Hospital this morning when it was decided that Howard was dying. He says
that when his wife and daughter came home he wanted to know where they had been
and accused them of visiting the home of a woman he did not like. They denied
this and a quarrel ensued, he says, and that mother and daughter attacked him.
The police learned that mother and daughter had visited the home of a Mrs.
Porter during the evening, where the father had suspected them of being. The
daughter was later in the evening seen in a lunch wagon on West Seventh St.,
while the mother was standing outside. Early yesterday evening Mr. and Mrs.
Howard called at the Central police station and informed Lieut. Henry Meyerding
that their daughter was not at home and that she was in the habit of staying
from the house.
Husband and wife separated after leaving the station and the mother evidently
met the daughter afterwards, as they reached home together.
The records of the Humane Society show that the society had been asked several
times to care for the children of Mr. and Mrs. Howard, and that Fern Howard had
been sent to the Indian School at Morris, Minn. Each time she was sent there
she was taken out by the father, who claimed that he was able to support her,
and in 1902 he sent $25 cash to the society to show that he had sufficient
means to care for his children. On a third application being made to the Indian
School, Fern Howard’s admittance was denied by the superintendent on the ground
that the young girl was only one-eighth breed Indian and that the law provided
for none less than quarter breeds.
Indian School at Morris, Minn.2
Mrs. Jennie Howard is the daughter of Octave LeClaire of Mendota, where he is
known as an industrious half-breed.
Charles Howard survived his attack.
The
Minneapolis Tribune; “Remanded to the Jail. Mother and Child
Placed Behind Bars in St. Paul. Charles Howard, Who Was Stabbed by Daughter,
Continues in Critical Condition and Physicians Say He Cannot Recover.”; March
21, 1907; p. 6.
The People’s Press; “Daughter Stabs
Father. St. Paul Man Sustains Probably Fatal Injuries.”; Owatonna, Minn.; March
29, 1907; p. 6.
_________________
May 29, 1907 – “She is my daughter,
my own flesh and blood. I could not testify against her and place her behind
prison bars,” said Charles Howard in St. Paul district court today.
“I want to plead guilty. If I stuck to the first story I told about wrestling
the knife from my father and stabbing him in self-defense, I would be telling a
lie, and I don’t want to go through life with perjury on my conscience,” said
Fern Howard.
The Fern Howard case came to a sudden end in district court today when the
youthful defendant pleaded guilty to assault in the second degree, was
sentenced to the state reformatory and sentence suspended during her good
behavior.
There were two reasons for the abrupt closing of the trial. The wounded father
and his daughter had become reconciled and the parents refused to go on the
stand and the girl asked to be allowed to plead guilty so that she would not
have to perjure herself on the stand.
There was a touching scene in Judge O. B. Lewis’ courtroom when the girl
entered her plea. Following the request from Attorney F. L. McGee and K. D.
O’Brian, county attorney, the father, with tears in his eyes, told of his
forgiveness of his daughter and asked that the court be as easy with her
sentence as it could.
Fern Howard was indicted on the charge of assault in the first degree for
stabbing her father in March. Her first story was that she had stabbed him in
self-defense, wrestling the knife from his hands. She now admits, however, that
this was not true and that upon hearing her mother cry for help she rushed out
of the room, seized the knife and rushed back, plunging the weapon into her
father’s breast.
The
Minneapolis Tribune; Father Pleads For Erring Daughter. Girl
Who Stabbed father in Court. Now Changes Her Plea to One of Guilty. Father
Prays Court for Forgiveness for Daughter’s Act.”; May 30, 1907; p. 6.
________________
In 2018, we would view this as a very dysfunctional family. In the 1900 U. S.
Census, Jennie Howard and her three children, Fern, Florence and Alfred are
living with her father, Octave LeClaire, in St. Paul, not her husband.
In the 1905 Minnesota State Census, Fern and her sister Florence are living in
the Indian School in Pipestone.
Indian School, Pipestone, Minn.3
1http://www.lakesnwoods.com/StPaul/1910s.htm
2https://library.morris.umn.edu/collections/american-indian-boarding-schools-collection
3http://www.lakesnwoods.com/PipestoneGallery.htm
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