NY NY - Alice Parsons: Heiress, Long Island, 1937

[zwiebel]

Ausgirl, if the Aus is Oz and not Austria, who published 'Picnic at Hanging Rock'? That's the same type of book.

 

[fred&edna]

I came upon some info about Admiral Alexander Shishkov who was born in Russia in 1754. Shishkov held various ministerial positions and for a while was president of the Russian Academy. I wonder if Anna &/or her father could be related in some way? Sadly, I'm striking out on finding any family/genealogy info about Admiral Shishkov.

 

[Ausgirl]

Zwei, the author was Joan Lindsay - and the book is fictional (though it gave me the chills something awful as a young girl..).

I think the story of Anna, William and poor Alice is probably every bit as riveting. The details are quite incredible!

 

[rosario]

Wow very intriguing

 

[Pink Panther]

Sorry Pink Panther, I'm not quite getting what the connection between our Anna and this Anna might be.

I haven't had any reply on the royal russian forums yet, but they are very slow moving. lf there is any connection to be found between our Anna and Anna Demidova, I could post a question on an individual palace thread/ royal family too, with better hopes of getting a quicker answer.

By the way, are you using an ipad, pink panther? If so, all the instructions in the world won't help as the options to post won't come up here - you will only be able to post pics by putting them on flicker or photobucket first, and then posting them from there.

I didn't mean to imply any connection between our Anna and Anna Demidova. Demidova is one of the names on the list of "noble families" that I included and in fact, she was an attendant to the czar.

 

[zwiebel]

Zwei, the author was Joan Lindsay - and the book is fictional (though it gave me the chills something awful as a young girl..).

I think the story of Anna, William and poor Alice is probably every bit as riveting. The details are quite incredible!

I was haunted by it, and thought it was true for a long time. Seems a lot of other people did too and the book took on the status of an urban legend. Imagine my disappointment when I found out there was nothing to sleuth and no final answers to be found!

 

[zwiebel]

I have found this family website for Kupryianov though I can't immediately see any link to Anna's family and the translation makes it more difficult:

http://tinyurl.com/avxydgs

I got it from this website of Russian family trees:

http://tinyurl.com/bkn6he8

 

[Pink Panther]

I found a tidbit that I hadn't noticed before in this article:

http://newspaper.twinfallspubliclibrary.org/files/Idaho-Evening-Times_TF050/PDF/1937_06_15.pdf

If you scroll down to the bottom right of the same page where the pictures are, the article continues.

It states that five people were questioned. The first two people were a couple who were driving a car registered to Evelyn J McKenney of Southtown NY (5 miles from the Parsons' farm), the third person was George Winfield (the18-year old garbage collector from Port Jefferson), then Arnold Cox (???) and Melvin Chadwick.

The article ends with saying that "investigation found Mrs. Parsons had been murdered."

 

[zwiebel]

Well spotted. I would never have seen that. What a strange way to layout a newspaper.

The print is pretty poor quality but is it possible that last sentence says feared, rather than found?

 

[Pink Panther]

More information about the whole will-thing:

Forest Hills Woman Bequeathed $30,000:

http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper ...g Island City NY Star Journal 1946 - 1509.pdf

Anna's in there.

What are the chances?... Mrs. Parsons left her money to her maid:

http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper4...y News 1944 May-Jan 1946 Grayscale - 0054.pdf

 

[Pink Panther]

I am beyond myself to understand how Alice could have possibly consigned herself to changing her will to leave so much to both Anna and Roy. Why? Were her reasons outlined in her revised will?

How, years before, did she concede to both Anna's and Roy's name change? What did she understand?

Was Alice perhaps a bit feeble-minded? Easily manipulated? Did they take advantage of situation? She was alone; without a mother - with a an absent father who lived far away? An ideal target?

 

[Marilynilpa]

More information about the whole will-thing:

Forest Hills Woman Bequeathed $30,000:

http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper ...g Island City NY Star Journal 1946 - 1509.pdf

Anna's in there.

What are the chances?... Mrs. Parsons left her money to her maid:

http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper4...y News 1944 May-Jan 1946 Grayscale - 0054.pdf

BBM

AND Alice just changed her will a few days before she disappeared!

Alice's brothers contested the will, and eventually William settled for a couple pieces of her jewelry, Anna gave up her right to any inheritance, and Roy received a trust fund of, if I recall correctly, $30,000. Let me double check that figure, though, it sounds a little high for that time.

I don't know what Alice's brothers "had" on William and Anna, but it was enough to make them give up on their claims to the estate. Roy came out of it okay, which I think would have made Alice happy. By all accounts she really loved that boy.

 

[Marilynilpa]

I am beyond myself to understand how Alice could have possibly consigned herself to changing her will to leave so much to both Anna and Roy. Why? Were her reasons outlined in her revised will?

How, years before, did she concede to both Anna's and Roy's name change? What did she understand?

Was Alice perhaps a bit feeble-minded? Easily manipulated? Did they take advantage of situation? She was alone; without a mother - with a an absent father who lived far away? An ideal target?

Alice was anything but feeble minded, and she wasn't actually alone. Her Aunt Bess had been her surrogate mother since Alice was 5 years old, and was still alive when Alice disappeared. Alice was also very close to William's sister Mary. She had grown up being doted upon by her Great Uncle and his wife. And her brothers adored their little sister. I don't believe she was needy of attention or easily manipulated by others.

I think Alice really wanted a child, and she genuinely liked Anna. I believe she envisioned them living as one big, happy family when she agreed to letting Anna and Roy adopt the Parsons name.

Alice, William and Anna all changed their wills at the same time, shortly before Alice's disappearance. Anna was becoming more of a partner to them, and their wills were intended to protect each other and their business interests.

By the way, I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but Alice was wealthier by far than William. Although he was from a prominent family, he was, in my opinion, fairly weak-willed and not all that inclined to work for a living. His cousin wound up taking the position in the W. H. Parsons Paper Company that was intended for William. He drifted along from one job to the next, living more off the family name than by any sweat off his brow. He enjoyed playing lord of the manor in Stony Brook, and if everyone assumed it was his money they lived off of, so much the better as far as he was concerned.

When I first began researching this case, I posted on here that William was heir to the Standard Oil fortune. It turns out that was not correct - his sister married someone from the Pratt family, who owned much of Standard Oil. None of that money came to William.

 

[Marilynilpa]

I found a tidbit that I hadn't noticed before in this article:

http://newspaper.twinfallspubliclibrary.org/files/Idaho-Evening-Times_TF050/PDF/1937_06_15.pdf

If you scroll down to the bottom right of the same page where the pictures are, the article continues.

It states that five people were questioned. The first two people were a couple who were driving a car registered to Evelyn J McKenney of Southtown NY (5 miles from the Parsons' farm), the third person was George Winfield (the18-year old garbage collector from Port Jefferson), then Arnold Cox (???) and Melvin Chadwick.

The article ends with saying that "investigation found Mrs. Parsons had been murdered."

BBM

Melvin Chadwick was related to Arthur Chadwick, the 31 year old man who supervised the trash collectors who visited Alice's house on the day she disappeared. I believe Melvin and Arnold (both 18 years old at the time) worked part time for Arthur, and were probably interviewed by LE to corroborate the fact that trash was normally collected from the basement of the house.

 

[Pink Panther]

BBM

AND Alice just changed her will a few days before she disappeared!

Alice's brothers contested the will, and eventually William settled for a couple pieces of her jewelry, Anna gave up her right to any inheritance, and Roy received a trust fund of, if I recall correctly, $30,000. Let me double check that figure, though, it sounds a little high for that time.

I don't know what Alice's brothers "had" on William and Anna, but it was enough to make them give up on their claims to the estate. Roy came out of it okay, which I think would have made Alice happy. By all accounts she really loved that boy.

I think Roy got $15,000. The brother's most probably had information that implicated the two even though it might not have been enough to take them to trial. They (Anna, William and Roy) sure left the area quickly!

 

[Pink Panther]

Well spotted. I would never have seen that. What a strange way to layout a newspaper.

The print is pretty poor quality but is it possible that last sentence says feared, rather than found?

zwiebel - I went back and checked and yes, the last sentence does say "feared" rather than "found". (Sorry about that.)

 

[zwiebel]

More information about the whole will-thing:

Forest Hills Woman Bequeathed $30,000:

http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper ...g Island City NY Star Journal 1946 - 1509.pdf

Anna's in there.

What are the chances?... Mrs. Parsons left her money to her maid:

http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper4...y News 1944 May-Jan 1946 Grayscale - 0054.pdf

I'm losing count a little but wasn't Alice left $150,000 somewhere? It just seems to me, if the report was correct and her entire estate at death was only $43,000, that a lot of her money had disappeared.

By the way, fred&edna, you have to look at the 'left her money to maid' link above. Bottom of the page, left hand side, the cartoon. If that's Edna on one side of the bed, it's got to be Fred on the other.......

 

[zwiebel]

I'm questioning my own question now, because maybe William owned half of Stoneybrook. Half of an estate worth $15k is $7, so maybe Alice only had $37k cash to pass on?

That doesn't seem a lot to me, if she once inherited $150k and lived modestly as the papers reported.

 

[zwiebel]

Marlynilpa, from your documents, can you get any sense of when Alice's case went cold and any active investigations ceased? Specifically, any chance it occured in 1941?

 

[fred&edna]

By the way, fred&edna, you have to look at the 'left her money to maid' link above. Bottom of the page, left hand side, the cartoon. If that's Edna on one side of the bed, it's got to be Fred on the other.......

HAHAHA! That is, without a doubt, FRED & EDNA!!

:great: