#viola hartwell

[handeaux]

For Cincinnati’s Dandelion Hunters, Harvesting Weeds Was Often An Adventure

It was the spring of 1913. Cincinnati Police got word a craps game was operating in the shadow of the Fairview Incline. The gamblers picked a good location, with clear views all around. They could spot any police interference with plenty of time to conceal all the evidence. The cops determined that subterfuge was necessary to put a lid on this game.

It is likely Police Lieutenant Thomas M. Hall came up with the gambit, or maybe it was Officer William B. Meyer or Office John H. Rabe Jr., the two patrolmen who assisted him, but the strategy proved flawless. The three policemen disguised themselves as dandelion hunters. The gamblers paid no attention to three men in mufti filling baskets with spring greens. They were caught red-handed and flat-footed and all five of them ended up in the hoosegow.

Dandelion hunters? Who would have thought? Today, there would hardly be any cover story more suspect. Who goes out hunting for dandelions these days? A hundred years ago, dandelion hunting was a very big thing and dandelion hunters figured into some of the biggest mysteries in Cincinnati.

In November 1904, the body of 18-year-old Alma Steinigeweg was found, brutally murdered, in the field between the foot of Winton Road and the Mill Creek. An investigation dragged on for years, but no one was ever charged with the crime. For months, investigators didn’t even have a murder weapon. Then, in April of 1905, Joseph Raison of Madisonville took a break from his job at a lumberyard on Spring Grove Avenue to pick some dandelions for dinner. He found a splintered pickaxe handle with hair matted on one end just 150 feet from where the victim’s body had been found. It matched the victim’s wounds.

Then there was the case of Edmund Grossmann of Cumminsville. He was a grocer and butcher who one day walked out of his house and never returned. Grossmann’s family scoured the area for a week with no luck. And then, according to the Cincinnati Commercial Tribune [26 February 1906]:

“Saturday, while picking dandelions on the side of Roll Hill, with her two children, Mrs. Maggie Markle, 3631 Borden Street, noticed the prostrate form of a man lying in the bushes close by. She thought it was that of a sleeping man and avoided the neighborhood.”

Returning home, Mrs. Markle described the incident to a neighbor, John Pherson, who walked over to Roll Hill expecting to chase away a tramp. He found Grossmann’s body. The grocer had strangled himself with a handkerchief and his own suspenders.

Vernon Presley, of 1504 Elm Street, found a much less macabre bit of criminal evidence when he and his wife parked their car along the Mary Ingles Highway in Daytona, Kentucky. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer [13 April 1955]:

“A dandelion hunter was $100 richer yesterday because, instead of finding dandelions, he uncovered a box containing stocks and bonds valued at $62,000.”

The box was part of the loot carried off from the home of William Peebles of Silverton, who had been robbed a week earlier while the family was out of town. Peebles gave Presley $100 for his acuity.

And then there was Viola Nolan of 1578 Baymiller Street, who told the Cincinnati Post [28 September 1923]:

“While picking dandelions on Price Hill, I cut one flower and found a plain gold ring on the stalk. The stalk had grown thru the ring which had been dropped.”

But dandelion hunting had its hazards as well as its rewards. In 1907 a good-sized hog escaped from the pens of farmer Henry Brink in Hartwell. The porcine fugitive established itself in Pfau’s Woods near the city infirmary (now known as Drake Hospital) and chased away children who came to the woods to hunt dandelions. The men of the neighborhood organized a posse to capture the beast. In another case, the Enquirer [14 April 1917] reported:

“Mrs. Mary Hurst, 55 years old, Rossmoyne, Ohio, was killed yesterday by a south-bound Dayton Express on the C. L. and N. Railway near her home. Coroner Bauer was informed Mrs. Hunt was picking dandelions at the side of the tracks and she was drawn under the train by suction.”

And some folks just didn’t cotton to random trespassers picking dandelions on their property. In 1909, George Wasser sued George Weyman in Campbell County Court because, while Wasser was picking dandelions on Weyman’s farm, Weyman shot him twice – in his hip and in a foot – permanently crippling him. Similarly, Denato Mariaus of California, Ohio, sued Jack Weiner for shooting at him while he hunted dandelions on Weiner’s property near Coney Island.

In the 1920s, with Prohibition settling like a wet blanket on the land, dandelions surged in popularity because of the ease with which they could be induced to create a sort of wine. The Cincinnati Post [18 July 1923] opined that dandelion wine had replaced beer as Cincinnati’s iconic beverage:

“Some Cincinnatians suggest adoption of the dandelion as the city’s official flower. How the mighty hops have fallen! Moreover, homemade dandelion wine isn’t bad, at all.”

So popular was this concoction, that the Enquirer [24 April 1930] facetiously investigated a mystery:

“We see a lot of people picking the dandelion blossoms without trying to dig the plants themselves out of the lawn. What can it mean d’ya suppose?”

Interestingly, the Volstead Act that created Prohibition allowed for modest production of grape or fruit wine at home. Since dandelions were not fruit, dandelion wine was strictly prohibited. Dandelion wine was so easy to make, Cincinnati revenuers generally ignored the law and looked the other way during the springtime harvest. If you want to try dandelion wine yourself, here is a recipe from the Cincinnati Post [7 April 1913]:

“To 4 quarts flowers, take 4 quarts boiling water, cover well with water, let stand 3 days. Add peel of 3 oranges and 1 lemon, boil for 15 minutes, drain and add juice of oranges and lemons to 4 pounds of sugar and one cupful of yeast. Keep in a warm room, strain again. Let stand for 3 weeks, then bottle and serve.”

[luri-plays-gw2]

field work

[ 2/26/21 ]

Viola closes her office door behind her and lets out a breath. As a matter of course, she checks the shades over the windows before going to sit down at her desk. She doesn’t actually have any paperwork to do right now; she finished all of today’s before she and Mireille sat down for their evening chess game.

Does she want to return to field work?

Perhaps not. Perhaps not in the way that she used to. It might be time for a change.

Chisako is sixteen, a year and a half younger than Louis Greywater, a boy who is already an initiate. She knows her daughter has been biding her time until she turns eighteen, waiting for the day Viola will permit her to join the Order of Whispers. She suspects that Chisako will bloom in the Order, the same way that Mireille has. But Chisako is still young enough to be enchanted by the magic and the mystery of it all, and Viola has done all she can to keep the cruel weight of the world off of her daughter’s shoulders for as long as possible. Chisako knows what to expect, but does she understand it? Truly? It seems impossible that she could.

Viola traces her fingers along the surface of her desk, following the grain of the wood. Her papers have been locked away; there is nothing incriminating in sight. Her seal - and she checks, to be certain - is secure inside its secret compartment between one desk drawer and the next. It could be anyone’s office.

‘Paperwork is the backbone of a company.’

It could be anyone’s office.

Oh, poor Mireille, trying so hard to find the correct words of comfort for the situation. Are there correct words? Viola isn’t certain, but she deeply appreciates the effort all the same. Her protégée has grown so much. She had thought it would be years before she had to confront this situation, when her daughter came of age and joined the Order. She had thought she had more time to prepare.

She had thought, perhaps, that after all these years, therapy might have worked some miracle for her shaking hands, for that seeping panic. But no: Viola is as she was before. Her last outing proved that much.

How can she stand in front of the bullet, the knife, the arrow, the bolt, the oncoming blow, how can she be there to protect her girls if her own body is not to be trusted? Because these girls, her girls, her bright and clever girls are Tyria’s future... and Viola?

Viola is a relic of the past.

[luri-plays-gw2]

What is Viola made of?

When Viola returned from Orr for the first time, her daughter had grown.She returned with the burial shroud of a once-great priest of Grenth, so thin that she thought it might dissolve in her hands as she laid it on the stone platform. She had chosen to use orichalcum for her Forging, an expense she could barely afford. These components, along with a glass-like dagger provided by her Lady, were to become a part of her, a blood-bound blade.There had been a blade meant for her, once upon a time, Forged by an ancestor that existed only in the stories of her father. As a young girl, she waited and waited for her legacy, the leather-wrapped hilt and the icy chill in the air whenever her father drew it in ceremony or in battle. Her heritage, her birthright, and it shattered before she could ever touch it.And now her daughter had grown in her absence. Her daughter was talking, now, in complete sentences. Little Chisako Hartwell, in the crowd, took her nanny’s hand and watched her mother with unfamiliar eyes. Her daughter was a stranger, but Viola would not leave her nothing.

[luri-plays-gw2]

Estel: 19! Viola: 13! Sending this to the right spot now. >_>;

19. your character is cooking dinner for someone they care about for the first time. what is their signature dish?

Apples. She doesn’t have to cook those.

She might even try to, I don’t know, boil water or something. Better bring a flamethrower.

13. does your character have siblings? how many? do they get along? do they have a favourite?

Viola is an only child. She got a lot of attention from her parents. If she had had siblings, she would probably have been very competitive.

[luri-plays-gw2]

full name // Viola Hartwell. age // Thirty-five. race // Human. gender // Female. class // Thief. profession // Lightbringer, spy, assassin, Priestess of Grenth. hometown // Divinity's Reach. lives in // Emerald Hill, near Seraph's Landing. alignment // Lawful Neutral. affiliation // House Neidhart, the Heralds of Morning, and the Order of Whispers. theme song // [ x ] gw2rp profile // [ x ] about - IC // Viola's family was bound by oath to serve House Neidhart before she was ever born. She was raised alongside Hannah Neidhart, the two of them being of an age with each other. When Lord Neidhart was assassinated and Viola's parents were killed, Viola joined the Order of Whispers - not to seek revenge, but to better see coming any further threats to Hannah. That was many years ago, and by now, Viola is a formidable killer in her own right. She has few friends and fewer enemies. Far from being a social person, Viola is focused on two things: her work and the training of her daughter. Viola is not likely to ever explain where Chisako Hartwell came from. about - OOC // Viola plays an NPC role for the Heralds of Morning, most of the time. She's more likely to assign missions than to participate in them.