Ella Gingles

Ella Gingles, the 20-year-old woman from County Antrim who took on the underworld of Chicago in 1909.

Introduction

​“I am telling this story in the hope of saving other girls, who like myself may be in danger from the beastly ‘slavers’ and a life of shame.”

These are the words of Ella Gingles, the twenty-year-old woman who took on the underworld of Chicago in 1909, exposed vice and government corruption, united the Orange and Green societies of Chicago and gave feminists the case they needed to demand new legislation to protect girls from sex trafficking — all of this 3,634 miles from home.

I am not the first to tell Ella’s story. An account by journalist Hal McLeod Lytle, who followed the case, has been widely distributed in America and is available on resources which are free to access online. While Lytle was on Ella’s side and sometimes approached the story with sensitivity, he opted for the journalistic style of his time and sensationalised parts of his narrative so that it was difficult to see who Ella was. I aim to reconstruct Ella into the flawed and courageous person that she was.

The reasons for writing this blog are:

1. ​Ella Gingles wrote her own story. I don’t know where the original document is, if it still exists, but her words are included in Lytle’s book. She states her reason for writing her own story as follows: “I am telling this story in the hope of saving other girls…” 
2. Ella Gingles’ story is universal. Women throughout history have been subjected to violence. Sex trafficking is as pertinent today as it was in 1909. 
3. This story is golden in that it fills a gap in women’s history. It is also compelling in the way that traditional Irish divisions were bridged in order to protect workers and women.

Who was Ella Gingles?

Ella Gingles was born on 6 November 1888 in Hightown, a townland in Kilwaughter, just outside Larne. Her parents were Thomas Gingles and Mary Jane Drummond. She came from a large farming family of thirteen children and crossed the Atlantic Ocean in November 1907, at the age of 19. She worked for some months as a housemaid in Canada before moving on to Chicago, where she hoped to secure a job as a lacemaker. She travelled via Michigan, apparently visiting a sister — most likely Elizabeth (b. 1885) —  and, on 15 November 1908, arrived in Chicago, a metropolitan boomtown battling high crime, high immigration and low investment in policing. 

Men in the top echelons of government ensured through their actions or passivity that sexual exploitation was integral to the capitalist foundations of the city of Chicago. The Chicago Vice Commission report in 1910 estimated that there were 1,020 brothels and at least 5,000 full-time prostitutes among a population of approximately 2 million, while a conservative estimate of trade was $16 million per year. A subsequent report in 1910 pointed to weaknesses in the commission, suggesting there were at least 20,000 prostitutes. 

The Vice Commission found that women's earnings averaged $6 a week, 40 percent less than was necessary for independent living. The average prostitute earned approximately $25 per week. The Wellington Hotel at the centre of Ella Gingles’ story was located close to the Levee, a red light district and centre of criminal activity. In 1909, only months after Ella’s attack, there was another scandal concerning a doctor who was found dead in the hotel where Ella claimed to have been abused. The Levee was broken up following a campaign from the Chicago Vice Commission (CVC) and the The Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), which had a department dedicated to rescuing women from sexual exploitation.

By reading on, you can come to your own view, but a basic understanding of the circumstantial evidence suggests that Ella Gingles could well have become a victim of interstate sex-trafficking. Ella accused Agnes Barrett of trying and failing to trap her into prostitution. Agnes Barrett, who ran a lace store in the Wellington Hotel, accused Ella Gingles of the theft of two items of handmade lace, which Ella said were her own. This charge, it was thought by feminists, unions and Irish societies, was part of the trap. 

A modern analysis of Ella’s predicament might point to her being ‘groomed’ by a criminal gang, the objective being to cause such shame and fear that Ella would have to submit and commit herself to a life of crime. The one crime Ella did commit was to travel to America on another girl’s ticket. Regardless of what happened, it is clear that Ella suffered much misfortune. The timing of her misfortune, however, was critical: she arrived in Chicago when the suffrage and temperance movements were strong and the various societies of Irish community confident. These groups were ready to take on Chicago’s vice. All they needed was a high profile case and strong publicity. Ella Gingles became the symbol of their campaign.

The next part of this blog is lengthy - around 10,000 words. If you're curiosity has been piqued, keep reading...

Photograph: Chicago Examiner, Sat July 3, 1909
Source: http://digital.chipublib.org/digital/collection/examiner/id/6759/rec/13

Ella’s story, including her own words, is recorded in the Gutenburg files: The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tragedies of the White Slave, by H. M. Lytle. I acknowledge the terms of the Project Gutenberg License in copying parts of it here. I have also drawn information from newspapers and various other sources.

Prelude from Larne & Kilwaughter Presbyterian Church
​
Hal. McLeod Lytle begins his story with a letter from Ella’s minister. I too will begin here. Ella belonged to the unitarian Presbyterian church, a branch of Christianity that rejects the doctrine of the trinity. This is an old church, established by a congregation of Galloway Presbyterians in the 1600s, though the church split over the unitarian debate in 1715. Today’s building, dating to 1828, is as Ella would have known it. The following is an excerpt from a letter from Ella’s minister, written on 29 June 1909, in the middle of Ella’s trial for petty theft.

29th June, 1909.

Dear Sir:--

​Last evening two American ladies, Miss Hopkins, of Chicago, and Mrs. Murphy, of Minneapolis, called upon me with reference to the poor young girl, Ella Gingles, whom, like a chivalrous-hearted Irishman, you have done and are doing so much to protect and defend. I know her well, her father is a member of the Congregation of which I am minister, as were his ancestors before him. He is a large farmer, well off, as Irish farmers go here in the North of Ireland, and his wife, Ella's mother, is an exceedingly nice, gentle-hearted woman. They have had a large family—thirteen, if my memory serves me—and as their minister I christened them all and have seen them grow up from infancy. Ella was frequently under my roof, as she was on friendly terms with two young ladies—my adopted daughters—who reside with me. I always found her a bright, cheerful, well-principled girl, clever in many ways with her needle, etc., and especially in the art of crocheting and manufacturing lace. In the latter branches I know that she won prizes at our local annual industrial exhibitions in the town of Larne. But the family being large and their not being particularly prosperous here in Ireland, she and other young members of the family, like many other young people of energy and enterprise, have sought a land of better promise across the Atlantic with sad results to her unfortunately. As I have said, she is the child of respectable and well-off parents…

Sincerely yours,

J. Kennedy,

Minister of the Old Presbyterian Congregation
of Larne & Kilwaughter.

(Postmarked): 'Larne, Ireland, June 30, 1909.'

At trial, Ella explained that she had seven sisters and several brothers — we can assume six boys, including any infants who died. Ella was one of at least five of the Gingles children to emigrate from Ireland.

Ella Gingles' Own Words

Ella Gingles wrote her own story. The style is literary. Here are two such examples:

“It is a long and hard way when one must set forth to expose one's own butchery, shame and misfortune, but I feel that in telling this story the very fact that I have been a victim will carry with it weight.”

“It is a far cry from the green hills of Larne, from the wet meadows, glistening with the rains, from the song of the nightingale in the gathering dusk, the sweetness, the beauty of that green island which I call my home and which will henceforth be my only home, to the mire and filth of a criminal court in the city of Chicago, to the unspeakable horrors through which I have been dragged, and to the desperation to which I was driven.” 

We know that Ella was literate and in possession of a Charles Dickens book, so there is no real reason to believe she didn’t write this account herself. However, without the original document, it’s impossible to know how much input Lytle had. Lines, such as, “I myself am as clean and pure as on the day when I left that little Irish homestead 18 miles from Belfast and came to America,” do seem American in style. I will return to Ella’s position upon leaving Ireland later. She goes on:

“One who is murdered is not a murderer, nor is one who is outraged a person of bad character…Yes, I will forget everything that has happened and become again the girl who left Ireland such a short time ago to become a victim of fiends.”

Ella was accused of being hysterical at the time of her attack. She was then accused of being too calm in court:

“They say that I have been cool, calm and collected on the witness stand during my trial. I have been cool, calm and collected because I was telling the truth, but the reaction from those awful hours in court have been so terrible that I shudder even yet to think of them.”

Ella was influenced by the women’s movements of the day. The term ‘white slavery’ was adopted for sex trafficking and forced prostitution:
​
“I am telling this story in the hope of saving other girls, who like myself may be in danger from the beastly 'slavers' and a life of shame. If I can but save a few girls from this horrible fate, if I can only help, in some modest way, to protect womanhood from the horrors of White Slavery I shall feel happy for laying bare my soul and giving to the world the true story of the attempt to make a white slave out of me.”

“I am told by men who know about these awful things that my case is only one of many. What happened to me may be an isolated instance and I am told that it is representative of the workings of the panders for the ‘upper ring,’ or the dealing in girls’ bodies by rich men, rather than the selling of girls to cheap resorts through a quicker route.”

“I was born in Larne, Ireland. My parents are respectable middle class people and property owners. Our family is a large one, there being thirteen children. We are protestants, as are most of the people of that particular district of Ireland, our church being the Presbyterian. We have always been members of that church, as the letter from our pastor shows.”

“Larne, the city where I was reared, is a little town about 18 miles from Belfast. One of the principal industries of the town is the making of hand-made Irish laces. I was brought up to the lace-making trade. I won several prizes against the best lace-makers in the Belfast region. I have invented one particular lace pattern of my own, an improved ‘grape-vine pattern.’ With this I won the lace-making prize in Larne on the occasion.”

“In Ireland there are continual tales of America, how easy it is to make money over there. I had never been farther away from Larne than Belfast in all my life. Many Irish girls had come to America, worked for a time and returned home with money, placing herself in a position to help out her parents in their old age. These stories attracted me…The name America soon came to mean to me a golden land in the West, as it has meant to many another simple Irish girl. The spell came upon me so strongly that I could think of nothing else. I could see nothing but a golden land, and a fortune that I could make there with my laces, for I had heard that fabulous prices were paid for Irish laces in America. I begged my people to let me go to America. After much pleading they gave their consent.”

I return to Ella’s motives for leaving Ireland later. As stated previously, Ella travelled to America on another girl’s ticket, and we will learn that she kept using the surname Raymond when in Canada.

“I was about to purchase my ticket in Belfast when word reached me that Belle Raymond, a girl I knew in Belfast and who had already purchased her ticket but had been taken ill, would be unable to make the trip. I thought I might get this ticket a little cheaper. I did save quite a little by purchasing her ticket, but I was obliged, on account of the registration of her name, to come under her name. My enemies have made much of the fact that I had gone under Belle Raymond's name. I am sorry now that I did it after all that has come out in connection with my terrible experiences…To travel on another person's pass is undoubtedly wrong, but it is not a heinous crime…So I went to Montreal on the ticket of Belle Raymond.”

“On ship-board I made several acquaintances among the other Irish girls on board, and they told me that the best way to get a start on this side of the water was to get a position as maid to some great lady and then interest her in lace-making. Then, they said, I could soon build up a good trade for my laces among the people who had plenty of money to pay for them…”

“I did not land directly in Montreal. The last stage of the journey I performed by train from Quebec, where I left the steamer. I spent half a day in Quebec viewing the sights of the city in company with several other girls. I then took the train for Montreal where I went directly to the Young Women's Guild home, where I knew I would be safe. The Guild secured me a position with the Thornton family in Belleville, Ontario.”

“I was overjoyed when I found that I was going into a great rich family, for they told me that Mrs. Thornton's father was worth many, many millions of dollars, and that he controlled the roller mill business in Canada. This meant that if I secured Mrs. Thornton as a patroness for my laces I could get all the rich ladies to buy.”

“Disappointment awaited me and my dreams were shattered. I worked nine months as a housemaid. Mrs. Thornton was not approachable by servants, although she was uniformly kind and considerate.”

Details emerge in court about Ella’s time with the Thorntons, but they are not provided in Lytle's account. I return to this in a review of the press.

“Disheartened, I finally left the services of the family. I was given a letter certifying to my good character when I quit.”

“I went to Toronto where I worked for about three weeks. At the end of this time I had almost given up hope of doing anything with my lace-making. I was heartsick and almost ready to go home. I had saved up a little money, however, enough to take me to Chicago or some big city in the United States, and still have $40 or $50 left with which to support myself until I could get work of some kind. I was on the point of going back home to Ireland at first, but the thought that I would get there just about penniless, and without having done well on this side, and the thought of what the neighbors would say and how the other girls would laugh at me, finally decided me to come to Chicago and make one last trial at what the Americans call ‘making good’ before I gave up all hope. This fatal decision was my ruin. Had I been able to see ahead just a little, to have looked into that awful hell-pit of a Wellington hotel—but there. God ruled otherwise and perhaps chose me out as an example and warning.”


The Attacks According to Ella’s Narrative

“I was practically penniless when I arrived in Chicago. I knew no one. The magnitude of the city was fearful to me. For hours I wandered about knowing not where to go. Exhausted and frightened, I at last sought shelter in a railway station. The matron there was kind and talked encouragingly to me. She soon knew my story.”

Ella does not mention at this point that she visited a sister in Illinois before proceeding to Chicago. It is possible that Hal McLeod Lytle edited her story.

“She took me to the Young Women's Christian Association and obtained a room for me. In a few days the officers of the association obtained a position for me as a maid at the Wellington hotel. For five weeks I was happy.”

This five-week period relates to the weeks before Christmas in 1908.

The Wellington Hotel was situated at the northeast corner of S. Wabash avenue and E. Jackson street. The hotel was demolished in 1915.

“In the Wellington hotel was the lace store of Agnes Barrett. Fine Irish laces were on exhibition. The wealthy women of the city patronized the place and almost fabulous prices were paid for the tiny bits of laces on exhibition.”

“Miss Barrett seemed to take a great liking for me. She was so kind and considerate. She petted and fondled me. Mrs. Cecilia Kenyon and Miss Donohue were also in the store. All of the women lived in the Wellington hotel. Miss Donohue was secretary of the hotel company. They all seemed to be very prominent. At least fine dressed men often came into the store to visit them. They went out to dinners with them and to the theatres.”

“To me Miss Barrett and Mrs. Kenyon, who was her intimate friend, were angels.”

“Often Miss Barrett took trips away from the city. She said at those times that she was going to French Lick Springs, Ind., where she had another lace store. When she returned she would show me rolls of bills which she said were the profits from the store.”

It transpires in the court case narrative that Miss Barrett ran a manicure business in French Lick Springs, Indiana, about 280 miles from Chicago. The hotel resort, which was owned by a prominent democrat in 1909, is still there today; though the original building has been replaced. 

“She told me that if I were only ‘wise’ like she, I could have fine clothes and not have to work much. She said that lots of nice men with plenty of money were looking for nice girls like me, to make wives of them.”

“Her feeling towards me seemed to change almost in a day.”

“I became afraid of her. After these outbreaks I only went to the store when I was compelled to do so. When I did go she would be extravagant in her praises of me.”

“That awful night, January 4, 1909, will haunt me to my grave. It was as if the deepest pit of the very deepest hell had suddenly been transferred to earth and found lodgement in Chicago.”

“It is left for you who read this whether my attempt to save others from my dreadful fate is justifiable.”

Source: Chicago Examiner, Thursday February 18, 1909
Link:http://digital.chipublib.org/digital/collection/examiner/id/1088/rec/1?fbclid=IwAR30ZCc1Campgx07x1eklJB2Ls8WPoypUw_7Ajp7mZufDpk_6OBx2xA6MKI

Lytle’s account is not chronological, so I will add some information revealed later: prior to going to the hotel, Miss Barrett and Miss Kenyon had visited Ella’s home, ransacked her belongings, stolen from her and then accused her of stealing their lace. The setting then moves to the Wellington Hotel...

“After the orgies which had taken place while I was lying helpless and frightened so that I could scarcely move, I was told that I must be Miss Barrett’s slave for six months. The price for my slavery was to be $25 cash down, and $5.00 a day for the term of slavery. I fought and screamed again at this and said if they did not let me have my clothes and get out of there I would get a detective and see what could be done. They both then told me that I could not get a detective at that hour of the night.”

“I was turned out of that hotel near midnight in the rain without a cent of money in my pockets, bleeding from the outrages from which I had suffered and forced to run all the way to my home in the rain.”

During a second attack on 16 February 2009, Ella is taken to the bathroom of the hotel, where she is drugged, cut by her assailants and tied to the bath. She terms the male assailant ‘the man torturer’ and clarifies that this was not the man in a velvet mask who tortured her on the first night in January. Miss Barrett cuts Ella and threatens her “savagely.” While being tortured, Ella hears the name Tom Taggart. This is the name of the owner of the hotel in French Lick Springs, the spa and gambling resort where Miss Barrett had a manicure business. Tom Taggart (1856-1929) was a Monaghan-born immigrant, former mayor and politician with a high-profile at a national level. If Ella was making this part of her narrative up, she was playing with fire.

“It was while I was being tortured that the name of a man named Taggart was first heard by me. Miss Barrett said, ‘If Tom Taggart could only see her now.’ This I swore to on the witness stand in my trial for stealing lace which I made myself and I am ready to swear to it again. Then there was something said about the ‘Springs,’ and Miss Barrett said, ‘You know I promised to get them girls like this one.’ I was frightened to death by this time and did not know what to expect.’”

This is one of several reasons why the Ella Gingles case was so high-profile. Nothing came of Tom Taggart’s association with it. The case against Ella for theft was tried in June 2009 and we learn that Tom Taggart appeared in court voluntarily to clear his name and emphasise that he did not know Ella Gingles. He was treated with none of the aggression Ella experienced on the stand, and his fortunes do not seem to have waned any afterwards.

The First Attack According to Ella’s Affidavit

The affidavits are the statements given to the police. They are difficult to follow, so I have shortened them and changed the narrative to the first person.

The following affidavit relates to the first attack. It was recorded in January 1909. Ella claimed that the second attack was a result of her giving this statement to the police. Ella Gingles and Hal McCleod Lytle often refer to Agnes Barrett as Madame Barrett, applying the professional label as prostitution boss, one which Agnes Barrett denied. (The spelling for her name changes throughout).

“At about seven o'clock on the evening of January 4th, 1909, I returned from a trip down-town to my room at 474 La Salle Avenue, Chicago, and there found Agnes Barrett, alias Madame Barette, and Mrs. Kenyon waiting.” (Photographs of Agnes Barrett and Mrs Kenyon below).

“They came up to my room and Madame Barette asked me to give her a collar that I had been enlarging for her. I told her I had not yet finished it. I went to the bureau and took out the collar and gave it to her. She said she wanted the rest of the lace. I told her she had not given me any more lace to do.”

“They took a yard of crepe lace that was an original design and with which I had won a prize in Belfast, a plate mat that was an original design, and with which I had won a prize in Larne, Ireland, and a necklace with an amethyst drop of a few stones that my mother bought for me in London and gave to me the Christmas before I left home, at which time she bought another with blue stones and gave it to my sister. They also took all the money I had, consisting of a Canadian dollar, four American paper dollars and a dollar in change. They took my watch, my bank book showing a deposit of forty dollars in Canada, a sofa top and cushion and many other things.”

“Madame Barette then asked me to let her look at my trunk. I went to Mrs. Linderman, the landlady, and got a candle and took the two women down in the basement and opened the trunk. Mrs. Kenyon held the candle and Madame Barette went through my trunk and took a pair of long, white stockings, a pair of white gloves and some chiffon, and then Mrs. Kenyon dropped grease from the candle all over anything of any value. The two women tramped the rest of the clothes into the floor, ruining them.”

“Madame Barette put my belongings into a pillow-slip, she said to me, ‘Sure this is all mine.’”

“After remaining in the room for two hours or more, joking and laughing and fooling away time, some time after nine o'clock I was ordered to take up the bag that they had filled with my own goods and carry them down to the Wellington Hotel. I did so on the promise that when they got to the Wellington Hotel, the stuff would be given back. We reached the Wellington Hotel and went into the room of Agnes Barrett some time in the neighborhood of half-past nine o'clock, or maybe somewhat later, having gone down in the street car. Mrs. Kenyon locked the door. The two women then whispered together in a low tone and Agnes Barrett asked me to take off my clothes. I refused.”

Agnes Barrett, Copyright, Chicago History Museum


“Agnes Barrett said, ‘You might have something that belongs to me.’ She and Mrs. Kenyon then took off my clothes, stripping me with the exception of my shoes. A pin in my back hurt me and I screamed, whereupon Agnes Barrett seized me by the throat and told her me she would choke me to death.”

“Agnes Barrett said to me, ‘I know a nice gentleman that wants to get you to live with him.’ I replied that I did not want to get married. The two women laughed and said, ‘Nobody is asking you to get married; you would only have to live with someone a little while and you would get plenty of money for it.’”

“Agnes Barrett then told Mrs. Kenyon to hold me, and Mrs. Kenyon grabbed me from behind, putting her arms through my arms from behind.”

“Miss Barrett and Mrs. Kenyon were unclothed, a short time later when a man came to the room. When he knocked, the two women put on night gowns and left me entirely uncovered. Miss Barrett asked him what kept him and he replied he could not get there any sooner. His face was covered with a black mask. He attacked me and was assisted in this by Mrs. Kenyon. After some time the telephone rang. It was for the man and he called up and said, ‘Is that you, Charley?’ And ‘Yes, it is all right, Charlie, she is here.’ He put on his clothes and left, but that Agnes Barrett and Mrs. Kenyon remained in the room. The man said before leaving that he would bring the money tomorrow night. I asked Agnes Barrett for my clothes, and these were given to me after a time. Miss Barrett told me to come down the next night at five o'clock and offered me a silk dress if I would do as she bid. She then took the silk dress out of the wardrobe and showed it to me. I refused it. She told me to come tomorrow in order to go down to French Lick Springs, where I was to stay about a week. She said that I was not to dress in the morning, but to put on a kimono and to dress in the evening. She said I was to remain in my room in the afternoon. Mrs. Kenyon then asked Agnes Barrett, what about the ‘last one?’ She replied, ‘Well, they have tired of her; they had her long enough.’ She then told me that I was to do whatever she would want me to for six months and that I was to come down there the next day to sign a paper. Agnes Barrett promised to give her back all the things she took from me if I would come down there the next day at five o'clock. When Agnes Barrett, gave me my clothes, I said that if she did not give me the rest of my things I would go to a detective. Agnes Barrett made me sign two papers; the contents of neither was read to me, nor was I allowed to see them, and the condition of signing the papers was to get my clothes.”

“I asked Agnes Barrett for a nickel to ride home. She kept all of my money, and said the walk would do me good. I ran home most of the way.”

“The next day I did not return to the hotel. I went to Captain O’Brien and told him that the enormity of the situation was such that I could not tell all of it. I did not reach Captain O'Brien's office until nearly five o'clock in the evening because I was ill from the outrages and indignities and sights of the night before.”

At this point Lytle moves straight onto the second attack. In between, as explained above, Ella went to Captain O’Brien, who was initially friendly towards Ella, and even took her home to his wife. However, Agnes Barrett pressed charges against Ella for theft. Ella was arrested and then released pending a trial. Agnes Barrett reneged on the charges, but by this point Ellla’s lawyer, Patrick O’Donnell was involved, and took an interest in Ella’s case. It is not clear to me why the state decided to pursue Ella’s conviction, but the second attack happened while Ella was awaiting trial. She had no earnings and had limited access to food during this time.

The Second Attack According to Ella’s Affidavit

This is my own summary of Ella’s affidavit.

At around 6.30pm on 16 February 1909, Ella went to Room 545 of the Wellington Hotel to collect money she was owed for lacemaking from Miss Arnold. Upon arrival, she discovered that the room had been taken over by Agnes Barrett. A man informed Ella that Miss Arnold was in the bathroom. Ella entered the hotel room. The man pushed her into the bathroom and placed a wet handkerchief into her mouth, which contained a sweet, burning liquid. Ella was moved to a different room by her assailant and woke up lying on a bed undressed, with the exception of her stockings. The man informed Ella that she was to be killed by Miss Barrett for telling something she did not wish Ella to tell. When the man left the room, Ella wrote a note to Mr O’Donnell, her lawyer, fixed two stamps on it and threw it over the transom to the next door. She was covered in a robe when the man returned. He demanded to know what she was doing and attacked her. She screamed. He hit her over the right eye, offered her ten dollars and tried to tear the spread she was wearing off. Ella screamed again, and he bound her mouth with a gag. 

Late in the night the man presented some paper and told Ella to sign it or he would kill her. The man attacked her a second time and pulled the gag off her mouth. She screamed for help again. He bound her mouth again. She sat like this until about two in the morning. Agnes Barrett arrived and drank wine with the man, who offered Agnes Barrett fifty dollars. She said it wasn’t enough, but she took it. The man left.

Agnes Barrett took Ella into the bathroom, where a man in a black mask forced her to drink a substance. Agnes Barrett referred to the man as a doctor. She went to get knock out drops and made Ella drink more of the wine and eat the “candy.” 

The following words, written by Lytle, are in parentheses, “Here the affidavit recites the revolting details, unprintable in nature, which occurred in the bathroom on the fifth floor of the Wellington hotel.”

Ella’s statement goes on to provide details of Madame Barrett cutting Ella on the arms and wrists several times and of more abuse by a man. She is left drugged on the floor of the room. 

Ella’s Arrest

Ella Gingles’ narrative now takes us back to Captain O’Brien’s office, four days after the first attack, when she decides to tell the chief detective about items being stolen from her. Captain O’Brien’s actions are confusing for Ella. He takes her to his family home for supper, lodges her, and the next day, orders the women at the Wellington hotel to bring back the things which they had stolen from Ella. Agnes Barrett instead makes a charge of theft against Ella, resulting in Ella’s arrest for larceny over four pieces of lace valued at $50. (The lace is elsewhere 2 pieces and deemed to be worth $100). Ella spends the night in a cell at Harrison Street Police Station. The next morning Captain O'Brien asks Attorney Patrick H. O'Donnell to take up her case. Bail is provided by someone called Samuel Feldmann. Ella is released pending a hearing.

“Mr. O'Donnell kindly took me to his home, and his wife there cried over and mothered me and was as good to me as my own mother could have been. Up to this time I had given no hint of the horrors of January 4…Then the people of Chicago began to come to my aid because I was poor and friendless. The Irish Fellowship Club employed Attorney John Patrick O'Shaughnessey to take up my case and investigate it.” 

“Subsequently I was compelled to make lace in the presence of a number of ladies who were interested in my case, just to show them that I was not a fraud…After Mr. O'Donnell had satisfied himself that I was all right, and that there was no fraud in any of my stories, he, too, was very kind and allowed me to come down to his office to visit with Miss Mary Joyce, his stenographer, who used to chat with me while I made lace with which to pay at least a part of my obligations to the O'Donnells.” 

One of Ella’s customers and friends was Miss Sarah M. Hopkins of the Catholic Women's League of Chicago. 

The situation eventually takes its toll on Ella as the hearing is delayed. 

“Some days I cried and cried because the case was not over and I was not free…My nerves were breaking gradually under the terrible strain.” 

Patrick O’Donnell: Copyright, The Chicago History Museum. https://explore.chicagocollections.org/image/chicagohistory/71/cj87w53/

​The Hearing

“No more remarkable case was ever tried in the criminal court of Cook count,” Lytle remarks as his narrative turns to the hearing and trial.

It has been a challenge to summarise the entire case. There is much conflicting information in the detail: Ella is at once brunette and blond; dates are mixed up; and the contrast between Ella’s plain words and the journalist’s theatrical words are interesting to observe. The disjointed approach perhaps results from Lytle assembling a series of journalistic articles he had written for The Chicago Tribune.

Lytle plays close attention to how Ella behaves in court. She is described as “the softest-spoken witness the criminal court had seen in many a day.” 

“Ella Gingles was ingenuous to a fault. She answered questions put to her in cross-examination without an instant's hesitation, and with the utmost candor.” 

As for her appearance:

“Miss Gingles was gowned in the most simple style. Her fresh, unpainted face and her wide-staring, innocent eyes were of the sort seldom involved in a case of this kind.” 

However, his theatrics and observations detract from hard facts. In his efforts to read her body language, he descends into irritating descriptions:

“Miss Gingles not only blushed, but she wiggled. With a glove twisted in her hand, she had hesitated so long over the answer to a question involving a disagreeable answer that the most dramatic of all situations had been produced. The court would wait, the audience would hang breathless, the attorneys, standing up, would lean forward, while the witness tried to find words in which to formulate a reply. Then in three words the story would be told. The jury would lean back and gasp…”

Lytle describes the jury as representative of high and low estate — of course, they were all men, a fact which must have coloured so many cases like Ella’s one way or another.

A sensationalist line sums up the trial:

“It was a dramatic trial, filled throughout with thrills and shudders.” 

Agnes Barrett’s side of the story was that Ellla had signed a confession admitting she was a department store thief. It might be expected that a hotel would involve the police in criminal matters rather than extract confessions in this way, but there is no questioning of the practice in court, so I assume this was something that happened frequently. Agnes Barrett accused Ella of stealing lace and using it in a new dress. She suggested that Ella’s injuries were self-inflicted and that Ella tied herself to the bath. 

I could not find mention of Agnes Barrett after 1909, but I’m sure someone with access to Chicago records would have more luck. She may have married and changed name or moved from Chicago. A 1908 record of the death of Bridget Barrett (née Lavin), who had a daughter Agnes and siblings Edward, Annie, Thomas, Mary and John Joseph, was all I could find. This may not be the relevant Agnes. 

 Lytle’s drama continues:

 “During the long hearing Madame Barrett sat alone. She seemed to have been shunned. At no time did she lose her self-control.” 
 
“It was the gaze and composure of a woman of the world—a woman who has passed through horrors before and who has become immune.” 

If Lytle intended Ella to be depicted as pure and innocent, he seems to keep his options open in the following description, in which Ella has the power to bewitch:

“She wore a white linen suit, with a long coat. The collar and cuffs were trimmed with blue ribbon. A tan straw hat, tam o'shanter style, was patched by brown ribbons and roses. Her brown hair, in curly puffs and waves, fell below her ears and tumbled bewitchingly over her eyes.”

At the hearing, Ella already appears to have the support of Chicago’s women’s groups; otherwise, Lytle has conflated the two events:

“As the little lace-maker's name was called and she rose to walk past the jury to the witness stand fifty women seated in the back part of the courtroom rose and began to clap their hands. Some threw their handkerchiefs into the air. The girl seemed much affected by the demonstration. Judge Brentano seemed taken aback for a moment by this unusual outburst. In vain the bailiff pounded with his gavel for order. Finally the court was compelled to rise and sternly rebuke the courtroom in no uncertain terms. Miss Gingles began her story in a low tone. It was the voice of a schoolgirl telling of something she had undergone, but could not comprehend. The persons in the courtroom hung on every word. You could have heard a pin fall.”

“It was a duel of lace-making knowledge between Miss Gingles and Agnes Barrett, but Mr. Short failed to secure any important admissions.”

“A queer incident occurred after the adjournment. Ella Gingles, who was formerly kept prisoner in the county jail, and who was released on bail, ran from the witness stand into the arms of several women who are befriending her. Agnes Barrett, white and desperate at the charges made against her, ran back from the advancing throng of women.”

“Among the women who were with the lace-maker were Mrs. T. G. Kent, president of the Daughters of the Confederacy; Mrs. Van Dusen Cooke of the Socialist Women of the United States; Mrs. M. C. Brem of the Social Economics Club; Mrs. Lyman Cooley of the Evanston W. C. T. U.; Mrs. Mollie Benecke, Irish Choral Society; Dr. M. V. Maxson; Mrs. Margaret Inglehart; Mrs. Frances Hagen, and Mrs. Frances Howe, Children's Day Association.”


The Trial of Ella Gingles

Lytle goes through all the various people who were called to the stand in June 2009. The information is too abundant to include here, but it is an interesting read if the chronology can be established. I will provide a few examples.

Mrs. Linderman, Ella’s landlady, was one of the people called to the hotel on 17 February, the morning after the bathroom episode. She found Miss Gingles delirious, in bed and under the care of a physician. She said that Ella lay on the bed and screamed at the top of her voice:

“She kept repeating, 'Oh, Miss Barrett! Don't let that devil-man in here again! Don't let him kill me, Miss Barrett! Save me, Miss Barrett.’'’

Mrs Linderman and her daughter were both questioned, Mrs Linderman admitting to providing Ella with food when Ella was hungry and without money in January and February 1909.

Lytle goes through the witness cross-examinations, commenting that Tom Taggart, the Indiana politician who owned the French Lick Springs Hotel, was not cross-examined like the other witnesses, but was treated with deference. As a voluntary witness, he was there to protect his name. He said he knew nothing about ‘White Slavery’ and there were no bad characters in his hotel and casino.

The only things I could find about his hotel were references to violence over race in the area and short selling in the hotel’s bottled spring water business. Either the hotel had a clean name, or Taggart was astute in his approach to prostitution. Later, the hotel would be frequented by leading gangsters.

Dr Watson, the doctor who attended Ella after the second attack also appeared in court. Here some excerpts of Attorney Short questioning the physician:

‘I examined to see if she had been attacked, and found there were no such indications. I cut her loose and found she wasn't in a bad way. Her pulse was good and she did not need medicine.’

‘How about her wounds?’

‘They were scratches, and not cuts.’

‘What position was Miss Gingles in when you found her in the bathroom?’ resumed Mr. Short, again taking the witness.

‘She was lying on her right side and her body stretched from one end of the bathtub. Her feet were tied to the iron pipe under the stationary bowl. Her hands were tied to the iron foot at the end of the tub.’

‘Did you know Miss Gingles before?’

‘No. I never saw her before.’

‘Was there anything much the matter with her aside from being hysterical? Did you see the scratches on her arms and body?’

‘Yes. Those scratches were very superficial. They did not more than penetrate the first skin.’

‘Did you see a liquid in the bathroom?’

‘Yes. I thought it was wine. Also there was a little bottle of laudanum.’

‘Now, if this girl had taken laudanum, what would have been the condition of the pupils of her eyes?’

'They would have been very much contracted.'

Ella’s eyes, according to the doctor, were dilated.

Patrick O’Donnell, Ella’s attorney, then questions the doctor, challenging his statements, with more court theatrics. Dr. Watson finds it difficult to answer the questions and can’t remember the information he is being asked to supply. 

The next person to be questioned is Professor Henry J. Cox of the United States Weather Bureau. He is called to establish the weather at eleven on 4 January 1909, the night of Ella’s first attack. The state was trying to prove that there was no trace of rain in order to discredit Ella’s report of rain. Evidence of light rain is supplied by other witnesses. It is worth pausing to remember that this is a case for petty theft of two items of linen.

Lytle concludes of the long case:

 “When the case closed and the arguments were through the courtroom was filled with wild, expectant people. It was a scene never equaled in Cook county. Even the scenes of confusion in the trial of Dora McDonald for the slaying of Webster Guerin were eclipsed.”

“When the court read from the slip of paper, ‘We, the jury, find Ella Gingles not guilty,’ bedlam broke loose. Men and women, many of them richly dressed, rioted madly. Several of the clubwomen and members of the Irish Fellowship Society ran to the girl's side and hugged and kissed her.”

​“After leaving the courtroom the girl was taken in a cab to the home of a wealthy clubwoman on the south side. That evening hundreds of supporters called to greet her and tell her of their joy at her acquittal. Several of them joined together and presented her with a small diamond brooch.”

In fact, Ella and Agnes Barrett, who was not technically on trial, were both deemed ‘not guilty.’ In other words, the jury sided with Agnes Barrett, deeming Ella’s account of her attacks to be fictitious.

The Return Home

Lytle includes a newspaper report from August 3, 1909. The following is a copy of the report:

"FRIENDS BID FAREWELL TO MISS ELLA GINGLES"

"Impressive Reception for Acquitted Lace-maker Is Given by Illinois Orangemen, Who
Present Bible and Purse."

"‘We believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth; in Jesus Christ, His Son, our only Mediator; in the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, and in the Bible, His revealed will.’"

"Quoting these words from the declaration in the constitution of the Orangemen, adopted more than two hundred years ago, Robert F. Brown, Illinois state grand treasurer of the order, presented a leather-bound copy of the Bible to Ella Gingles. The Bible was the gift of the Ladies' Loyal Orange Order of Chicago, and the presentation was the climax of an impressive farewell reception given by the Illinois organization of the Orangemen order at Hopkins' Hall, Sixty-third street and Stewart avenue, to the young Irish lace-maker, who is to leave Chicago next Sunday evening to return to the home of her parents in Ireland."

"On the fly-leaf of the book presented to the young girl, who had passed through one of the most grilling experiences ever witnessed in this country, was inscribed the following:

‘Presented to Miss Ella Gingles by the ‘Chosen Few,’ Ladies’ Loyal Orange Order, Chicago, August 2, 1909. May the Lord watch between me and thee, while we are absent one from the other.—Mrs. Jane M. Herbison, Mrs. Rebecca McKeag, Mrs. Sarah Doonan.’"

"More than five hundred persons, friends of Miss Gingles, had crowded into the hall, filling every available space. She sat throughout the ceremonies, during which there were a number of addresses, with Mrs. Mary Brem of the Catholic Woman's League, and at whose home at 5488 Ellis avenue she has been living since her acquittal."

"William Russell, state grand master of the order, presided. Addresses were made by Samuel J. McCarroll, past grand master; H. H. Van Meter of the Chicago Law and Order League, and Rev. E. Keene Ryan of the Garfield Boulevard Presbyterian Church."

"Mr. McCarroll declared it was a blot upon the citizenship of Chicago that conditions were such that a young girl found it necessary to return to her home in Europe in order to be entirely safe."

"Miss Gingles also was presented with $100, which was a part of a fund raised by clubwomen in Chicago and by Rev. Mr. Ryan at a service at his church on July 11. Out of the remainder of the fund the expenses of the trip of Miss Gingles and Miss Grace Van Duzen Cooke, who is to accompany her, are to be paid."

"Miss Gingles will leave Sunday evening for New York, where she will be entertained by a committee of Orangemen Tuesday and another committee of the order will receive the girl and her escort upon their arrival in Liverpool. Her home is in Larne, Antrim County, Ireland."

Ella In The Newspapers

Much of the information so far is derived from Hal McLeod Lytle’s account, but the story can be assessed from a different angle through newspapers. The following article in the Chicago Examiner on 12 January 1909 was written after Ella’s first attack. If we recall Ella’s account, she had gone to Captain O’Brien to report her grievance, but had somehow been arrested for theft. We see that Ella’s attorney, Patrick O’Donnell, is well connected in Irish Chicago, being a member of the Irish Fellowship Society, and we learn that the Irish Fellowship is defending Ella. The Orange and Green lodges of Chicago join the women’s movement in her defence.

​Ella’s story ran right across the USA. A report in Tacoma Washington on 12 July 1907, during the trial, leads on a threat to the life of Attorney Short, who was working for the state. The sensationalist headline is designed to cast doubt over Ella’s story. ‘Under the Pain of Death, Prosecutor of Pretty Lacemaker is Warned to Drop the Trial.’ The threat was a handwritten note. The story further casts doubt over Ella’s story by reporting that the matron of the La Salle Street Railway Station said that Ella had not been assaulted on 4 January. It ends with a story about the minister of a Presbyterian Church in Chicago inviting Ella up to the pulpit.

Canadian View on Ella

The most revelatory information on Ella Gingles comes from Canada. This information, not contained in Hal Lytle’s account, must surely have discredited Ella Gingles’ testimony, leading to the conclusion that she had made the story about Agnes Barrett up. 

On 17 July 1909, The Ottowa Free Press provided accounts from three Canadian witnesses: Dr W.J. Gibson, superintendent of Belleville Hospital; David T. Thornton, Ella’s employer; and William E. McCormick, a photographer.

Patrick O’Donnell visited Canada and spoke to the various people involved, proposing to them that Ella had been trapped into ‘white slavery’. The outcome was not perhaps what O’Donnell hoped for, particularly as a local Belleville girl had apparently tied herself to a bureau in the same period. The insinuation was that Ella had mimicked her. A less surprising detail is that Ella used the name Ella Raymond in Canada, as per the surname on her ticket. 

An unanticipated revelation, though it should not be a surprising one, given her age and circumstances, is that Ella was pregnant upon arrival in Canada. If the witnesses were telling the truth and the newspaper report was accurate, she gave birth to stillborn baby in her employer’s house in January 1908, a full year before the first attack in Chicago. She would have been 19 years-old at the time.

If Ella arrived in Canada in November 1907 and she was six or seven months pregnant when she lost her baby, she would have been travelling across the Atlantic at four or five months pregnant. There is no reason to doubt the testimony of both the employer and doctor, but Ella did not mention any of this in her own narrative. The information may have been edited from Lytle’s book, but it is more than likely, given the period, that the story was excluded on purpose. Pregnancy could have been the reason Ella took flight from home. The stillbirth can only have been a traumatic experience — her age, the psychological impact of loss, the physical trauma and the distance from home all contributing to unimaginable fear. 

The Canadian family was sympathetic enough to keep Ella in employment after this point, but the employe was not impressed by Ella on the grounds that he had seen her staying out late and kissing a man. She had also had her picture taken while wearing his wife’s gown. Ella would not have been the first or last maid to try on a mistress’s dress: if anything this gives us a more rounded view of Ella than the theatrics of Lytle’s account, which, for all his support of Ella, go too far to depict her as pure, then bewitching. Her employer’s account brings Ella alive as a normal young adult, dating and dressing up, having her photograph taken, telling white lies to her employer, showing off. Perhaps sending a photograph home in this outfit was a way of reassuring home that all was well. When Ella went to the photographer, Mr McCormick, to have her photograph taken in her mistress’ belongings, she gave her name as Miss Wilson. As a maid in a subordinate position doing something she was not permitted to do, this should not be too shocking. Her employer, David Thornton, also levelled an accusation of theft of lace from his wife. Ella informed the Canadian family that the reason for her departure was that she had a sister in Chicago who was dying. This may also have been a lie.

Ella's account of what happened to her is detailed and convincing, and fits the context of Chicago’s underworld. However, if Ella was a petty thief on a maid’s salary, who gave birth to a stillborn child and subsequently concocted two fake attacks in order to escape an accusation of theft in Chicago, she had the fortune of being caught up in several major political movements. Christians and feminists fighting Chicago’s vice saw Ella’s story as a gift in their crusade against the exploitation of young women. While Ella was helped, it seems clear from the media circus that she was also used to further the causes of her new Chicago friends. 

The Canadian testimonies, if they were designed to blacken her reputation, do nothing in a modern context but illicit sympathies towards a young, vulnerable pregnant woman, who was far away from home in late 1907-early 1908. The idea of lawyers travelling 637 miles to Belleville, Canada, and witnesses travelling to Chicago and all the train tickets and hotel expenses entailed, for a girl who was on trial for the theft of two items of lace, demonstrates the true purpose of Ella Gingles’ case: Ella was no longer an impoverished maid accused of theft but rather a political symbol of everything that needed fixed or left alone in America according to a particular viewpoint. 

Ella may have been a flawed, brilliant, brave and articulate young woman, who told the odd lie and got herself into trouble, but it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the state was on the side of vice. I believe Ella was mistreated in Chicago. I also think it’s probable that she was attacked. 

Here is the photograph of Ella in her employer’s clothing — an instagrammable moment in 1908.

​Feminists Back Ella

Next we have an article in a Feminist paper, The Progressive Woman, For the Woman Who Work, Vol. IV, November, 1910, No. XXXXII. 

This article opens with the statement: 

“Here is an account of a tragedy which offers the widest field of speculation to the psychologist, the sociologist, the  criminologist and the philosopher.”

The account is anti-capitalist in sentiment and can be strongly feminist in tone, albeit with some of the same reductions of Ella made by Lytle. The term White Slavery should have been problematic, but it was the term used to bring attention to the plight of immigrant women. 

There is also some focus in the article on Ella’s knowledge of the Westminster Confession of Faith. Ella was, in fact, a unitarian, so I’m not sure what this reference implied. It seems her Presbyterian and Orange associations were exploited over her Catholic friendships to appeal to a white, Protestant power base. Likewise, despite Ella’s clear ability to attract a cross-section of Ireland’s leading patriots in Chicago, she is part of the “Ulsterman race.” 

We learn in this article that during the trial of June 2009, Ella was received in a moving ceremony at the Presbyterian church, during which funds were raised for her. In addition to her plight, it seems certain that Ella had some sort of quality of presence that brought her attention. This may have been down to the frank, yet naive way that she answered questions.

The article exposes the chain of corruption in Chicago’s underworld, linking women like Mrs Barrett to the police and the newspapers. We learn that the newspaper editors were also muzzled, leading to “one of the most atrocious journalistic crimes in the history of the world” —  an overstatement and an indication of the passions the writer Eva Osler Nicholls.

Significantly, we learn more about Agnes Barrett in this account. It is suggested that she arrived in New York with 35 trunks that were not opened by customs, and this purported fact is attributed to her political links. The writer asks why Barrett didn’t simply drop the case, which was damaging to Barrett’s reputation: the answer, Nicholls suggests, lies in the fact that Ella was worth more to Barrett with this level of fame.

The saddest part of the story is that Cecilia Kenyon was found dead while Ella was in prison. In a report of 30 June 1909 in the Chicago Examiner, it was revealed that Ceclia, originally on the side of the state, was going to speak in Ella’s defence, and that she died in the company of a man of wealth and social position. Her husband did not push for an investigation, and so her sudden death was never investigated. Lieutenant James McCann, the officer in charge of her investigation, was on the Coroner’s jury, which returned the verdict of heart failure.

Eva Osler Nicholls proposes that between $38,000 and $100,000 was spent by the state on Ella’s conviction. Ella was accused of stealing lace, but her responses on trial meant that, “the limelight suddenly flashed upon the horrors of the underworld in an American metropolis.” Ella was keen to return to court to clear her name, but the Orange Order took care of her and advised her it was time to go home.

Nicholls makes the case in this article that White Slavery was not only protected by the police, but shielded by the press and may even have been linked to the courts. 

I would suggest, given this account, that Ella did well to take on the system and walk away with her life. The sudden death of Cecilia Kenyon could be seen as a warning.

The Chicago Sunday Examiner ran a story on 18 July 1909 that a fund of $1,500 had been raised to take Ella’s case to the Supreme Court. Rev. R. Keene Ryan had formed the Gingles defence committee and was its chairman.  Two days later, on 20 July 1909, the Chicago Examiner published this picture of Ella with her supporters:

Ella’s case along with the activities of the women’s groups supporting Ella and other young women contributed to the White Slave Traffic Act, which passed Congress in 1910. The act forbade transporting a woman across state lines for ‘immoral purposes’, but it eventually came to be abused and was used to punish interracial relationships.

The Conspiracy Theory

News of Ella’s case began in February 1909 and continued beyond her trial in June-July 1909. The Morning Oregonian ran a detailed report on 18 February, 1909, after the second attack and Ella’s arrest. The Wellington Hotel is described in it as ‘a standard downtown hostelry’ and the report immediately weighs up whether this was a plot against Ella or an attempt at suicide. 

The Chicago Examiner ran a report on the same day proposing the whole thing was a set up. By this point Captain O’Brien believed Ella had arranged for someone to tie her up. As she had previously worked as a housekeeper of the hotel, her knowledge of the hotel was cited as the reason she was able to pull it off. O’Brien pointed out that the door was locked from the inside, so there was no way for the assailant to escape. Ella covered this in her testimony by saying the assailant had climbed through the transom (small window above the door). However, the transom was also barred from the inside. Details not covered in Lytle’s book are described, like the bathtub and sink being half filled with bloody water. The word ‘hysteria’ was employed in this article.

It becomes apparent from the Oregan article that Ella was unconscious for some time, both before and after the second attack, and when she was taken to the Frances Willard Hospital. She told Chief Detective O'Brien that she was first set upon near her home, 474 La Salle Avenue, by a man and woman. One of them struck her and the other threw pepper in her eyes. She was then hustled into a waiting cab. She didn’t regain consciousness until 9.00pm in the room, when she wrote a note calling for help to her friend, Miss Mary Joyce, who was a stenographer in the office of attorney Patrick O’Connell. Mary Joyce received the note at 9.00am the next morning.

The report tells us that Ella Gingles was not registered at the hotel. No bellboy could be found who picked up a letter and mailed it, and an apparent inconsistency was the postmark on the letter, which had been stamped at the post office at 9.00pm. The hotel manager said it would have had to be mailed no later than 7.30pm, an hour and a half before Ella regained consciousness. However, the hotel manager was perhaps not a reliable witness if illegal activities were taking place in her hotel. The dust around the transom window was also undisturbed.

Captain O’Brien’s statement to the Chicago Examiner on the Ella Gingles case was misogynistic:

‘When a young woman is impressionistic and something of an actress — as in the present case — it is easy to stage a melodrama in which the role of the persecuted heroine might be impersonated.’ 

As previously cited in the trial account, the hotel doctor examining Ella was also sceptical. He said the bottle of laudanum had a different label to begin with and did not smell of laudanum. He said her wounds were superficial. Doctors were called into assess Ella’s mental health and suggested she was hallucinating. The number of people involved in the case is astounding.


The Chicago Examiner weighed up the situation as follows:

​The Oregan article demonstrates that Ella was not taken seriously, and her words were ascribed to a nervous condition caused by her troubles with Agnes Barrett. Mr O’Donnell told the newspaper that Ella’s male assaillant was well known in several states. Elsewhere there were reports that the men involved in the prostitution ring were politicians. As seen already, Thomas Taggart ended up on the witness stand in order to clear his name.  As a republican attorney, Patrick O’Donnell may have seen the advantage of defaming Thomas Taggart, chairman of the national Democratic Committee. While Patrick O’Donnell believed Ella, the police demanded to know — if she was capable of writing a letter, why did she not alarm people and use the telephone. Ella provides an explanation for this in her own testimony: the assaillant might have been nearby and heard her.
 


Ella returns to Larne

Ella returned to Larne on the Campania in September 2009, almost two years after she had left home. She was accompanied by Mrs G Van Dusen Cooke, who stayed with Ella’s family in Kilwaughter. Even in her cabin on the ship when docked in New York, she was surrounded by press.

Ella married William Drummond on 12 January 1910, three months after returning from America. William Drummond, a Presbyterian from Larne Main Street and the son of a solicitor’s clerk, was around the same age as Ella. Mrs G Van Dusen Cooke of Chicago announced Ella’s marriage to the Chicago Press, 11 months after Ella’s second attack: 

“Mrs G. Van Dusen Cooke takes pleasure in announcing her protege, Ella Gingles, was married to William Drummond, both of Larne, Ireland, on January 12, 1910, at her home in Kilwaughter, Larne.”

​The above photograph appeared in the Chicago Press with the names Ethel Gingles, Horace Gingles, William Drummond, Ella Gingles, Hattie Gingles and Charles Gingles. It is made explicit in the article that she “did not marry money.” Ella wrote to the minister who had called her up to the pulpit, the Rev. Ryan Keene, that she married a law clerk. They had a wedding of 50 guests. The article said they lived in a small cottage in the village of Larne. Ella’s first child was born the following year, in 1911. 

When Ella Gingles’ mother, Mary J. Gingles died in 1949, she was described in the local newspaper as the ‘grand old dame of Kilwaughter’. She was survived by seven daughters and two sons. One daughter was in Illinois, presumably Elizabeth. Ella’s mother, who had lived in New Zealand since 1933, was also buried in Chicago, alongside a son who had died in Chicago in 1925. Ella’s mother is interred with this son in Glenview cemetery.

Ella died in 1954 in Smiley Hospital, Larne, a few years after her husband. She led a life beyond the newspapers, and apart from one remark in 1935 regarding winning an award for floristry and another regarding her florist business in Ballysnod, she appears to have remained out of the limelight. She is buried in Larne cemetery. 

A Note on Family History: I have not included anything about the history of the Gingles family in this blog. This has been more expertly done by Linda Hooke in Familia: Ulster Genealogical Review, Number 38, 2022. My aim was simply to tell a story about a remarkable woman who once lived near my own maternal family in Ballysnod.

Angeline King is the author of The Secret Diary of Stephanie Agnew, a contemporary novel set in Ballygally in the summer of 1995. Click here to read The Secret Diary of Stephanie Agnew. ​

The Secret Diary of Stephanie Agnew