Featured Adelaide Schell -- Who Was She?

I am using Ancestry now and found a newspaper article that relates to her father's estate. The article was published December 1, 1923. Adelaide was the executor of her father's estate in Kingston, NY. The land had been purchased by the Catholic Diocese of New York and was going to be used as "a health camp for Catholic children." -- At the end of the article it says that Adelaide was planning to move to California to live with her brother Henry Elmer, who worked in Los Angeles. I found his record (as Elmer Henry Schell) in the 1930 census, with his wife Madlyn. Adelaide was not there.

I suspect she had remarried, or perhaps had passed away by then. The newspaper article makes no mention of Dr. Sutorius, and I'm wondering if he had passed away or was otherwise out of the picture.

I was able to save the article as a jpg file. The newspaper was the Kingston Daily Freeman. I'll insert it here... not sure how readable it will be.

 

Oh good. That confirms that the H Elmer I had found earlier in LA really was her brother.

 

Yes, it does! I've been losing track of all of the information on this thread. A little bit ago I saved it as a pdf file... up to about four posts ago.

 

I did a little more looking this afternoon... remembering that my library recently started a subscription to newspaperarchive dot com, I looked there. I found a few things -- An article from the Boston Daily Globe in 1900 that covered the story of Adelaide running off with Dr. Sutorius said that she "was in the chorus of 'The King of the Opium Ring' at the Academy of music last season." And I've found a few brief mentions of that show. Another article said that she aspired to sing in operas. So definitely not a concert pianist.

A couple of the articles have pictures of her. One is a drawing and I don't know if it's really intended to look like her. The other one might have been based on a photograph, but doesn't really look like one so is probably some drawing based on a photo. I can't really link it here, I don't think. It's not a good resolution and I have the whole newspaper page saved as a pdf. -- I've looked at it next to my photo, and it could be the same person but the pdf is not a good enough image to tell for sure.

 

I'm seeing if I can attach the pdf here... it's a whole newspaper page. The image of Adelaide is halfway down column 3 (It's not the large pic at upper left.) -- So, let's see if this works.

 

It worked for me. Once the pdf was open you have the option to zoom in by increasing the percentage.

And I'm with you. It certainly could be the woman in your picture - same rounded chin, dark thick eyebrows, general direction of the hair. Of course the eyes are different because in the newspaper image she's gazing up (which makes the eyes open) and in the photo she's looking down-ish. But I really think that your photo and this picture are very likely to be the same person.

 

It looks even better here than it did in the Adobe reader! --

It's good that you think it might be the same person. I can't attach the one with the drawing, but it looks like it may be based on the same photo. That one is a very large file for some reason. It is notable because the drawing shows some of her figure, and it is rather ample -- similar to the way she looks in my photo.

Also forgot to mention the hypnotism idea. In some of the articles it was alleged that Dr. Sutorius had hypnotized her. In one article, Dr. Sutorius's wife is quoted as saying that Adelaide had hypnotized him, and then Adelaide's father said the doctor had hypnotized her.

 

Hypnosis?

I did notice that the headline of the article says he's a dentist.

 

Yes, they are not very accurate!

The article that I can't attach is not the one I mentioned above with mutual hypnosis mentioned... but it does say this. It's worth quoting the whole thing, for its somewhat histrionic tone:

HYPNOTIZED, THEN ABDUCTED
New York Physician Leaves a Family to Elope with a Beautiful Songstress

May 7 -- Miss Adelaide Schell, the beautiful daughter of one of
New York’s best known insurance men,
has eloped with Dr. Francis Alexis Sutorlous,
a rising Harlem physician. Mrs.
Sutorious, the doctor’s wife, is prostrate
at her home, where she has been abandoned
with two young children.

Mrs. Schell, mother of the eloping girl,
attempted to kill herself. She is almost
insane with grief and shame.

The police are hunting high and low
for the missing couple, with orders to
arrest the doctor on sight for abduction,
Miss Schell being only 17 years old.
It is feared that, overcome by remorse,
The elopers may destroy themselves together.

Hypnotism is said to have played a
part in the elopement. A friend of Miss
Schell says that the doctor was a student
of hypnotism and that she noticed
his remarkable Influence over Miss Schell.

This story of blind love, which has
shocked Harlem society, was hidden behind
this personal, which has been published
for several days in the morning
papers:

“Adelaide and Frank- Come home to
parents and all will be forgiven on both
sides; no publicity as yet; mother vary
ill. PAPA.”

This falling to elicit any response, Mr.
Schell put the case in the hands of the
police in order to have the doctor arrested;
Mrs. Sutorius also sought the assistance
of the police to find her husband.

--- Boston Post, Tuesday, May 8, 1900; pg. 4, col. 6-7

 

Thelmasstuff said: "The good doctor was likely enthralled by her ample charms."

"Enthralled" or suffocated . . . ?

 

Yourturntoloveit, I think the newspapers have established that he was hypnotized!

 

I agree - it certainly looks like her! Good find fig!



While the two would not automatically be selected out of an album as the same person, when you add the same name and general location, I think it's rather convincing.

 

This has been a real journey. The main reason I bought the photo was that I knew the seller had misidentified Adelaide Schell and confused her with an earlier person of the same name. Never thought it would turn out to be this interesting!

 

Fascinating info and great detective work!

Fig, five years ago I sold a photo done by George Rockwood of NYC. The Rockwood who did my photo had his studio in lower Manhattan, at 839 Broadway, which is at the intersection of East 13th Street and Broadway. This is about 6 blocks or so west of Avenue B, which starts at East 14th Street and goes south for 13 short blocks where it stops at Houston Street.

Anyone who lived on Avenue B would have been pretty close to Rockwood's studio. So the other Adelaide who lived on Avenue B may have been the one in the photograph.

In case it's the same photographer, here's the info about him I had in my listing...

---------------------------------------------

A wonderful early 1900s studio photograph of a handsome young Canadian soldier by George Rockwood (1882-1911), a noted New York City photographer. The photo is framed in a handsome period gold wood frame with nicely done carving.

George Rockwood was born in Troy, New York, and was college educated, earning a PhD. (Some sources have cited that he received his degree from Columbia University and some that it was from the University of Chicago.)

Initially, Rockwood worked as a reporter for the Troy Daily Times and then became the managing editor of the Troy Daily Post. In the mid-1850s, Rockwood began working as a photographer in St. Louis and then in 1857 opened a photography studio in New York City, where he remained until his death in 1911.

Rockwood is believed to have introduced the French carte-de-visite format of photography into the United States in the late 1850s. He belonged to the top photographic societies, and wrote articles for their journals. His obituary shares that during his career Rockwood photographed more than 350,000 people.

The photograph has Rockwood's "Rockwood New York" embossed stamp in the lower right corner.

 

Fig - Do you remember the newspaper articles I was able to find on Fulton history about my GG Grandfather's suicide and how he had been hounded into it by the press coverage of his grandson's mysterious death? The more purple the prose, the more papers they sell.

 

Pat - the Adelaide Schell on Avenue B turned out to be a different person. "Our" Adelaide lived in Washington Heights, close to the photographer who took Fig's picture.

 

This is turning out to be better than most of mysteries I have been reading!

 

Pat, my photo does have the address printed on the card ... 146th St. and Amsterdam Ave. -- But it could be the same photographer with two different studio locations. I'll have to look into that. The photographer's logo is printed at an angle in the lower left corner below the photo.

Yes, I do remember the articles you found on the Fulton history site, Bakersgma. I guess the media have not changed very much in some ways.

 

Pat, would you be able to post a scan of the Rockwood logo on your photo? Just curious. Mine is in gold ink on a dark cream-colored card.

 

I agree... definitely like watching a mystery!

Bakersgma, but wasn't part of the thinking that the photographer was uptown and Avenue B was downtown, therefore it wasn't likely to be the Avenue B Adelaide?

If the photographer was uptown, then that makes sense to me. But if he was George Rockwood, who had his studio at Broadway and East 13th, then I'm thinking maybe it was the Avenue B Adelaide after all.

I forget if there was another reason why the Avenue B Adelaide was eliminated?