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NEWS
Van Wert County, Ohio
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The Lima News
(Contributed by Norita Moss)
Frank Coe: Haunted by his own demons
by line
Kim Kincaid - Wednesday Jan. 30th, 2008
LIMA Some turn-of-the-century neighbors said it was that hit on the
head that changed Frank Coe. Others say he followed in his father s
suicidal footsteps. Still others claimed it was his sad lot in life
that traumatized him.
Whatever the reason, Coe was a troubled man by anyone s
standards. And before he disappeared from the face of the earth, he
had murdered his wife in front of his toddler daughter and tried to
kill the president of the United States.
Pretty unbelievable for a guy generally considered
likeable. In fact, experts in the medical and legal fields both
described Frank as a talkative guy, inclined to make friends easily.
His family said that growing up, he was generally happy.
Until that fall.
His brother George claimed that when Frank worked for
the railroad in Lima in 1894, he took a fall and landed on his head.
According to George, that s when many of the problems began.
Three years later, Frank left Lima to find work in
Cincinnati. While there, he began hallucinating that people were
trying to kill him. Brother George went to retrieve Frank and had him
admitted to a hospital in Toledo.
While he was being treated there, his mother, Fidelia
Burnham, went to visit him. On her return trip, the excursion train
she took was hit by a freight train, and Mrs. Burnham was killed.
As her son remained a patient in the Toledo hospital,
her body was taken to Milan, Mich., where she was laid to rest beside
her first husband and Frank's father, John Coe.
After Frank was released from the hospital, he set up
housekeeping on West Kibby Street with his wife, Emma. By all
accounts, the two had a storybook marriage.
However, Coe was back in the newspapers when his
16-month-old daughter Julia died of cholera in August 1899. Not long
after, Frank lost his Lima job.
The family picked up and went to Springfield to try and
start over. There Frank did find a job, but his life quickly began
spiraling out of control. Neighbors said he began to imagine that
people were talking about him, and accusing him of wrong-doing.
It came to a head on Dec. 27, 1899, when Coe killed his
wife and then shot himself as their daughter Irma looked on. His
suicide attempt was unsuccessful.
George told the local papers that his brother was
undoubtedly insane.
Meanwhile, Coe s mother-in-law, Mrs. A .J. Neister of
Indiana, said she had feared for her daughter's life for some time.
She recounted that Emma had left Frank the summer prior
to the killing and spent time with her mother, telling her of life in
the Coe household. Although her mother begged, Emma refused to leave
Frank, fearing he would do something desperate.
The mother-in-law told the newspapers that insanity ran
in Frank's family, claiming Coe s father had committed suicide years
earlier.
Police claimed two notes left by Frank intimated that
he had intended to take only his own life, and perhaps his wife had
struggled with him in those early morning hours before he shot her.
A jury found Coe guilty of manslaughter, and he served
one year in the state penitentiary. His daughter Irma was reared by
her maternal grandmother.
Upon Frank's release, he was taken to an asylum in
Toledo.
Shortly thereafter, he escaped from there. Considered
harmless by hospital officials, no attempt was made to find him.
But Coe's demons continued to haunt him.
By 1904, he had sent several letters to President
Theodore Roosevelt. In them, he detailed his plans for a bill to
revolutionize the spelling of proper names.
Signing his name as Edward Relgar, he suggested that
Roosevelt require people to adopt their profession as their surname.
Carpenter would be for carpenters, Mason for masons, and so on.
Roosevelt did not respond to his suggestion, so
carrying a gun, Frank made his way to the White House in February
1904.
There, he was arrested at the gate and charged with
carrying a concealed weapon.
An uncle who knew of Franks suggestion quickly
identified Relgar as Frank Coe, and once again the former Lima
resident was front-page news.
His family petitioned to have Coe brought back to Lima
where they would take charge of him, promising to take him to a
Chicago doctor who claimed he could surgically help Frank.
That request was granted, and Coe, along with a U.S.
Marshall, was on the next train out of D.C.
However, when the train made a stop that night, Coe
jumped out and was never seen again.
His family told the local newspaper they didn't expect
to hear from him ever again, until another strange notion overtakes
him.
No other word was ever heard from the very troubled
Frank Coe. |
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