Serving Southern Jefferson County in the Great State of Montana

Creating Fiction from History: 2/23/2022

Ella Jean Berry was born October 4, 1905, to Franklin and Rosalind Berry, of Dubuque, Iowa. Both of her parents perished at an early age in a horrible train wreck. This unthinkable tragedy occurred the first day of Spring the year that little Ella turned five.

Leaving Ella with her nurse, the Berry's had boarded the Rock Island train which ran from Cedar Rapids to Waterloo, on a business/pleasure trip. Unfortunately for Ella, she never saw her parents again, as the train, a combination of two different trains, ran off the tracks near Green Mountain, over halfway to their destination.

After the loss of her parents, the poor girl was subjected early to a life in and out of foster homes. One can only imagine the horrors she endured.

While Ella was certainly not the first orphan to enter the foster care/welfare system, President Taft would not establish his Children's Bureau until just over two years later.

Mr. Otto Haiger, an Austrian national who had sought political asylum in these United States, met Ella in the big city of Dubuque, where she had ended up after her tenure in the foster homes of North-Eastern Iowa and a few in Illinois.

Having just passed her 18th birthday, Ella, who had blossomed into a real beauty despite her horrific childhood, was more than ready to leave the system she'd grown up in. She took on the first job she was presented with. Though not widely accepted at the time and rather taboo in certain circles, the position Ella quickly accepted paid well and she was able to leave her early, tragic life far behind, at least outwardly.

It was a mere three years after she began her new career that she became known as Mrs. Otto Haiger. When this austere Austrian first met Ella, it was love at first sight. They married several months later after Ella's short but illustrious career came to a crashing halt. Though Mrs. Haiger was to be a stay-at-home wife to the prominent businessman for the rest of her relatively short life, she was the driving force behind her very successful husband.

The covered photograph above is of Ella Jean, early in her short career. The other, the infamous wreck in which her parents were lost.

If you would like to create fiction from history with one of the museum's photos, please contact the Ledger at (406) 287-5301 or email whledger@gmail.com.

 

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