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March 11 - March 15, 2023
Chicago roared back to life in the following years, a phoenix of limestone, granite, and brick reborn from the ashes.
By 1890, according to one eminent historian, close to 80 percent of the city’s population “was of foreign parentage, drawn from every civilized quarter of the globe.”[3]
Most of the steamers docked in Quebec, New York, or Boston. From there, the new arrivals from Norway would make their way by boat, rail, and wagon to their final destinations: Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, Washington State. Most settled in small farm communities, though others chose ethnic enclaves in cities like Minneapolis and Seattle. And in the case of Brynhild Paulsdatter Størset, Chicago.
Shortly after arriving in Chicago and moving in with the Larsons, Brynhild, like Nellie and countless other immigrants, adopted a new American name: Bella Peterson.[3]
When the time came to butcher the animal, she handled the business herself—“shot it, bled it, scalded it, gutted it, and saved the head for head cheese.”[5]
within twenty years of the Gunness fire, Indiana would be home to the largest branch of the Ku Klux Klan in the nation, with a membership of 250,000—roughly one-quarter of the native-born white male population of the state.
“Where Is the Head of Belle Gunness?” ran a headline in the Chicago Tribune.
A little chloral in a glass of beer or coffee brings quick death. So does a well directed blow with a hammer or hatchet.
he had seen her board “a North Clark streetcar at Summerdale Avenue” just one day earlier,
As soon as the enormity of Belle’s crimes became clear, stories comparing her to Johann Hoch began to appear in the papers. The strangest of these was a widely syndicated article headlined “If Their Paths Had Crossed,” a piece of alternate history inspired by the speculations of Charles Peters, deputy chief sheriff of Chicago.
I referred to the innate human need for what psychologist Arie Kruglanski was the first to label “cognitive closure,” which he defined as “the individual’s need for a firm answer to a question and aversion to ambiguity.”[3] The sheer popularity of detective stories, a genre first brought to life in Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” is testimony to the power of this basic psychological hunger, our deep-seated longing to arrive at—or be provided with—tidy solutions to vexing puzzles.
