Volume 9 – Part 1: Robert’s Last Girl
Omaha, Nebr., Jan 18, 1909
2132 N. 29th St
Dear Harry: —
What was the matter with Roberts letter? You didn’t put any heading on it. You just started right in talking. I guess you forgot how to put a heading so you thought you wouldn’t put any. Well, don’t forget to put one on the next one you write to him. He was glad to get that letter anyway. He was feeling rather blue that day. You see we just had a little disaggreement [sic]. I suppose you understand that in Robt. letter. He wrote to you Monday & so did I. But he let a little leek out but I didn’t. I waited till I saw how it ended. I’d like to know what Robt said in his letter about it. He said he said something. Well it is all over now but anyway I’ll have to tell you that it was my fault. It you want to know the whole tale write and tell me & I’ll tell you. That is a week ago and now it is Monday again but no quarrel. It seems as if I always write on Monday. I guess because I have more to tell you.
Robt & I (It will have to all be Robt because that is all that happens) went skating yesterday (Sunday) out at Millers. The ice was simply swell. It has never been so good before. They had swept all the snow off so it was as smooth and nice. Marguerite and Percy went out and I don’t believe I ever laughed so much in all my life. They had a party over at Lucke’s so these Magnodotes [sic] (Robt’s last girls’, Augusta, parents) were there. Augusta instead of going to Lucke’s came out skating all alone. She knew Robt was going. Well, she came out there and Robt didn’t skate with her & Marguerite didn’t skate with her nor did I. None of us could very well, we had our partners. She got her skates on but didn’t skate. She sat on the bench (they had benches because it was so snowy) and pretty soon she went home. I felt awful sorry for her but she knew Robt was going to take me so she shouldn’t have come alone. It would have been better if she went with a bunch of girls. I was just wondering if you knew who I’ve been talking about. I think you do. I never introduced you to her but I think I pointed her out to you. She goes down to Chamber’s and is very very tall & light hair. I’m sure you know who she is.
Marguerite just called me up. She certainly is a great girl. She can laugh at nothing. I believe She wore a green dress last Saturday night, & I wore my green dress & Percy had a green pencil, so we were all sporting green. Robt claims he’s green all over anyway in his noodle so he was sporting green too. You know green is the coming color. They even have green shoes. Ma said she’d have to send you a green shirt...
This was one of Lillian’s longer letters, and it is a chatty, gossipy, high-school-drama letter. It is so chatty, and so full of names and high school adventures (and ridiculous nonsense) that this will be another two-part episode. More than ever, this letter reminds us that Lillian was only 16 when she was writing to Harry, arguing (and making up) with the young man she never actually calls a sweetheart, though she was clearly by now ‘his girl.’ Lillian had an active social life, full of people who were known to her older brother. In a sign of the times, Lillian’s social life didn’t just revolve around her friends, but also around her friends’ families, her neighbors, and the extended Omaha social scene. And it is this extended Omaha social scene of 1909 that ultimately took over this post as I researched the names in the first half of this letter.
Percy Dreibus was born in August of 1889 in Omaha to Anton and Georgine (Schmidt) Dreibus. Percy was the son of a German immigrant (Anton) and a first-generation American (Georgine) born to German immigrant parents. In 1910, Percy was living on Farnham Street with his parents and siblings and working as a salesman in the Dreibus Candy Company of Omaha, owned and managed by his father since 1884.[1] The Dreibus Candy Company was in operation in Omaha for 53 years, expanding into a three story building in downtown Omaha in 1906.[2] It survived Anton’s death and the Great Depression, and provided employment to Percy into the 1940s.
Marguerite is tricker to identify. Lillian gives her last name in more than one location (though not in this letter) as “Greeno.” Though there were two Marguerites in Omaha in the 1910 census of approximately the right age to be among Lillian’s friends, Marguerite Greenough is the most likely. She lived within a block of Sprague Street, the street Lillian had for her in her address book, and would have been around 14 (Lillian’s sister’s age) at the time of this letter – despite later, less reliable sources that shaved a few years off her age. Marguerite was not a student at Omaha High School; she graduated in June 1914 from St. John Berchman Academy, founded in 1904 by the Sisters of Mercy of the Parish of Saint Peter, later renamed St. Mary High School in 1929 (Mercy High School today). Marguerite Greenough’s story is ultimately not a happy one, but it is one saved for a different day.
Augusta Mengedoht’s story is one of those stories you occasionally stumble across in genealogy that take over in your research. From Lillian’s letter, it is clear that Augusta was not part of Lillian’s regular social circle or particularly well known to her. Unlike Marguerite and Percy, she is not listed in Lillian’s address book. Her parents are mentioned by Lillian as acquaintances of Robert’s family, not the Parsons. Still, this single paragraph with its teenage narrator hinting at pity and jealousy, led to one of the most well known and tragic stories of Omaha in the 1920s, and an absolutely fascinating woman worthy of researching and remembering.
The “Magnodotes” of Lillian’s terrible spelling were the Mengedoht family of Omaha. Augusta Marie Mengedoht was born in October 1892 in Nebraska to German immigrant parents “Fred” Mengedoht and his first wife, Augusta Peters.[3] Fred and Augusta were married on Christmas Day 1879 in Lancaster County, Nebraska.[4] Augusta was the youngest of seven children born to the couple. One sister, Olga, died at the age of one just a year before Augusta was born. Tragically, Augusta’s mother died just weeks after Augusta’s birth.[5] Fred was widowed with six children, all but the oldest under the age of 10. Even so, it was a full five years before Fred married Bertha D. Heldt, a 19-year-old recent German immigrant, who would go on to raise Augusta as her own daughter.[6] It was Fred and Bertha whom Lillian referred to as the pitiable Augusta’s parents. Fred started life as a blacksmith, but by the time Lillian wrote about them he was an established, and fairly wealthy, real estate developer in Omaha.[7] Augusta was a few months younger than Lillian, but a year ahead of her in school; she graduated from Omaha High School in the class of 1911.
Augusta married Augustus Dunbier, about four years her senior, in October of 1917. Augusta was a concert violinist (most likely how she came to know Robert Lucke, who was also a musician) who by then taught music lessons and led a student orchestra. Augustus was an artist recently returned from studying abroad in Europe when they met in the building where they each had studios. Augustus asked Augusta to model for him, and the rest was history.[8] For ten years, they were the darlings of the Omaha art set. Augusta stopped teaching to support her husband in his art career and frequently served as his model. Augustus became a known artist in the Midwest. When Augustus was drafted into World War I and took sick at nearby Fort Riley, Augusta traveled to meet him and cheer up the troops and ended up joining the cause as a Red Cross hostess stationed at the base hospital.[9] After the war, they built a shared studio on the grounds of Augusta’s parents house on Wirt Street.
On the surface, the marriage was a happy one. But when Fred Mengedoht died in 1924 the marriage began to fall apart. One child, likely stillborn, is buried in the cemetery next to Augustus with birth and death dates of 1925.[10] On a trip to an art colony in New Mexico with her husband, Augusta, an avid horsewoman, was thrown from her horse and fractured a vertebrae in her neck.[11] And in May of 1926, after returning to Omaha after her long recovery and finding her husband in residence at their home on Wirt Street, Augusta filed for divorce, citing “extreme cruelty.”[12] The announcement of the filing made front page news in the Omaha papers. Augusta won her suit in January 1927, despite Augustus’ public protestations – but that was just the start of the drama.
Sometime after the divorce, Augustus appeared at Bertha and Augusta’s house with a revolver, holding 20 policeman at bay while holding the gun to Augusta’s head. The incident ended peacefully, though it is unclear exactly how. Assault and battery and failure to keep the peace charges were filed against Augustus, but the charges were essentially dropped when he agreed to leave town. He did, but returned in September of 1927, ostensibly to teach art classes at the YMCA, and though Augusta protested, the court found no reason to prevent his return “as long as he behaves himself.”[13]
Augustus had no intention of behaving himself. In May 1928, Augustus sued Augusta’s stepmother, Bertha, and siblings for $100,000 for “alienation of affections,” essentially blaming Bertha, Augusta’s brothers, and sister and brother-in-law for breaking up his marriage and harming his career.[14] Augusta disputed this account in both the divorce trial and Augustus’ law suit against her family, blaming Augustus’ “artistic temperament” and several events resulting from it, including his financial instability.[15] The jury awarded Augustus $40,000 for his suit at the end of May, the largest award for such a lawsuit in state history at the time, but on 5 June the verdict, which already followed allegations of jury tampering, was set aside by the District Judge as “excessive” and Augusta’s family was awarded a new trial.[16] The re-trial, dubbed by the Lincoln Journal Star as “the best vaudeville show of the year,” took place in November 1928.[17] On 6 December, after a two week trial that was “bitterly fought,” the new jury awarded Augustus $5,000.[18] Both parties appealed, but after much back and forth (and at least one brick through Bertha Mengedoht’s window, almost certainly thrown by Augustus), the Nebraska State Supreme Court upheld the $5,000 verdict and the case was finally considered closed.[19]
Augustus married again in 1932, to Lulu “Lou” Ekstrom, fifteen years his junior, one of his former art students. Despite the drama of his first marriage, his second was by all accounts peaceful and long lasting, with one son born to the couple. Augustus died in Omaha in 1977 at the age of 89, still married to Lou. He is known today for his landscapes and portraits, and is still considered influential in the work of many modern Nebraska painters.
Augusta herself left Omaha in 1929, shortly before the brick incident, “never to return.”[20] She headed west to Boulder, Colorado, where she managed a lodge and adjacent cabins for the next several years. In 1935, at the age of 42, she purchased a hunting lodge she named the Fawn Brook Inn. She became an avid outdoorswoman, shooting and riding throughout the Colorado backcountry, and was a woman of some renown for her entrepreneurship. By some accounts, she was also a licensed plumber and licensed mortician. She never remarried. Augusta died in Colorado in 1977, at the age of 84.[21]
Want to read more?
Volume 1: Lillian and her Letters
Volume 2: November 4th, 1907
Volume 3: Sweethearts or Sisters and…Candy!
Volume 4: School Stories
Volume 5: Falling Outs, Senior Fairs, Faith, and Uncle William
Volume 6, Part 1: Wandering Omaha
Volume 6, Part II: Grandparents, Washing Day, and Etiquette
Volume 7: Lucke, German Social Clubs, and Dancing
Volume 8: Lemons and Peaches
[1] The Grand Island Independent, “Anton Dreibus, 86, Omaha, Dies,” 23 October 1937, p 14, col 8.
[2] The Durham Museum, “Happy National Candy Day!” Facebook posting, 4 November 2022.
[3] FindAGrave, memorial 269506271, “Augusta Marie “Gussie” Mengedoht,” 20 April 2024 by Diane Elsasser Snider.
[4] Lancaster County, Nebraska, Application for License for Marriage, Fred Mengedoht and Augusta Peters, 24 December 1879.
[5] FindAGrave, memorial 32763971, “Augusta Peters Mengedoht,” 8 January 2009 by Dennis Bell.
[6] Washington County, Nebraska, Marriage License, Frederich Mengedoht and Bertha Heldt, 7 October 1897.
[7] Evening World-Herald, “Fred Mengedoht Dies, Built First Apartment,” January 31, 1924, p 19, col 4.
[8] The Omaha Daily News, “Omaha Artist Sued for Divorce by Wide Who Served as His Model,” May 25, 1926, p 1, col 4-6 and p 3, col 4-7.
[9] Evening World-Herald, “Hostess at Base Hospital,” October 11, 1918, p 12, col 2.
[10] FindAGrave, memorial 37067790, “Infant Dunbier,” 13 May 2009 by “dolph72”.
11] Omaha Daily News, “Omaha Artist Sued for Divorce by Wife Who Served as His Model,” May 25, 1926, p 3, col 1-2.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Evening World-Herald, “Ex-wife of Dunbier Opposes His Return,” September 1, 1927, p 2, col 4.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Lincoln Journal Star, “Dunbier is Given a $40,000 Verdict,” May 23, 1928, page 1, column 3.
[16] Omaha World-Herald, “Dunbier ‘Shocked’ Wheat,” 13 September 1928, p 6, col 2-3; Lincoln Journal Star, “Dunbier is Given a $40,000 Verdict,” May 23, 1928, p 1, col 3. Omaha World-Herald, “Orders New Trial of Dunbier’s Suit,” June 6, 1928, p 11, col 1.
[17] Lincoln Journal Star, “Dunbier Holds His Own,” November 17,, 1928, p 3, col 1.
[18] Rock County Leader (Bassett, Nebraska), “Jury Allows $5,000 for Alienations of Affections,” Dec 6, 1928, p 5, col 6.
[19] Omaha World-Herald, “Dunbier Gets $5,000 Supreme Court Rules,” May 3, 1930, page 28, column 1. Omaha World-Herald, “Brick Replaces Flowers on Dunbier Anniversary,” October 12, 1929, p 1, col 2-3.
[20] Omaha World-Herald, “Brick Replaces Flowers on Dunbier Anniversary,” October 12, 1929, p 1, col 2-3.
[21] Carnegie Library for Local History, Boulder Public Library, “Augusta Mengedoht, 1911-1929,” history