A Drunkard Sold His Mother's Grave for Whiskey Money

Mr. Perkins and Fred Gasch applied for an injunction in the superior court yesterday restraining Andrew C. Freeborn and Arthur Schmieg from removing the bodies of Augusta Schmieg and Ernst Picht, mother and uncle respectively of Arthur Schmieg, from their resting place in Lake View cemetery.

The petition states that Arthur Schmieg, the son and heir, by riotous living went through his fortune of $75,000, and in the course of his wildness became indebted to Andrew Freeborn for liquor. Freeborn, on December 14, 1894, induced him to deed to him, in payment for the liquor, the lot in which his mother and uncle were interred years ago. When Freeborn presented the deed to Cemetery Officer Palmer and asked for a permit to remove the bodies, it was promptly refused. Freeborn then petitioned the court for a writ of mandamus against Palmer to show cause why he should not issue the permit.

The complaint states that the reasons given by Schmieg for deeding the lot to Freeborn were that on December 24, 1894, being in want of the necessaries of life, and being unable to properly keep such a large lot as the one in which the bodies were buried, he sold it to Freeborn for a valuable consideration, with the distinct and verbal understanding that Freeborn should be permitted to disinter and remove the remains of his mother and Picht to any lot selected. It is alleged that Freeborn and Schmieg have removed the headstones. In two affidavits Schmieg states that he is the nearest living relative of the deceased persons, and believes that in objecting to the granting of the permit, the plaintiffs are interfering with his rights to the free enjoyment of his estate in the lot in order to compel him to purchase it for less than its real value.

It is alleged that the plaintiffs, Mrs. Gasch and Mrs. Perkins, are the only representatives, besides Schmieg, of Augusta Schmieg and Ernst Picht. Mr. Gasch being a brother of Mrs. Schmieg, and Mrs. Perkins the wife of Picht, and they state they are charged with the duty of preserving the graves from desecration. They say that Arthur Schmieg never knew his uncle, and owing to the death of his mother when he was but an infant and the fact that he was reared from infancy in a foreign country with persons totally unacquainted with his mother, the influence of Freeborn over him and his dissipated and spendthrift habits are the reasons given in the complaint for his apparent unnatural disregard for the memory of his mother and uncle.

The complaint asks that the defendant be restrained from removing the bodies until an application can be made for an injunction, and that on the final hearing an injunction be granted restraining Freeborn from removing the bodies or in any way interfering with the repose of the dead; that Schmieg and Freeborn be compelled to replace the headstones, and that the deed be declared null and void.

Judge Langley granted the restraining order as asked for, and set the hearing for Monday morning.