The Respectable Olympia Doctor Who May Have Been a Missing Iowa Treasurer
After Dr. S. C. Smith died in Olympia, an old army comrade wrote to ask whether the beloved physician was really Dr. S. C. Thompson, who vanished from Leon, Iowa, in 1872.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The following communication was received today by Post Commander W. H. Roberts in relation to the recent death of Dr. S. C. Smith of this city, which shows how highly the deceased was esteemed by those who were acquainted with him:
KINGMAN, Kansas, November 18, 1891.
DEAR COMRADE: I see in a newspaper of November 14th the notice of the death, in your city, of Dr. S. C. Smith, who seems to have been in reality Dr. S. C. Thompson. I write you for all the information you can give as to the truth or untruth of the statement. About 1872, Dr. S. C. Thompson was missing from Leon, Iowa, being then county treasurer. He was my captain in Company H, 5th Kansas Cavalry, Volunteers, during the late war. I was his deputy treasurer nearly all of his two terms, and was appointed to finish his term by the county commissioners. He was my father’s family physician from about 1852 or 1853 on. He was one of the best men on earth. But he had troubles. All these nineteen years I have been dreaming of him and studying about him. It has been a query all this time what had become of him. His defalcation would have been nothing if he had remained at the office, but his successor was his political antagonist and had an associate in the proper place to make a big show in his absence. I have his photograph, which I will be pleased to send you to compare, or can you by some hook or crook send me a little of his writing, as I would know that, or any particulars you can give me. I would have gone to China to see him. There is no human being on earth I would rather have seen. Hoping to hear from you in reasonable time, yours in F. C. L.,
C. B. JORDAN, Adjutant Kingman Post, No. 265, Dept. of Kansas.
““All these nineteen years I have been dreaming of him and studying about him. It has been a query all this time what had become of him.””
A respected local death becomes a cold-case puzzle: was the physician who tended Olympia really a county official who fled Iowa two decades earlier? The letter shows how newspapers served as the internet of their day, circulating identities and old scandals across the country.
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