The Saga of Uncle Oscar or Be Careful What You Dig for…

One of the hazards of doing genealogy work (aside from getting poison ivy at the cemetery or paper cuts at the library) is digging up the occasional family skeleton. For me it’s not a problem. It’s those larger than life characters that make this kind of thing interesting, but there are those in my extended family tree who wouldn't be thrilled with my genealogical thoroughness. That has never stopped me though.

Grandma Alice, the great family storyteller, told me a tale about the infamous Uncle Oscar. Now, Oscar wasn't really my uncle, he was my grandfather’s first cousin. (My grandpa’s mother’s brother’s son…clear as mud?) So, what does that make him to me…a second cousin of some sort? I can never remember that once/twice removed stuff and have to map it out on a genealogy chart, but it really has nothing to do with this story, so I’ll move on.

According to Alice, Oscar robbed the same Savings and Loan in Columbia, Missouri three different times. Each time, he would run around to the alleyway behind the financial institution, discard his disguise in a garbage can and stroll nonchalantly back to the front of the building to watch all the excitement after the police arrived. Finally, after the third robbery, the cops realized old Uncle Oscar was always in the crowd. Alice said he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his antics.

After Alice died in 1997, I was talking to yet another distant cousin. I asked Cousin “P” about Uncle Oscar’s incarceration. Cousin “P” was absolutely mortified, said he knew Uncle Oscar well and had never heard such an inflammatory story about him. Umm…okay.

So, I called another distant cousin who lives in North Dakota. He, too, had known Uncle Oscar before his death but had never heard the prison story. However, he did tell me his mother had talked about how Uncle Oscar went missing for a few years and then just showed up one Thanksgiving with no explanation. He acted as though he’d never been gone. His wife, the long-suffering Mary Alice, claimed he had amnesia and just finally “woke up” and remembered where he lived. No one seemed to know where he was in the interim.

Having narrowed down a time frame (the 50s) with this second cousin, I started doing some digging. First I got a hold of my always helpful contact at the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) in the Midwest office. Tim helped me brainstorm the prisons where someone committed a crime in Columbia would end up. We decided the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City was the likeliest candidate.

Any records still around from that prison at that time are now held by the Missouri State Archives. So my next step was to contact them. Lo and behold, Uncle Oscar’s name was found on a roster of inmates (sadly, most of the other records have been destroyed.)

It seems Oscar was sentenced to 10 years for armed robbery, but only served about 3 ½ years. He was incarcerated on March 17, 1955. He was discharged on parole on October 28, 1958 with plenty of time to get home for Thanksgiving dinner.

And then I did some more digging and found a newspaper article that explains the “amnesia” story:

Note Tells Wife Husband Slugged

KANSAS CITY, Aug. 10 (AP)

A motor car belonging to a missing Columbia, Mo., man was found here Thursday night shortly after his wife got a letter in which the writer said he forced the man out of his car and “kissed him with my .45.”

The missing man, Oscar [last name withheld], 43, widely known salesman and ex-semipro baseball player, disappeared June 26 when he left home on a routine business trip.

The letter, postmarked Portland, Or., was signed “a hitchhiker with a conshun. [sic]”

Filled with misspelled words, the typewritten letter was addressed to Mrs. O. F. [last name withheld], Hiway 73, Columbia, Mo.

The writer said he had hitched a ride with “your husban, [sic]” and forced him out of the car west of Boonville, Mo., at a bridge. The writer said he hit the man with a gun and the victim “fell down the bank into the water.”

“I want you to know I didn't kill him unless he droned [sic] in the water,” the letter said. It stated where the writer left the man’s car in Kansas City. The car was found there.

“Your husband begged me to write so I am tipewriting [sic] it to you,” the letter said, “This fills my promise to write.”

Uh huh. Right. This explains everything. I think somebody may have made this up, but that's just a cynical guess on my part.

Grandma Alice always said the reason Oscar robbed the S&L was to keep his wife in the standard to which she had grown accustomed before their marriage. He always felt inadequate and that he couldn't earn enough money on his garage mechanic salary.

Oscar died in 1996. I’m sure at some point in my childhood I probably ran into him at a family reunion, but I can’t conjure up any sort of memory of him at all. I know him only through pictures and this one particular tale. But it's a good one.