Dell Continues To Elude Us...

…or is that “delude”?

Despite hours of research and reams of data uncovered, we’re no closer to knowing what happened to Dell than we were when I first wrote this.

All the other players in our little drama have been largely accounted for, their lives spelled out in official documents and newspaper articles.

William C Powers finally settled down and married Callista O’Dell, living first in New York City, then spending the remainder of his days in Syracuse NY. Settling down was no small feat for Will. Will had, what is known today euphemistically as “a zipper problem”. Many  details of this have come to light – the newspapers then, as now, seemed to delight in the foibles of the wealthy. He was successfully sued by Sadie Eakins in London for breach of promise. It seems he'd asked her to marry him and bought her an engagement ring and everything. The only fly in the ointment was that he was still married to Dell. He was later sued by another woman for the same reason.... while he was in Japan, living with yet another woman. That's on top of Rose Phelps who he disappeared with earlier, while married to Dell.  William died in Syracuse in 1935.

Daniel D Powers was living in Colesville NY in July of 1896 with Dell’s newly discovered relatives when she wrote the letter to her cousin that touched off this whole “investigation”. Ten years later, he turns up living in NYC, boarding with someone we believe to be a family friend. We suspect that he was going to college, but have, as yet, been unable to verify that. After that, he listed his address with William and Callista,in Syracuse but was only there sporadically. He worked for a time as a draftsman at “the auto works” in Syracuse NY (possibly Franklin).  He continued his nomadic lifestyle, taking work as an engineer in a power plant in Watertown NY, (where he lived with his cousin Fred) a paper mill in Oswego NY, a paper mill in India, and Shanghai China. When his father died, his stepmother moved back to Watertown (where her family roots were). He went with her. He eventually retired to Culpeper VA, living at the Lord Culpeper Hotel for a time before buying his first and only home in Culpeper. When his health took a turn for the worse, he sold his house and ended up at the Hill Haven nursing home in DeWitt NY, near his cousin Fred, who presumably looked after him during the last year of his life. He died a bachelor November 4 1971.

Dell’s mother Sarah Pratt and her father William A Morgan continue to be a bit of a mystery. We believe Sarah’s first husband E Orlo Reed went West and “forgot” to come back, eventually remarrying. When William Morgan came into the picture, and whether he actually married Sarah remains unsure. We do have a census entry from 1865, showing William, Sarah and Dell living in Colesville. The census lists William’s birthplace as Schoharie County NY and we found a very likely candidate in the 1860 census listing for a “William Morgan” of the right age, in Richmondville NY. What’s extremely curious about the 1865 census entry is that Sarah lists “marriage” and “children” as “one” each, completely overlooking her marriage to Orlo AND her other child - Dell’s stepbrother Henry (who was living with Sarah’s parents at the time). Very shortly after Sarah’s death, William took Dell and moved on, despite making a good living as a “farmer and sawyer”. Given that Sarah’s father “neglected” to include either Dell's birth OR William and Sarah's marriage in the family Bible records, it’s quite possible there was bad blood there. 

Dell herself continues to remain a cipher. Her last confirmed whereabouts was the Morello Hotel in NYC from where she wrote to her cousin in Colesville. In that letter, she stated that she would be coming “home” (her choice of words) for the 4^th of July and then would be going on a trip to “England and then Buenos Aires”. 

Then she disappears.

The only further clue is that in August of 1900, she or someone, sold the eight grave plots she had purchased in 1895  in the Mount Hope cemetery in Rochester NY.

Somewhere, between July of 1896 and August of 1900, something of great importance happened. Try though we may, we still don’t know what that was. The only reason you sell a grave plot is because you don’t need it. This means either you’ve died and are buried elsewhere or no longer wish to be buried there – you have other plans.

I can’t help feeling that the little smirk on her face in this picture is at least in part, directed towards those of us on the trail of what happened to her. I have a feeling she’s taking great delight in all this.

....It USED To Be A Fun Place To Work...

In twenty years at one place I've seen a lot of changes, I've seen a lot of people come and go, and I've watched it slip from a place I cared about to a place I'm ambivalent about, at best.

When I first started there, the boss was probably the biggest asshole I have ever worked for. Not only did he run the place with an iron hand, he was the biggest perfectionist/nitpicker I have ever known. No matter how well you did something, he always managed to find fault with it. If he couldn't find fault, he just said nothing. No "good job/nice work", not even a "thanks". Worst came to worst, he could always tell you you did it too slowly.

He was a very prickly person and a bit of a loose cannon. He thought nothing of telling the company president that something was stupid, even if it was the CEO's pet project. He also was known for being merciless on someone he perceived as "weak". (He "rode" one of the guys to the point where one of the other guys went home and told his wife "Y'know, if John kills Andy, I'm going to have to testify in his defense...") I know at least three guys who quit because of him and another who actually picked him up by the throat....

BUT, he wasn't one of those people who couldn't walk the walk - he's probably THE best toolmaker I've ever worked with. If he said he could do something better/faster, chances are he probably could. You've got to at least respect that. He also pushed me to do the best work I've ever done.

Then, they screwed him over on a couple of raises, and he began realize that being such a taskmaster wasn't getting him anywhere and he started to mellow. We also learned how to "handle" him. I made a pretty profound discovery one day when he was chewing my ass for screwing something up: he said: "...WHY DID YOU DO THIS????"(Like I did it on purpose). In exasperation, I said: "TO PISS YOU OFF!" He stopped, said, "...yeah, you probably did..." and walked away. I stopped him in mid-bitch! After that, I realized if you just let him rant and acted like you didn't give a shit, he backed off and left you alone. Apparently if he couldn't make you cower or fight back, it was no fun.

We had a really good crew of six in the shop. Everyone worked well together and we had FUN. It was the biggest crew of ballbusters I have ever worked with, but it was all in fun. (Recently, my son's girlfriend's brother worked in a department just outside mine and he asked one of the other guys in his department "What do they do in there?" The response was "Oh, don't go in there - they'll make you cry!")

I have never seen pranks taken to the level of finesse they were with this crew:

One of the guys was known to eat sardines. My buddy George waited until he (Stanley) threw his sardine can in the trash and then went and got it and stashed it in the boss's office. Guess who got blamed? He did that once or twice, and then, realizing it would be obvious someone was trying to get Stanley blamed if he did it again, took the can out of the trash and set it on the floor in front of the garbage and said "Watch this...." Sure enough, the boss came in, saw the can on the floor and started yelling at Stanley "Can't you even put this thing in the trash????"

Stanley took an air cylinder, submerged it underwater and pulled the piston back (like a hypodermic), then hooked it to the supply cabinet door. His only miscalculation came because he's taller than me - when I opened the door, the water shot harmlessly over my shoulder.

There were multi-part, reciprocal pranks too: Stanley had a plastic gallon jug of pennies on his bench. George had a box under his bench for his empty soda cans. Stanley used to put his cans in there, too, but he'd leave a little soda in the cans, to make a sticky mess in the box. George caught on and took to waiting until Stanley wasn't around, then going and dumping the little bit of soda in Stanley's pennies. (I also "donated" some leftover epoxy to the penny jug). I almost pissed myself the day I walked in and saw Stanley pounding a basketball-sized chunk of pennies on the floor, trying to break them up....

The maddest I ever saw the boss was the day they took the pins out of the hinges on the supply cabinet door. He went to open the door, it fell off and hit him in the head. He took the door, threw it in the corner, put his coat on and went home.

I came close - one time the boss had an ad for a machinery auction on his desk, that he'd torn out of the newspaper. I "replaced" it with a section torn out of the gay personal ads in the Syracuse New Times. I'm glad I wasn't in the room when he found it - I wouldn't have been able to keep a straight face. They said he came storming out of his office, threw the ad, stomped back in the office, came storming out, picked it up and threw it again and stomped back in his office.

I also had him pretty worked up when he had a cassette player in his office - he had some sort of financial seminar on tape he was listening to and I switched it with some Ronald McDonald cassette my kid got in a Happy Meal.

Sticking stuff on people's coats was the rage for a while. Take a chunk of the cotton wadding our cores come packed in, a bent paper clip to make an "s" hook and some tape and you have a very nice little bunny tail to hang on someone's belt loop. I also know "somehow" that if you do a little judicious Xacto knife surgery on the lettering on the side of a box of Butter Lover's microwave popcorn, you can make a big, bright, yellow sign that says "Butt Lover". I also "heard" that ideal time to place this on someone's coat is lunchtime on Thursday - that way everyone waiting at the time clock to punch out AND THE PEOPLE AT THE BANK, get to appreciate your handiwork.

"Buttercup" made the mistake of leaving his umbrella in the shop unattended. Stanley tied tampons all around the perimeter and tucked them in.  Didn't get to see it, but it must have looked like one of those Mexican hats, when he opened it....

One of the guys was never without a toothpick in his mouth, so "someone" took several of them from his box, ran them through a jalapeno a few times and put them back in the box.....

Greasing machine handles got passe so I elaborated a bit: grease one handle, and then remove all the rags in the vincinity except one.... and grease the hell out of the rag.

Got a bag (lunch, whatever) you're taking home? Don't leave it out, or someone will "add" something to it, preferably something you'll need and have to lug BACK in....

And so on.... 

This kind of stuff was constant, but never mean, never destructive. Always fun.

So what happened?.....

A few whiners, and a whole lot of Kool - Aid drinkers.  That's all it took. 

Used to be, if you got pranked, you didn't whine about it, you just got revenge. If you weren't sure who did it, you just took the shotgun approach and got them all.  All it took was one person, who whined to HR when he took some guff, whined to the company president that he was being picked on.  Now the games took on a nastier edge.

All it took was a few people to drink the corporate Kool Aid, to believe the Corporate Bullshit being handed out in quarterly meetings, which were more and more straight out of Dilbert every time. 

Game over.