A pair of contradictory diary entries, written five days apart in 1899 by George Weidner of Buffalo Grove, led two Lake County historians to uncover a murder mystery that shocked the area more than a century ago.
Marina Mayne, one of the historians, said Weidner was the owner of a general store at the time. He kept a diary of events in the community, writing on July 16, “George Krueger was shot by his wife who killed her mother and then herself.” She read another entry dated five days later.
“It read, ‘Krueger taken to Waukegan for murder trial,’” Mayne said.
Mayne, the registrar at the Raupp Museum in Buffalo Grove, and Debbie Fandrei, the museum’s director and the other historian, began a search of dozens of contemporaneous sources, including the News-Sun.
By the time the historians’ research was complete, they learned the wife and mother were shot to death, Krueger was tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison and paroled after 11 years, always maintaining his innocence.
Fandrei and Mayne were two of the presenters at the first session of the 11th-annual Lake County History Symposium, presented online Thursday, with a second and final session slated for 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 15 online, with three more presentations about the area’s past.
Held each year through the Dunn Museum, Sarah Salto, a school program specialist there, said the symposium is an opportunity for people to learn about history around Lake County and its relevance today. The museum in Libertyville is operated by the Lake County Forest Preserves.
“We want to bring people together to learn about stories about our past, and how it is important to our community today,” Salto said.
Mayne and Fandrei took a deep dive into life in Buffalo Grove, as well as other parts of Ela and Vernon townships in 1899, to learn what really happened. Krueger, his wife and mother-in-law farmed land in what is Long Grove today.
Once Krueger was arrested and jailed at the county seat in Waukegan, the newspapers started writing about it. Fandrei and Mayne found stories from local papers at the time, including the News-Sun. Accounts varied.
Krueger ran from his farm, and came to a neighbor’s residence, claiming he was shot by his wife. He did have bullet wounds. The coroner performed an autopsy with many people watching, but did not opine whether it was murder. The sheriff became suspicious and Krueger was arrested.
Fandrei said learning about Krueger’s trial helped her understand and impart to others how life was different then and how society has evolved in the last 125 years. The jury consisted of all men.
“Women could not vote yet,” Fandrei said. “Jurors were selected from the voter rolls (as they are today). Women couldn’t vote, so the jury was all men.”
Along with learning about Krueger and his family, Jenny Barry of the Libertyville Historical Society enlightened people about how she learned that a portrait long hanging in the home of Ansel B. Cook, a 19th-century industrialist, was more likely the likeness of Cook’s sons-in-law than him.
After the son-in-law’s great-great-grandson thought the portrait resembled his relative, Barry decided to learn who the man portrayed was. She delved into the artist and whether he was around at the appropriate time.
Before Barry made her presentation, Patricia Mooney-Melvin, an associate professor of history at Loyola University in Chicago, talked about the relationship of local history to national and world events, and its relevance today.
“Like politics, all history is local,” Mooney-Melvin said. “You look at documents and find out about your community. You find out what was important then and build an identity. You learn how what is current is relevant to your history.”
During the second session of the symposium this Thursday, people will learn about the life of Ray Bradbury from the author’s own notes, the town which was once Half Day and how two cookbooks once created a relationship between Highland and Park Ridge.
Ty Rohrer, the cultural arts manager for the Waukegan Park District and a member of the board of the Waukegan Historical Society, will talk about events from the Waukegan-born author’s life from his 1981 daybook. It has notes on some of his “famous friends.”
Catherine Lambrecht and Nancy Webster of the Highland Park Historical Society will talk about cookbooks written in 1935. One was to raise money for a girls’ school in Park Ridge, and the other to build an auditorium for Highland Park’s West Ridge Community Club. The books were found on eBay.
Diana Dretske, the Dunn Museum’s curator, will talk about the 19th-century community of Half Day which now only exists in road names.
