This is not a happy Christmas story.



The Good Fellows was an organization with chapters throughout the country. The one in Kansas City organized in 1909. The focus was to make sure no child woke up on Christmas morning to face an empty stocking. The group asked for people to donate gifts rather than money.

Ten days before Christmas in 1915 a woman and her five children carried bundles of presents into the Good Fellows office in the Gumbel Building at 8th and Walnut. The bundles of presents contained “worn clothes, shoes, a set of blocks, a book and some old, old tin toys.”

The woman was a widow who worked every day. We don’t know her name. We know that she simply asked the Good Fellow people to make sure that the gifts went to poor children, and we know that she was able to work to provide for her family’s livelihood because she could leave her children at the Institutional Church, a Methodist church that, among other forms of outreach to those dealing with hard times, provided daily care for children of families that had a special need.

Members of the Women’s City League raised money to buy shoes for needy children as part of the League’s Community Christmas program.

The newspapers shared many other such stories, both from the Kansas City area and from throughout the United States.

But the stories from Christmastime that year were not all wholesome and uplifting.

In Kansas City’s juvenile court Judge Edward Porterfield presided over a trial concerning Mrs. Julia Anna Baker’s alleged mismanagement and misappropriation of funds in her position as head of the Joseph Walter Home. The prosecution presented evidence that Mrs. Baker was the object of similar complaints in other cities in which she had headed other homes for orphans. Witnesses told of seeing children standing in the rain or waiting barefoot in the cold to receive nourishment, of searching garbage cans to find something to eat.

When he issued his decision on Christmas Eve, Judge Porterfield determined, in a newspaper’s summary, that “the evidence showed the children had been neglected, were allowed to beg for food and money, and that the home was improperly managed.” He also ruled that Mrs. Baker “exploited children for her own personal gratification.”

Overlapping the story of Mrs. Baker’s trial was the story of Helen Keller.

Not the Helen Keller you’re thinking of, whose childhood story gave us The Miracle Worker—though that Helen Keller does make a small appearance in our story.

Kansas City’s Helen Keller was a little girl, not quite two, whose family had fallen apart not too long before the events of our story.

Although the Kansas City Star identifies Helen’s father as John Keller, official documents give his first name as Charles. Born in Germany about 1865, he immigrated to the United States in 1887. Helen’s mother was born in 1878 in Sweden as Hannah Erickson, and immigrated in 1896. Charles worked as a hod carrier according to the 1910 census and newspaper accounts. In some city directories he is listed as a bricklayer. The 1910 census lists Hannah’s occupation as “none.”

That census tells us that they had been married 10 years.

Helen had four siblings, though the 1910 census indicates that there had been two others who had already died, so Mrs. Keller had given birth to seven offspring by the end of 1914.

The oldest, Mabel, was born in 1902, and Herman, the older of two brothers, in 1904, followed by Roy in 1906. The middle daughter, Ruby or Elma (she is identified by both names in the newspaper stories), was born in 1911 or 1912, while Helen came on New Year’s Eve of 1913.

Mrs. Keller was later described as a good woman at heart, but one who had been plagued with a growing problem of alcoholism and a subsequent moral decline.

Sometime during the summer of 1915 she abandoned her family.

With Hannah’s leaving, Charles Keller quickly realized he could not take care of all five children by himself. Mabel stayed with Mrs. Gus Nelson. He had initially tried to keep the younger four with him, but then moved Ruby and Helen to the Institutional Church.

Herman and Roy attended Karnes School, where about 98% of the students were the children of immigrants. The school served a free lunch to the students and had shower facilities open to both the students and, in the evening, their parents. With these things available, it is possible that the brothers remained with their father.

After three months a “probation officer” told Charles he had to find a different residence for the younger girls. He briefly placed Helen at a home in Independence, then Mrs. Nelson suggested he ask Mrs. Elizabeth Larkin if she would foster Helen, and when he spoke to her, Mrs. Larkin agreed to help.

In news stories of the time Mrs. Larkin’s husband, like Mr. Keller, was referred to with two different given names—James and Benjamin. He and Elizabeth Scott married two years earlier on June 19, 1913. On their marriage license he signed his name as “James B. Larkin,” so Benjamin may well have been his middle name.

The marriage license raises another inconsistency in our story. The information shared in the articles shows Mrs. Larkin as seven or eight years older than her husband, with him as 22 in 1915 and her as 35 or 36. The information on the marriage license, though, gives his age in 1913 as 29 and hers as 32, just a three year difference.

The timeline of the early events of the story is somewhat vague, with some disagreements on facts as presented in the day’s different newspapers. Charles said he visited Helen often, but Mrs. Larkin gave a very different account, saying that he returned once shortly after bringing Helen to her, and then didn’t come again until the week before Christmas.

On December 20 Charles went to the home of Mrs. Larkin’s in-laws and, appalled at what he saw, went to the Institutional Church and asked Dr. J.E. Hunt to look at Helen. The Star reported that when he arrived, Dr. Hunt “found the case so much more dangerous than he had anticipated and the conditions in which she was living so bad he took the child immediately in his car to Mercy Hospital.

Mrs. Larkin went with him. She later raised this as evidence that she had not performed the offenses with which she would later be charged. Why would she go to the hospital with the doctor if she had done those things?

One of the officials at the hospital called her condition “The worst case of abuse we ever received at Mercy Hospital.”

The story came to public attention on the 21st, when the Star ran a page two article, “A Baby Girl of 2 Beaten?”

The doctors concluded that the child had been healthy before receiving vicious beatings. Her legs and bowels were paralyzed, she was badly bruised over most of her body, and “in many places the skin was torn off.”

This last was stated by Anna A. Anderson, an investigator for Mercy Hospital. She had sworn out the warrant on the 23rd, and the police arrested Mrs. Larkin. Miss Anderson brought in several neighbors as witnesses for Deputy Prosecutor James Kilroy to question. These shared stories of seeing Mrs. Larkin beating Helen for disobedience on numerous occasions. Gertrude Burns said that she had seen Mrs. Larkin whip Helen with a razor strop for simply asking for a drink of water.

The drinking of water seemed to be a regular problem for Mrs. Larkin. Pearl Peck told of seeing her striking Helen’s bare skin after having stripped off the girl’s undergarments, using a board that measured 18 inches x 2 inches x 1½ inches. She said that Mrs. Larkin had used the board on Helen the week before, when Larkin had come to Peck’s home to do her wash and, while there, the child begged for a drink of water.

Bessie Armstrong, landlady to Mr. and Mrs. Larkin, reported giving the couple a month’s notice in November, telling them they would have to vacate because the constant wails had become unendurable.

One wonders why none of these neighbors ever contacted the authorities.

Mrs. Larkin became enraged when she heard Mrs. Peck’s account, screaming at her that she was a liar, and that she had a notion to kill her neighbor.

She claimed that the baby was diseased, and this was the reason for the bruises and blotches, that she had never whipped it, though she had accidentally stepped on it once when she was backing up. She said the baby fell a lot, and that was the cause of the skin being torn off.

Judge Charles H. Clark presided at the arraignment. He ordered Mrs. Larkin held without bail, saying, “If the child dies, a charge of murder will be placed against Mrs. Larkin.”

Mrs. Larkin objected that she had “a mother’s feeling” and would never hurt a child, that she had a son from her first husband, though they hadn’t seen each other for three years.

She was put in jail, where she complained to fellow prisoners that she was being framed by welfare workers.

Most people thought that the charge would soon be murder.

Helen’s chances were grave; while she apparently was feeling safer with the white-capped nurses, when a woman wearing regular clothes stopped beside her bed, Helen became terrified. Staff members thought that she must have perceived the woman as Elizabeth Larkin.

Dr. Katherine Berry Richardson, who had founded the hospital with her sister, Dr. Alice Berry Graham, appeared to be taken with Helen, saying, “The baby is just as bright as she can be.” She went on to say, though, “But she hardly can live. The treatment we are giving her is prolonging her life … but the chance for her recovery is so very slight it hardly can be called a chance.”

During this time reporters discovered that Helen’s sister Ruby was also being treated at Mercy for the results of physical abuse, though it was not anywhere near as harsh as what Helen had gone through.

Christmas was coming hard upon Kansas City, and Mrs. Larkin, according to the Star, spent her time in jail sewing doll’s clothes to be given as gifts. The Journal said she was also making baby clothes for a Christmas charity. The reporter from the Journal who interviewed her for the article that appeared in the Christmas Eve edition described Mrs. Larkin as sewing “rapidly with skilled fingers on dainty muslins and knitted hoods.” As the Star put it, “She continues to deny the statement of neighbors that she mistreated the child.”

Christmas Eve was also the day that the doctors at Mercy Hospital who had worked with Helen were going to determine whether or not to operate on her.

They decided not to operate. They felt that Helen’s condition was so grave that an operation would do no good, and she would probably die on the operating table.

Dr. Richardson expressed anger at the reluctance of the neighbors to step forward when it would have done Helen some good. She was quoted in the Journal as saying, “It was a ‘neighborhood murder.’ Everybody waited for somebody else to notify the authorities. Nobody did. All are equally culpable, but it is an old story, often told in Kansas City and elsewhere.” It was reported that investigation by the hospital’s inspectors convinced them that at least 30 people were “willing to swear—now—” that Mrs. Larkin had brutally beaten Helen “on every possible pretext.” At Mr. Keller’s behest, Prosecutor Kilroy instructed police to arrest Mrs. Larkin’s husband. (Mr. Larkin’s name was James B. Larkin. Sometimes he was referred to as Benjamin Larkin.)

Mrs. Larkin had read some of the articles that had appeared in the newspapers, and refused to meet with any reporters, screaming at a photographer, “You can’t take my picture! I won’t have it. Get out of here!”

That same evening, though, Dr. Robert Schauffler said that Helen’s condition had improved.

This view seemed to be supported the next day, Christmas morning. Helen smiled.

The hospital ward had Christmas decorations—holly, mistletoe, paper bells, with a tiny Christmas tree in the center of the ward. (It was actually a branch.) Some presents sat beside Helen—a rubber dog, a small doll, and a “kitty book.”

Though with paralyzed legs, she propped herself up on one elbow and gave forth what one nurse called “such an awakening gurgle from that sad little heart that I never heard anything that made me so sad and yet so happy.”

In the next few days Mr. Larkin was arrested. He acknowledged that he had often questioned his wife about the spots and bruises on Helen’s face and body, and that his wife admitted to whipping the child. According to the Times he also said he had seen her punish Helen about six times, but had never seen her beaten. The Journal, on the other hand quotes him as telling Chief Ghent, “During the four months that we have had the baby, I have not seen my wife whip her more than half a dozen times.”

X-rays taken by Dr. Martha Bacon on December 27 showed a blood clot the size of a pea on the spinal cord, which Dr. Charles C. Denny (spelled “Dennie” in the Journal), pathologist for the hospital, said had been caused by the beatings. Drs. Bacon and Denny agreed that there was “no hope of complete recovery,” and that the clot might cause complications and her death.

Mrs. Larkin continued to deny that she had ever done anything more than spank Helen with her hand, though she did refer to the spanking as “whipping.” When being interviewed by a reporter from the Star, she is said to have often given way to sobbing, though the unnamed reporter pointedly tells the reader that the sobs were always for herself and not for the baby.

The reporter also shares that Mrs. Larkin never had “a real father and mother; never a real home; never a relative on earth ….”

On December 29 the Star reported that Helen had made some continued improvement. The bruising about her face had faded, and she was described as “rapidly emerging from the cloud of apprehension that has dimmed her little mind.” The paralysis in her legs remained, though the personality of a “gurgling, happy, sweet-tempered child” was emerging, and she was becoming “beloved” by all the nurses.

There was a hint of hope that an operation still might be possible.

During the evening of December 30, E.R. Weeks, the president of the Kansas City Humane Society added his voice to that of Dr. Richardson and others saying that those who knew of the beatings and did not report them were “at least in part responsible for the injury” suffered by Helen that was “almost sure to result in (her) death.”

On the day of New Year’s Eve, Mr. Larkin was arraigned before Judge Cark, charged with “assault with intent to kill.” His preliminary hearing was set for the next Friday, and his bail was set at $5,000, which he was unable to pay.

Mrs. Larkin’s preliminary hearing was supposed to take place that same morning. A large number of people had gathered in the courthouse some hours before the scheduled start of the hearing, crowding the halls and stairways. When she finally arrived, the deputies who surrounded Mrs. Larkin had to force a tight path through the crowd in order to get the prisoner into the courtroom.

Larkin’s attorney, R.B. Kirwan, requested a continuance, saying he had only been hired two days before. The prosecuting attorney, Virgil Yates, argued against the continuance, but Judge Clark granted it, announcing that the preliminary hearing would take place the next Friday without fail.

After the New Year, Judge Clark severed the case against Mr. Larkin from that of his wife.

When it came time for the actual trial, Judge Latshaw presided.

On June 12, 1916, the lawyers selected a jury. The trial required slightly over two days, ending just past midnight on June 14. All twelve jurors were men, with a wide range of occupations represented. They were the twelve out of 24 who had said that they had not made up their minds, that they would issue a verdict based only on the evidence presented during the trial.

Prosecutor Floyd Jacobs, in his initial addresses to the jury pool began by recounting what had happened to Helen Keller. Elizabeth Larkin sat stone faced at the start of his presentation, but as he continued and the facts accumulated, his words began to have an impact, causing her to lower her head and finally cover her face.

Helen herself would appear in the trial—not as a witness, but as Exhibit A.

Hannah, Helen’s mother, was scheduled to appear as a witness for the defense.

The first witnesses that afternoon were those, like Pearl Peck, who testified about what they had seen during the weeks leading up to Helen’s trip to the hospital.

Charles Keller testified to the events that came after his wife’s leaving. He was followed by Mrs. Peck and Dr. Richardson. The former described in detail what she had observed when Mrs. Larkin continually struck Helen for refusing to sleep and for asking for a cup of water. Dr. Richardson testified of Helen’s condition when she first arrived at Mercy hospital heavy with paralysis, of an eye “blackened clear to the cheek,” of massive bruising on the neck, the arms, thighs, and ankles, as well as “noticeably heavy discolorations” along Helen’s spine. She said Helen’s legs “hung like rags.”

The Larkin lawyers raised the question of whether the paralysis might have been caused by a hereditary disease. Dr. Richardson responded strongly that all of the tests showed Helen had absolutely no disease. In this Dr. Dennie supported Dr. Richardson, saying that they had conducted a number of tests that ruled out any disease or other cause for the paralysis other than the physical abuse to which she had been subjected.

Mrs. Nelson testified that Helen had been healthy when the Larkins took her into their care.

The first witness of June 13 was Emma Anderson, a nurse from Mercy Hospital. She carried Helen to the witness stand, where she sat, holding the child so the jury could see her. Helen’s body and face were all but emaciated, with pale, tight skin. She struggled to shape a smile. Her hands were described as looking like bird claws. The witness told of Helen’s condition when she had arrived at the hospital, the extent of the bruising, and the start of a continuing weight loss. No, none of this could have been caused by a fall.

When one of the Larkin attorneys suggested that Helen’s condition was caused by hemophilia, Dr. Richardson was called for rebuttal. She said that to be certain she and Dr. Dennie tested Helen’s blood the night before. It had clotted within two minutes. Dr. Dennie had corroborated this.

Elizabeth Larkin, wearing a gray and black silk dress she had made herself in jail, testified in her own defense in the late afternoon, often sobbing and weeping. The assistant prosecutor referred to “these false tears” when speaking to the jury. Under direct examination she said that she had never refused to give Helen water, but under cross-examination she admitted that she had refused several times. She denied everything prosecution witnesses had said.

The defense presented the rest of their case in an evening session, in which the defense went on the offensive, saying that the building fund committee had used Helen and her injuries to raise money for the hospital. This caused vehement and clamorous applauding from three women from the Union mission of independence, all three defense witnesses, including Mrs. Longbine, who was the superintendent of the mission.

Judge Latshaw had them arrested.

When the evidence had all been presented he ruled that it did not warrant the charge of assault with intent to kill, so he instructed the jury to consider the charge of felonious assault, which had a maximum sentence of five years.

Once the jury began their deliberations they reached a verdict of guilty in just over half an hour.

This might have been the end of the story had Helen died as she had been expected to.

She lived for another seven years.

And she lived those seven years in Mercy Hospital.

As time went on she got stronger, but she was always fragile. Physically. But she also grew stronger, much stronger emotionally and in her depth.

And this is where we bring the other, the famous Helen Keller into the story.

Back in December of 1915, a day after the story broke in the newspapers, the Kansas City Star printed the following, written by that other, more famous Helen Keller—

Like the famous Helen Keller, Kansas City’s Helen Keller rose above what life had dealt her. Through the years this broken little girl healed—not her physical self.

No, she healed others.

She became a very important presence in her adopted home, Mercy Hospital, for that is where she lived for the rest of her life.

In those years she began to reach out to the other children who came to her home for operations and the facing of other challenges. She became a skilled, compassionate listener, giving those other children someone to whom they could talk, with whom they could share their fears.

So, as those other children would come and go from Mercy Hospital, Kansas City’s Helen Keller stayed, making this safe place even safer with her presence. She lived seven years and two months after being taken to the hospital, dying on February 15, 1923, at nine years old of pneumonia.

The nurses had come to love Helen, for her warm, caring spirit and for her bravery. When she died the hospital administration announced that they would adjust the work schedule, basically running a skeleton crew, so all the nurses who wished could attend her funeral.

Many, many did.

Helen was buried in Forest Hill Cemetery.

She was a little girl who overcame enormous challenges and made a difference in the lives of others.

That was the miracle.

© John Arthur Horner, 2015