“Fantastic . . . Sheds new light on the case . . . No stone is left unturned . . . Provides a remarkable snapshot of life in Cedar Rapids in the late 1940s” (The Gazette). Byron C. Hattman sealed his fate when he checked into the Roosevelt Hotel on December 13, 1948. A maid found his body in a blood-spattered room two days later. An investigation linked him to the young wife of St. Louis pediatrician Robert C. Rutledge, who confessed to the brutal attack after trying to poison himself. The scandal made national headlines and seemed like an easy case for the Linn County court. That is, until new evidence changed the story completely. Reporter and author Diane Fannon-Langton uncovers the truth and compiles the complete details of the Hattman slaying for the first time. Includes photos!
Stone City is a small community located near Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It was made famous by Grant Wood’s fantastical painting entitled, Stone City, Iowa, 1930. This novel is a work of historical fiction set in and around this charmed community during the summer of 1969. As their society is being torn apart by war, poverty, and racism, these star-crossed lovers will come together for one fateful week that will forever change the trajectory of their lives. Ashley Morgan, thirty-eight, married and mother of three, is in Cedar Rapids for an educational conference. But a chance encounter with Jaymes Fitzgerald, a free-spirited, twenty-four-year-old graduate student and consummate blues player quickly turns into a dinner invitation and an evening of “dancing on water”. The ease of their togetherness leads to an offer to ditch the conference to enjoy a day of exploration and untethered freedom. They visit historical Stone City, vestiges of Greene’s two-hundred-acre estate, and Jaymes’s favorite hangout – the town’s General Store Pub. Hearing stories of this folkloric town, Ashley learns about Eastern Iowa’s art community, which in part evolved from Grant Wood’s Art Colony Schools of the early ‘30s where Jaymes’s dad, a renowned regional artist from St. Paul’s warehouse district, had attended as a student. Hungering for more time together, the couple travel farther north on Jaymes’s fiery red, Indian Chief motorcycle to see many of Iowa’s scenic places and cultural interests. Throughout their odyssey filled with edgy scenes, they share long held secrets before returning for the conference’s concluding rooftop luau. After toasting their week of self-expression, they slip away to a private world of flickering candlelight and strains of Dvorak’s New World Symphony to assert their new-found love. Each was oblivious to their looming destinies in this emotionally charged story of two opposing truths.
Shots rang out in a prominent Pittsfield family home on the morning of August 20, 1900, ending the life of young socialite May Fosburgh. Who pulled the trigger was unclear, and the scandal captivated attention well beyond the Berkshires. Her brother was a top suspect, but the distraught family claimed an intruder was to blame. Investigators, media and the public struggled to make sense of conflicting details, including suspicious gunpowder residue, as the mystery remained unsolved. Author Frank J. Leskovitz unravels the tale that still lingers in the hills generations later.
