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| Englewood Hospital |
On October 24, 1923, 19-year-old Lydia Nelson was brought to Chicago's Englewood Hospital by her husband. He was alarmed by her condition, which had deteriorated since October 8, when she had undergone an abortion. In a written statement, Lydia identified her abortionist as by Dr. Charles Klinetop.
According to public records, Lydia was the daughter of immigrants from England. She was born in Massachusetts. She had married her husband in March of 2021. The couple had a son later that year.
Lydia died on October 30.
During the inquest held October 31, Mrs. Emma Sales leaped up, slapped Klinetop's face, declared that her daughter, Mrs. Harriett Grimm, had died exactly a year earlier after an abortion he had perpetrated.
On January 15, 1924, Klinetop was indicted by a grand jury for felony murder in Lydia's death. He admitted that he had treated Lydia once at her home but denied any criminal responsibility for her condition.
Back in 1912, he had been identified by a coroner's jury as the doctor responsible for the abortion death of Minnie Miller. Klinetop was evidently making bank as an abortionist -- in October of 1923 his wife, Venus, was the victim of a purse snatcher who got away with $12,000 worth of jewels (over a quarter of a million in 2025). According to the American Medical Association, Klinetop graduated from Hering Medical College in Chicago in 1894.
According to public records, Klinetop was born in Iowa in 1864 to Edwin and Emmah Bassett Klinetop. His father was a farmer and his mother was a homemaker. He had one older brother, two younger brothers, a younger sister, and a younger half-brother. He married Vienna "Venus" Waite in Chicago in April of 1903. Klinetop relocated to Pasadena, California after Lydia's death. He died of myocarditis in 1938 at the age of 74, five months after the death of his wife.
Lydia's abortion was typical of criminal abortions in that it was performed by a physician.
Sources:
- Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database
- "Purse Snatcher in Loop Gets $12,000 Jewels," Chicago Daily Tribune, October 6, 1923
- "Arrest Doctor on Charge Made by Young Wife," Chicago Daily Tribune, October 15, 1923
- "Woman Attacks Doctor Accused of Operations," Chicago Daily Tribune, November 1, 1923
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