Two Historic Chicago Deaths

On January 6, 1905, a young woman was found dead in a ditch near Dunning, Illinois. The body was taken to an undertaking establishment, where it remained until nearly a month later, when the dead woman was identified by her siblings as 28-year-old Ida Vierow. It was determined that she had died January 6, 1905, from an abortion performed in Chicago. Two midwives, Amella Maichrowicz and Anna Becker, were arrested, along with Maichrowicz's husband, Joseph. The Maichrowiczs, who ran an unlicensed hospital in Melrose Park, were arrested near the end of February.


On January 6, 1924, 26-year-old Helen Koss died at Norwegian American Hospital of complications from an abortion perpetrated in Chicago on December 30, 1923, by midwife Emma Morch, who was arrested, and indicted for homicide by a grand jury.

Keep in mind that things that things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future.