February 15: Lucy Hagenow and the Five-Day Bride

Nina Harding Pierce

On February 10, 1925, Nina Ruth Harding and Logan F. Pierce ran away to Chicago and were married in a private ceremony performed by Rev. S. D. White of St. Paul's Methodist Church. Two school friends served as witnesses. 

Nina, age 20, was a sophomore at the University of Illinois. Logan, age 22, was a recent graduate. He worked in a brokerage firm. Nina was a sister in the Alpha Delta Pi sorority and Logan a member of Alpha Chi Rho fraternity. Logan had been very active in campus politics. Nina traced her lineage back to the Mayflower and was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Her father, Robert Harding, was head of the upscale real estate firm.

Reverend White noticed nothing odd about the wedding party. "I asked them the usual qualifying questions, and the wedding was performed without a doubt in my mind that everything was all right" he told the Chicago Tribune. "The man seemed about 22 years old and the girl about 20. She was a bright little thing and I detected no trace of worry. I talked to them a little about the duties and sacrifices of married life and they went along."

The newlyweds took up lodging in a small furnished room. Their landlady told the Chicago Tribune, "They were very nice, and the girl was quiet. Mr. Pierce went to work every day and she stayed at home. I thought she looked healthy enough."

Logan Pierce

Four days later, late in the evening of Valentine's Day of 1925, Logan Pierce told the landlady that his young bride was ill. He sought out Dr. J. A. McGaughey, who was a friend of Logan's father's. The physician found the young woman in critical condition and in need of immediate surgery. 

At Dr. McGaughey's instruction, Logan took a gravely ill Nina to the Chicago Lying-In Hospital and remained with her for several hours. He left for a time, leaving Nina to die alone but for the strangers who had fought in vain to save her life. When he returned to the hospital on the 15th and learned of her death he quickly disappeared. Police issued a warrant for the arrest of the flighty husband.

Logan was lying low, fully aware that he was in big trouble. The only immediate traces of him were telephone messages to a private club and his rooming house, asking if a telegram had come from his father, capitalist Chambers Logan Pierce. He had left all of his belongings and clothing behind at the lodgings he had so briefly shared with his bride. He also had left behind a paper with the phone number of notorious Chicago abortionist Dr. Lucy Hagenow. 

Hagenow's whereabouts were no mystery and police quickly took her into custody. They found a paper with Logan's name and address at her office. Hagenow admitted that Nina had come to her practice the previous Tuesday or Wednesday, but denied having performed an abortion on her.

The elder Pierce hurried to Chicago from La Crosse, Wisconsin, where he had been establishing a commercial loan bank. He arranged an attorney for his son. Young Logan, accompanied by the lawyer, turned himself in but utterly refused to answer any questions and at first even to identify the 80-year-old Hagenow, who had already been arrested. 

"The big, sad faced youth, who had been engaged to his bride since last winter, was no more communicative to newspaper men," noted the Chicago Tribune. "'My attorneys don't want me to talk at all,' was his only interview."

Chicago Police Captain Russell told the Tribune, "I feel nothing but pity for the boy but I had to book him as an accessory to the murder when he refused to aid the police investigation." Logan was released on $11,500 bail.

Eventually  Logan admitted that he had accompanied his bride to Hagenow's practice, but insisted that he hadn't known about the abortion until she became ill.

The Coroner's Jury wouldn't affix specific blame to Hagenow, so her attorney sought to get the charges dropped, to no avail. Hagenow was held to a Grand Jury on $35,000 bond, and Pierce on $7,500. Hagenow was charged with murder, and Logan as an accessory.

Meanwhile, Nina's heartbroken father travelled to Chicago with his son Harold for the inquest. He then took his daughter's body home to East St. Louis for burial.

Hagenow, who had already been implicated of the abortion deaths of Louise Derchow, Annie Dorris, Abbia Richards, and Emma Dep in San Francisco, would go on to be linked to over a dozen Chicago abortion deaths:

• 1891: Minnie Deering
• 1892: Sophia Kuhn and Emily Anderson
• 1896: Hannah Carlson
• 1899: Marie Hecht
• 1905: May Putnam
• 1906: Lola Madison
• 1907: Annie Horvatich
• 1925: Lottie Lowy, Nina H. Pierce, Jean Cohen, Bridget Masterson, and Elizabeth Welter
• 1926: Mary Moorehead

Hagenow was typical of criminal abortionists in that she was a physician.

Watch Dr. Hagenow and the Five-Day Bride on YouTube.

Sources:

• "Rich Youth is Sought After Bride's Death," Dixon Evening Telegraph, February 16, 1925
• "Co-ed Bride Dead; Hunt Rich Mate," Rock Island Argus, February 16, 1925
• "Co-ed Bride Dies; Police Seek Husband," Chicago Daily Tribune, February 16, 1925
• "Death Surprises Students," Chicago Daily Tribune, February 16, 1925
• "Father is Shocked," Chicago Daily Tribune, February 16, 1925
• "Midwife to Face Charge of Murder," Journal Gazette, February 17, 1925
• "Illinois U. Co-ed, Bride of Week, Dies," Des Moines Register, February 17, 1925
• "Girl's Death is Investigated," Richmond Item, February 17, 1925
• "Pierce Gives Up; Refuses to Tell of Wife's Death," Chicago Tribune, February 18, 1925
• "Death Probe," Lebanon (PA) Daily News, February 20, 1925
• "Judge Declines to Drop Charge in Pierce Death," Wausau Daily Herald, March 20, 1925