Narrow escape from a maniac

My great grandmother was tough.  She had to be.  Born in Nerka, Sweden, and raised in a large Lutheran family, her father worked the land for a wealthy man.  He raised fruit, and one day the landowner came by, picked a ripe apple and handed it to Helen, a child at the time.  He facetiously smiled at her and offered her his pinky.  Even as a youngster, she thought, 'Hypocrite!  My daddy raised this, not you!'

At the tender age of 11, her elder brother sent a ticket for her from Chicago.  He and his wife had settled there and were expecting their first child.  He could only afford one child's ticket, so he sent for Helen to travel to the new country and be a help in caring for the new baby.

Helen, or Elin as she was called in her native tongue, journeyed to America, all alone as a very young girl!  Imagine that.  Sailing on a ship across the ocean with no one there to rely on!  She was a reddish blonde little girl with high cheekbones and a feisty personality.

She stayed with John, her brother, and helped out with the new baby.  Eventually, he and his family moved back to Sweden, leaving Helen all alone in the Windy City.  She worked as a clerk, in a confectionary (candy) store, and as a nanny (mother's helper). 

Helen answered a classified ad that offered work as a nanny.  She reported to her job, and was hired by a doctor.  No one knows the details of all that happened.  It's too bad no one thought to ask more questions!

She often told the story of how she was awakened late one night to hear the doctor exclaim that he'd 'shut the damn brat up!' and witnessed him suffocating the child.  After she realized he had murdered the child, Helen fled.  She was terrified.  I don't know if the doctor knew she had seen him or  not.

I surmise that he used chloroform, and H. H. Holmes was known to have done that to some of his victims.  It is documented that he killed at least one child using chloroform. 

H. H. Holmes was 'doctor' Holmes.  He had gone to medical school and was also a pharmacist/druggist.  Holmes also owned a confectionary store.  Is it possible that he hired her to work there?  Is that how she got hooked up with him?  Several of his victims were young women that worked for him, either in the confectionary store or within his 'murder hotel' in some other capacity.

Ironically, a gang of Irish brothers frequented the confectionary store she worked in, and she eventually married one of them--my great grandfather, William Fitzgerald.  Is it possible that they prevented her from falling prey to Holmes?  Perhaps they scared him off?  There are more questions than answers, I'm afraid.

I do know that the Fitzgeralds lived in the Englewood section of Chicago, and that William and Helen were married in Visitation Catholic Church (probably the rectory because Helen was not Catholic).  The church was only blocks away from the murder castle.

I'm not done researching this.  I still hold out the hope that somewhere I will find some concrete evidence that the doctor that murdered the child in Great Grandma's life was the same Englewood doctor that murdered dozens to hundreds of victims.  Jeff Mudgett, great great grandson of Holmes seems to believe they were the same man.  That's a pretty strong indication to me that it is very possible or even probable.

HUGSxxxAnnie