From "Illustrated Police News," April 20, 1892, Volume 52, Number 1332 Page 16
It was the Three of Clubs that forced her to pull the trigger, Rose Hess claimed. That deadly card trailed her, Rose maintained, through a life of thrills and shame. Although old books on cartomancy provide various interpretations of that card, most involve money or marriage, but Rose saw it as a sign of death.
Rose was a Cincinnati girl, just over 20 years old, living in a New York City apartment as the kept woman of a traveling salesman named Leo Goodman. Her beauty was legendary among the bon vivants of Cincinnati’s demimonde. According to the Enquirer [April 13, 1892]:
“She and her sister Helen, who was one year her junior, were once well known among the bloods and gay Over-the-Rhine young men of this city. When Red Austin and George Spencer ran the Hotel de Rhine at Canal and Vine streets Rose and Helen Hess were among the stout retainers of the resort. They were there visited by many gay people, and they gained an unenviable reputation for daredevil toughness. They became utterly women of the town.”
Rose caught the eye of Goodman during one of his sallies through the Queen City. A representative of the Henry Rothschild shirt company in New York, his sales territory covered a good part of the Midwest. In 1891, Goodman induced Rose to join him on a tour through the South, an offer she enthusiastically accepted. After returning to Cincinnati, Rose packed up her belongings and relocated to New York. Goodman rented an apartment at 1023 Sixth Avenue, near 38th Street, in what was even then known as the Garment District. The monthly rent for their love nest was $50 and it was fashionably furnished. To their neighbors, the couple was known as Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence.
Early in 1892, Goodman left for a tour of the West and Midwest. Rose, perhaps literally reading her cards, began to feel his affections fading. She wrote more frequently, pleading for Goodman’s return, or at least some financial support, especially as the rent came due. According to the Cincinnati Post [July 22, 1892]:
“Several weeks ago, Goodman’s letters began to be irregular, and finally they ceased altogether. Meanwhile Rose’s landlord was pressing her for payment of rent, and she began telegraphing to Goodman, who was in Chicago, for money.”
During Goodman’s absence, a friend, Annie Willis, had moved into the Sixth Avenue flat to keep Rose company. As Rose’s attempts to reach Goodman became more frantic, Annie tried to allay her fears. Rose was shuffling her card deck one morning in April when Annie went out to mail a letter. She had been gone less than three minutes but, when she returned, discovered Rose bleeding and unconscious. According to the Cincinnati Commercial-Gazette [April 13, 1892]:
“She had opened her dress, placed the muzzle of the revolver against her breast and fired. She was lying near the dressing case from which she had taken the pistol.”
After summoning a doctor who sent Rose to Roosevelt Hospital, Annie Willis completely vanished. A week later, she had yet to be located, although mail addressed to her accumulated in Rose’s apartment mailbox. Rose Hess’ rash act propelled her into the national spotlight and the reigning scandal sheet of the day, the Illustrated Police News, dedicated an entire page to her tragedy in the issue of April 20, 1892.
Although the shooting, and the circumstances precipitating it, made national news, Leo Goodman, the cad responsible was apparently oblivious to his paramour’s plight. Two days after the shooting, Goodman arrived in Cincinnati, still peddling shirts. He stopped at the Burnet House, bought a cigar and approached the registration desk. The clerk welcomed him and expressed sympathy for his troubles. Goodman, confused, asked what the clerk might have meant. The clerk directed Goodman to a pile of Enquirers.
“‘This is growing too interesting,’ Goodman remarked as he folded up the paper. ‘I think I won’t stay.’ With the words, he picked up the valise and walked out without registering.”
Rose was in such dire straits, doctors employed opium to send her into a coma. She lingered for weeks and then months. An initial announcement that she was fatally wounded proved premature. Then came the statement that she would live but would undoubtedly be partially paralyzed for life. This prognosis was supported when Rose finally recovered enough to attend an inquest on her attempted suicide. She was transported by carriage from the hospital to Police Court wearing a most unusual contraption, according to the Enquirer [July 23, 1892]:
“A silver tube has been placed through the lung as a means of cleansing. At present she wears a plaster of paris corset and is unable to walk.”
The court dismissed Rose, charging her with nothing, and regular updates on her condition ceased. She disappeared from the public record. But then, months later, according to the Enquirer [January 10, 1893]:
“A heavily veiled and stylishly attired woman called at police head-quarters about noon yesterday.”
The mystery woman—who, one will note, appeared to be walking just fine, with no mention even of a cane—turned out to be Rose Hess herself. Now living in Nashville with her sister Helen, who operated a bordello in that city, Rose learned that another sister, Fannie, had joined the inmates of Jennie Hunt’s “house of ill fame” on Charles Street. Rose intended to take her younger sister away from that resort. Police Chief Philip Deitsch had an officer escort Fannie Hess to his office. Fannie strolled in right past her sister, with not a sign of recognition, until Rose kissed her and explained why she was there.
“‘I’ll not go, Rose,’ answered the girl, ‘and it’s no use to try to coax me. I knew where I was going when I went to that house, and I intend to stay.’”
Chief Deitsch then explained to Fannie that she had two options: Go with her sister or spend a month at the Workhouse. Fannie opted to leave with Rose.
Rose, apparently fully healed and solvent, spent a decade in obscurity and, in 1904, married a New York pharmacist. Fannie was back in Cincinnati a year after Rose’s intervention, causing quite a stir when she eloped with a sketchy young man from Dayton. Later that year, Helen, who had relocated to New Orleans, attempted her own suicide by poison because of an inconstant man. She survived and opened a millinery shop. Life was never dull, it seems, at the Hess household.
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