A knife fight over “Toots” in north St. Louis

Late one September night in 1906, a 16-year-old boy’s misunderstanding escalated into a violent knife fight as he escorted two girls home from a dance in north St. Louis. The story made headlines in four newspapers.

The girl at the heart of the misunderstanding, Carrie Becker, was my great-great-great aunt (I included a diagram showing our relationship further down). I discovered this story unexpectedly while doing some newspaper research recently.

Thankfully, nobody died of injuries sustained in this fight. But this family was no stranger to violence and tragedy. In 1917, Carrie’s younger brother John Becker was murdered in Chicago during his naval training. And in 1925, Carrie’s younger sister Viola and Viola’s husband John Meyer died in a car crash in Collinsville, Illinois.

But Carrie lived a long life. She married twice and had two sons. Her first husband, Fred Seeger, brewed beer and ran a neighborhood tavern, even during prohibition. Carrie died in 1972 at age 81.

What follows is my re-telling of the knife incident based on: multiple reports in St. Louis newspapers including the Globe-Democrat, Post-Dispatch, Republic, and Westliche Post; family history interviews I conducted with Carrie’s nephew, Ed Richter, nearly 20 years ago; and my own geographic analysis.

The story

Sixteen-year-old Fred Leineman must have been feeling pretty good about himself. It was 1:30 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 30, 1906. He had just finished a night of dancing at the north St. Louis Turner Hall at 1930 Salisbury Street, and now he was escorting Carrie Becker, 16, home along with her friend and neighbor, Agnes Jansen, 17.

The two girls were “strikingly pretty” and very popular at the Turner Hall dances. Carrie Becker was the sort of person you could go out and have a good time with, a contrast to her older sisters Kate and Dora, who were quiet types.

Outside the Turner Hall, the trio ran into a group of four young men rolling a keg of beer along the sidewalk. The four — Joseph Shea, 17; Alfred Schick, 17; William Jansen, 16; and John Friese, 16 — had been given the keg at the end of a wedding party at North 19th and Angelrodt streets, and they had hauled it about halfway to their clubroom, the Good Luck Club at Natural Bridge and Salisbury.

Some of them were familiar faces: Becker knew Joseph Shea, and Agnes Jansen was William Jansen’s older sister. But the girls may have known all four. They lived within a few blocks of each other, in the present-day Hyde Park neighborhood.

Leineman was the outsider: He lived about a mile away, near Benton and North 14th streets in Old North St. Louis.

Becker greeted Shea, saying “Hello, Joe.”

“Hello, Toots,” he answered.

And that seems to have started all the trouble.

Leineman took offense, and apparently resented that Shea would address Becker at all. Leineman barked at the quartet, telling them to get off the sidewalk.

A “free-for-all” fist fight erupted — and quickly escalated.

Leineman drew a knife and darted at the foursome. He slashed Shea’s wrist, severing an artery and spattering blood on the sidewalk. He cut Schick on the face, neck, and scalp.

The girls were hysterical. As Leineman moved toward William Jansen, Agnes screamed, “That is my brother!”

Leineman backed down. The fight had lasted only a few moments.

Shea and Schick, badly wounded, were taken across the street to Dr. H. J. Neibrugge’s office at 2013 Salisbury, where they were stitched up. Doctors were concerned Shea’s wound might be fatal, but he survived.

Meanwhile, Leineman had gone home, where he was later arrested by police, the knife still in his pocket. He was charged with assault with intent to kill.

At the trial, which took place a few months later in March 1907, no witness could give a clear account of the fight. Leineman admitted cutting the young men, but said he had done so in self-defense “after resenting a vile remark, made during the quarrel, about Miss Becker.”

It’s not clear what this second remark was — Becker refused to quote the words that been used, but she did write them down for the jury.

Ultimately, Leineman was convicted of the lesser charge of common assault and fined $100.

“Toots”

The first stories I found about this incident did not mention “Toots.” The Globe-Democrat’s story began “A remark made about Miss Carrie Becker…”, while the Post-Dispatch’s first story said “Someone addressed a remark to one of the girls…”

But then I found two later stories from the Post-Dispatch, which both quote Shea as telling Becker “Hello, Toots.” As soon as I read that, I got goosebumps.

Back in 2008, I began meeting with Ed Richter, the last of my great-grandfather Frank Becker’s living first cousins on the Becker side. Ed was able to tell me about some of his Becker relatives that I had been researching, including his aunt, Carrie Becker.

Whenever Ed told me about Carrie, he always called her “Toots.” It was apparently her lifelong nickname.

The knife fight happened long before Ed was born, so I don’t know if he knew about it. He never mentioned it to me in any of our conversations, though.

Anyway, to see Carrie Becker called “Toots” on the pages of the Post-Dispatch was like a lightning bolt. It was such a cool confirmation of small details Ed had shared with me so long ago.

And it astonished me to think that that nickname — or at least the use of it — might have stirred up so much trouble.

Fred Leineman

I need to do more research, but I believe it is highly likely that Carrie Becker and Fred Leineman became connected by marriage a few years after the knife fight.

I can say with certainty that Carrie Becker married Fred Seeger; and that Fred’s younger sister — Jennie Seeger, pictured at right — married a man named Fred Leineman.

This Fred Leineman went on to a life of crime. He was sentenced to prison for stealing, and also was arrested at various times in connection with crimes like stealing a taxi, killing mules, and even murder — though I don’t believe he was convicted in any of those incidents.

In 1912, he escaped from a steel cage at the then-new Municipal Courts Building downtown, along with four other prisoners.

He fled to Michigan, where he began living as James Howard. I have seen records that suggest his wife, Jennie, may have gone with him and also adopted the surname “Howard.”

But he got into trouble in Michigan, too, and ended up going to prison for defrauding that state of $21,000 in gasoline taxes. Authorities later learned that the fingerprints of “Howard” matched those of Leineman, and in 1936 — two decades after his escape — he was sent back to St. Louis to finish his old four-year sentence.

Anyway, I cannot yet say with certainty that the Fred Leineman who escaped prison in 1912 is the same person as the Fred Leineman who escorted Carrie Becker and got into a knife fight in 1906. But it seems like a good bet.