Looking For "Pansy" Butler -- An Ex-Congressman's Mysterious Disappearance
Looking For Pansy Butler
Former Iowa Congressman Walter Butler acquired the unfortunate nickname "Pansy" Butler.
It was November 22, 1894, the first day of the winter term at Oelwein Normal College in Oelwein, Iowa. College Manager and Professor Walter H. Butler collected $111 in tuition from incoming and continuing students. He’d complained of a severe headache that day, and by afternoon he let faculty and students know that he was closing the small commercial school early. Classes would resume as usual tomorrow.
Little notice was made when he went to the train depot and purchased tickets. At suppertime, his wife and son didn’t wonder where he was as they still lived in West Union, a town 25 miles away. Walt had taken the position at the college in August and boarded in Oelwein. His family was scheduled to move shortly. But the next morning, students and faculty at the college wondered why he hadn’t shown up. By Monday, without a word from him to anyone, alarm was raised.
Where was Walt Butler?
Walter Butler was most prominently known as Congressman Walter H. Butler, a Democrat who represented the Iowa Fourth District for a single term from 1891 to 1893. Unfortunately, he received national attention and ridicule, earning the nickname “Pansy Butler,” and “Pansy Blossom Butler” for a bill he proposed to change the design of the U.S. flag. Instead of the field of blue with white stars, he suggested a large pansy. He also advocated for the pansy to be named the national flower of the United States. His bills never came up for consideration. He became a laughingstock and national punchline, and was defeated for reelection.
Previously he’d been well thought-of and seemed successful. A Pennsylvania native who graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1875, he studied law and passed the bar in Wisconsin. He briefly worked as an attorney there, then moved to West Union, Iowa. He taught school, then turned his attention to a newspaper career. He worked for the LaPorte City Progress, the Manchester Democrat, then became half owner and the publisher of the Fayette County Union. He next began a career with the railway mail service under President Grover Cleveland when postal jobs were all patronage jobs. He was promoted seven times in four years to a prestigious supervisory position, then lost his job in a Republican electoral sweep.
Walt was described as an affable, outgoing man, a “people person” who was also noted for being one of the best stump speakers in Iowa. He was nominated to run for congress against an incumbent, and won. He built a big house on a hill, suitable for a U.S. congressman, at a cost of about $5,000 with little down. He had it elaborately furnished on credit. Somehow, he was swept up in his passion for pansies, became a laughingstock and had a series of bad fortune.
After his reelection defeat he returned to West Union and bought back the Fayette County Union. Then came the national Panic of 1893, which would be the worst economic downturn in America until the Great Depression of the 1930s. He lost the newspaper, and the house and its contents were set to go up for sale. These were not good times for him.
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After his disappearance the newspapers began to delve into the details of his last known actions and all his affairs. Although at first there was the suggestion that Walt left with the $111 in collected tuition, in actuality he had gone around town paying debts the college owed with the funds. Then he went to the train station where he purchased a roundtrip ticket to Fairbank, a town about nine and a half miles away. He used the outgoing ticket. He boarded the Chicago Great Western Railroad at 4:20 p.m. and at Fairbank he bought a ticket to Waterloo directly from Conductor O’Brien. O’Brien knew who he was, but did not know him personally. Walt fell asleep during the 35 mile trip.
When the train reached Waterloo, the conductor remembered the sleeping passenger and asked the brakeman to check on him. No one witnessed him get off, but O’Brien said he was absolutely certain the ex-congressman was not on board when the train rolled out of the Waterloo station. The station agents and omnibus drivers in Fairbank were questioned, and none had seen him. An Officer Weil of the Waterloo police, who said he knew Walt well, observed passengers departing from the passenger train that Thursday. Walter H. Butler was not among them.
It seemed he simply vanished.
As the Chicago Tribune said, “What is mystifying people here is how Walt Butler, a man well known in nearly every city, town and hamlet in the state, gets out of it [Iowa] without discovery and disappears completely, as if the earth had swallowed him up.”
Walt’s life was dissected just as his movements on that Thursday were. He had never been a careful businessman. He was said to have a happy-go-lucky disposition, but was a man with “no true idea of the value of a dollar.” The Cedar Rapids newspaper said he might have ridden out business difficulties if he’d been more conservative with his money. A man of otherwise good habits, he had also, it said, developed a fondness for draw poker in the last few years.
“His poor wife,” said the newspaper, “is reported to have said that she would have been willing to give up everything, even to her clothes, had he remained to face the misfortunes with her.”
So where was Walt H. Butler?
There were the usual sightings that seem to accompany the disappearance of almost anyone. Some said they saw him in Oelwein at 8:00 or 9:00 at night. He was supposedly spotted in Des Moines Friday morning. A farmer in another small town was sure he saw him walk past his house. December 1st he supposedly approached the jailer at Grundy Center asking to stay the night. Later the marshal at Grundy sent out a telegram that there was no truth to the report that Walt had been at the jail or anywhere in town.
A week after his disappearance, the Waterloo police chief phoned city officials in West Union to report a sighting. A large man who fit Walt’s description approached a farmhouse near the town of Hudson at one o’clock Sunday morning. The man was obviously intelligent and not the usual “tramp,” it was reported. The farmer let him stay at his home, and early in the morning the man left and headed in the direction of the railroad. Matt Steadman, Walt’s brother-in-law, who worked for the Secret Service for twenty years, traveled to Waterloo to investigate. He showed Walt’s photo around but got no one to confirm the sighting.
A committee of Oelwein businessmen led by the president of the Oelwein College Company, formed to look into his disappearance. A.J. Anders, a committee member who was also affiliated with the college, visited the Cedar Rapids newspaper office to correct the rumor that Walt absconded with the tuition. In fact, Walt paid out $110 of the $111 collected, he said. Walt had complained of headaches for about a week before he vanished, and the Thursday that he disappeared he complained again. He asked his students around 2:00 p.m. if they would mind dismissing school early. It was taken to a vote and the students agreed.
It was true that the school had few students, Anders admitted – but at risk of going under? No. There were to be sixty students at the new term, and Walt hired two assistant teachers, one being his wife Alice, known as Allie. She was expected to move to Oelwein the Saturday after Walt’s absence. Walt had been with the school for three months and wrote his wife and 15-year old son daily. But for the three days prior to his disappearance, she had not heard from him at all. They’d been married about sixteen years and it was said to be a very happy marriage.
By December 17th, Walt’s brother James became involved. James was the youngest child in the Butler family. There was also an older brother who was a doctor. But somehow James, a clerical worker in the Navy Department in Washington D.C., became family spokesman. James came to Iowa. He said investigators needed to start afresh as the two prevailing theories to explain his brother’s disappearance were not possible. There was no way Walt had lost his mind and was wandering – unnoticed – about the country. Even less credible was the idea that he did the most unmanly thing a man could do – abandon his family. No way.
So James launched his own investigation and shared his results with the Cedar Rapids Gazette. Tuesday night Walt hosted a poker game at his Oelwein boarding house, James said, and played till four in the morning. At that hour, he glanced at his watch, said, “Well, it is time for me to go to bed,” and cashed in his chips. He earned between $30 and $40 from the game, and retired to his room. ($30 is equivalent to about $1,100 today.) Wednesday night he won $20. At 8:00 Thursday morning he went to the college and attended his duties as usual. Walt’s headache was due to lack of sleep, James said.
After school, Walt was induced by the Oelwein gamblers to go to Fairbank for a game. He went to the train station with three of the gamblers. He had his watch, his overcoat and $50. There were four tickets sold to Fairbank that evening, and all were used. Three were used on the return trip in the morning.
Fairbank, James said, was known as a headquarters for gamblers and crooks. It was these bad men who spread rumors of sightings of Walt around the state. They lured him to Fairbank to more easily rob him. Then there was a fight and Walt was killed.
On the 21st, James organized a search party to look for his brother’s body. Eighty-three people joined and left on a train for Fairbank. Wife Allie agreed with James. For her, it was easier to believe her husband was dead than to think he deserted her and their son, Walt Jr. He would never do such a thing! He wrote her daily anytime they were apart. To just not hear from him at all – it had to mean he was dead.
On December 27, Allie and James offered a $750 reward for information leading to the recovery of Walt’s body. She offered $500 and James pledged $250. The two posted handbills around town advertising this.
Another notice was also posted. It read:
A reward for $500 is offered by the City of Oelwein for the recovery of the murdered body of Walter H. Butler if found at or in the vicinity of Oelwein or Fairbank, Iowa, within three months. B.E. Hough, Mayor
Together with what family offered, that was a substantial $1,250 reward for recovery of his body – more than what many people made in a year.
As they waited to see if someone would come forward with Walt’s body, it must have been a grim Christmas for Allie and Walt Jr.
Indianapolis
A man entered the office of the E.J. Heeb Publishing Company on November 24 and asked to speak with Mr. Heeb. Emmett Jerome Heeb granted him an interview. The man said he had just arrived in the city from a train out west, and that he was in dire financial straits. He lacked even a change of clothes and a valise. He asked Heeb for a job. The man, Walt Butler, was obviously intelligent and well-spoken. Companies were always advertising for traveling salesmen working on commission, and he was hired to sell a religious publication called Jesus Before Pilate. Walt went to Mooresville the next day and did well in sales. He worked steadily since that date and always turned in payments as he was supposed to.
E.J. Heeb had no idea that he had a former United States congressman hawking books and religious publications for him. He had no inkling that while Walt traveled his route in south central Indiana, his family in various states were mourning him for dead.
The case had national coverage but almost none of the stories included an image of the missing man. Even if they did, how many single-term congressmen’s names or faces would we recognize from other states today – in our age of television and internet? Besides, the Oelwein Citizens Committee said that Walt went under an assumed name, and shaved his whiskers and styled his hair differently.
Somehow – it wasn’t explained – the newspaper reports caught up with E.J. Heeb, something clicked, and he telegraphed James Butler in Oelwein and Dr. Robert W. Butler, Walt’s older brother, in Cleveland. He told them Walt was alive and well, and working for him.
Walt told a newspaper he saw the $750 reward his family was offering in a copy of the Spencer newspaper. He turned himself in to the Indianapolis police station, though there were no charges against him. The police chief telegrammed Oelwein officials to tell them he’d spent two hours with the man in question and was convinced that he was the missing ex-congressman. Walt’s brother, Dr. Butler replied to his telegram that he believed his brother suffered from a case of temporary insanity, and he would come to Indianapolis to take charge of him.
James, in contrast, refused to believe it was his brother. He began bombarding the police station with telegrams demanding that they photograph Walt and send him the picture. The Indianapolis police chief said Walt had not committed a crime, and so he would not be photographed. Walt sent telegrams to his wife and brothers, assuring them that it really was him. He was found.
“Wandering Walter”
Walt told the police and newspaper reporters his story, and from then on, he stuck to it.
“Why I came to Indianapolis, I can’t understand. I had no plans, and I have none now, except to find work. I can do anything from saw wood to write editorials for a newspaper. For years I owned the Fayette County Union at my home in West Union, but after leaving Congress two years ago everything has been going wrong for me and I had to let my paper go for debts. Then my normal college at Oelwein was beginning to run down and was not paying expenses. Everything I owned is mortgaged including my residence and furniture. I expected my $6,000 home at West Union to be sold in February, and I began to worry until I struck out for new work. I taught classes at the college until 4 o’clock the afternoon I left, five weeks ago Friday and took a train 20 minutes later. Why I did so I do not know. I had no change of clothes, not even an extra collar. I remember going to Quincy and then taking a train to this city, where I arrived with $2.50 in my pocket, all I had in the world. I had a gold watch when I left, but that is gone, and I can’t say whether I lost it or sold it.
The day I arrived in Indianapolis I met E.J. Heeb, president of the Indianapolis Business College, and went to selling books for him. By this means I have made a few dollars more than living since then. I wrote to my wife, who is living with my only child at West Union, telling her I would send money as soon as I made any. My mind was in great distress and I must have misdirected the letter or she would know that I was all right. Since coming here I have sold books in Mooresville, Martinsville, Gosport, Spencer and Carmel. At Spencer I met Mrs. I.H. Fowler, an old friend of my native town of Springboro, Pa. I did not communicate with my people because I have no plans and was not making enough money to help them. I am in good health and do not believe I have been out of my mind, although I cannot account for my action in coming here.”
Walt told the Oelwein paper, “There is no reason whatever that I should have left. I have a nice home at West Union, a kind, loving wife and one child, and no man’s domestic relations have ever been happier than mine have always been. The only way I can account for the uneasiness about me is that my letter failed to reach my wife.” Walt said he did not change his name or disguise his appearance, and visited with congressmen in Indiana who knew him, with no one telling him he was being looked for. (He did not explain, nor was the issue raised, about writing to inform his employer at the college about his abrupt departure. Or why didn’t he write his son a single letter?)
In subsequent retellings, Walt insisted that he had no memory of anything that happened between the time he left the college and the time he arrived in Indianapolis. He stuck to his claim that he promptly wrote his wife a letter and thought it was very strange that she did not receive it, though he later said he may have gotten the address wrong or even failed to mail it. He said he didn’t have the cash to get back home and didn’t want to go till he could support his family.
The Oelwein mayor and Fayette County sheriff asked city attorney George H. Phillips to go to Indiana to see if the man was really Walt. James was upset by this and wired his brother not to talk to anyone until he got there. He also wired the police chief to tell him not to let the attorney see Walt. James claimed Phillips was his brother’s worst enemy and had been telling “the most absurd stories about the disappearance of my brother.” He claimed Phillips was part of a conspiracy against Walt, which also explained his reelection defeat and financial troubles. But he refused to say what the conspiracy was exactly, or who was behind it..
From Indianapolis, Attorney Phillips sent a report to the Citizens' Committee, mayor and sheriff. He met with Walter for five hours at the police station. The attorney said Walt went there after telling police he felt an almost uncontrollable desire to get on a train going anywhere. Walt asked the police to look after him until his brother arrived. A special officer was assigned to look after the book salesman. The attorney attested that E.J. Heeb and others Walt associated with said Walt seemed in no way lacking in mental capacity. Phillips agreed. “On the contrary, he has at all times displayed his usual intellectual power and business sagacity.”
Walter also sent a letter to the people of Oelwein saying if he’d known people were concerned he would’ve sent a telegram long ago. “I have intended no wrong to anyone, and shall yet be able to convince all of that fact.”
The city of Oelwein, a town of about 830, reacted with rejoicing. The mayor ordered a fireworks display and there was a joyful night watching the illuminations.
Going Home
When James Butler arrived at the Indianapolis Police Station, he did not make a good impression. His behavior was described as autocratic and imperious. Though only 33 and a low-level clerk, he seemed to think he was going to tell the police chief how to do his job. (The newspapers did make him sound more important by consistently describing him as “with the Naval Department.”)
“Frankly I must say that you have acted more like an insane man in this affair than has your brother,” Police Chief Powell told him. He’d expected a little gratitude that the department helped in various ways in this reunion. It was also thought to be odd that James arrived on a one-way ticket without the money to get himself and Walt back to Iowa. He had to stay over a few days waiting for the money to be wired to him, presumably from his doctor brother, who did not come to the city to “take charge of” his brother. Maybe other family members chipped in.
The Oelwein Citizen’s Committee believed they needed to have a letter published clearing up misconceptions. For weeks James spread his theory of Oelwein gamblers murdering Walt, a charge that was spread across the country by the wire service. It made the town look bad, and now it was proven to be false.
James said he was taking his brother to Cleveland for an examination by Dr. Robert Butler, but instead he accompanied Walt only to Chicago. James headed back to Washington. Walt was greeted by newspaper reporters at the train station and answered questions during a two-hour layover. He again claimed to remember nothing from leaving the college till he arrived in Indianapolis. He said he was mortified by financial failure and wasn’t in his right mind. Once in Indiana, he thought he couldn’t return to Iowa or contact anyone as it would ruin the college and subject him to more ridicule and criticism. He again claimed to be shocked that his wife didn’t get his letter explaining his absence, and he regretted the suffering his family must have felt thinking he was dead. He also denied ever playing more than a penny-ante game of poker, and indeed, no poker players had been located who played with him on the night he disappeared. None of James’ story was corroborated.
Afterwards
Walt Butler later in life
There’s no report of the reunion between Allie and Walt, no account of how he explained everything to her. She was back in Vinton, Iowa, her hometown, living with her brother. With no money coming in and the bills piling up, this was surely necessity. A newspaper said that no one who had contact with Walt in Indiana believed his story of insanity and amnesia. Presumably, that would include his story of promptly writing his wife and confusing the address – and never contacting her, Walt Jr., or anyone else for an additional five weeks.
By mid-January, a Des Moines life insurance company hired Walt as an agent. The Cedar Rapids Gazette didn’t hold back on its opinion. “If Walt can’t go on the stage or write a book this is probably the best he can do,” the editor wrote. “But the people out this way don’t have a very exalted opinion of Butler since he ran away and left his wife to face the cold world alone, and he may have some trouble getting a large number of policyholders.
“The Daily Capital of this city, in its issue of last evening, thinks the whipping post would be about the proper thing for Butler. That may be a little severe, but one thing is certain. He should be taught that such actions as he indulged in are not favorably regarded by the citizens of Iowa.”
One would think this kind of publicity would make one decide to move out of state, but that didn’t happen. By 1893 he was working for the American Bimetallic (free silver) League, delivering political speeches around the state on the issue of free and unlimited coinage of silver, a hot button issue of the day. In 1896, Walt held a crowd spellbound for two and a half hours speaking on the topic in Wilton, Iowa. In 1899 he was traveling about delivering a lecture with 160 stereopticon views of the Paris Exposition and planned Lafayette Monument. None of the articles mentioned anything about his past, other than he was a former congressman.
The Butlers did move out of Iowa, but on their own terms. They moved to Kansas City, Missouri in 1907 where Walt worked for insurance companies, banks and in real estate. He continued to make speeches on various topics and causes. Their only son, Walt Jr. died at 21 and was buried in Vinton. Allie died in 1929. Walt died in 1931. His obituary mentioned nothing about the two life events that caused him so much notoriety and ridicule. The pansy issue, and his disappearance, had long since been forgotten.
Note: This is another story that does not involve anyone in my family. But I ran across it when researching a family story, and it was too good to leave buried in the past. For details about his flag proposal, see my article “Pansy Butler - Or How the U.S. Flag Could Have Changed,” published December 2022.
Sources:
“Pansy Blossom” Butler. The Ex-Congressman From Iowa Mysteriously Disappears,” The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer (Wheeling, West Virginia), 26 Nov 1894, p. 1
“Butler Still Missing. Indications That Temporary Mental Aberrations At Bottom of Affair” Sioux City Journal, 27 Nov 1894, p. 1.
“Where Is Walt?” The Courier (Waterloo, Iowa), 27 Nov 1894, p. 3.
“To Look For Him. A Careful Search For the Missing Walt Butler To Be Instituted At Once,” The Courier (Waterloo, Iowa), 28 Nov 1894, p. 3.
“W.H. Butler’s Career. Trace of the Missing Politician, Professor, Editor – Lodged At a Farmhouse - A Many-Sided Life,” The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa), 30 Nov 1894, p. 1.
“Looking For ‘Pansy Butler.’ Nothing Definite Learned From the Once-Famous Congressman,” San Francisco Examiner, 30 Nov 1894, p. 2.
“He Is Still Missing. Systematic Effort to Find Prof. Walter H. Butler,” The Times (Streator, Illinois), 30 Nov 1894, p. 1.
“Was Not Butler,” The Courier, 1 Dec 1894, p. 3.
“The Career of Walt Butler,” Sioux City Journal, 10 Dec 1894, p. 6.
“Get Track of Butler - His Brother Anticipates Foul Play,” The Gazette (Cedar Rapids), 21 Dec 1894, p. 8.
“On the Wrong Track. Was Butler Murdered?” The Gazette, (Cedar Rapids), 24 Dec 1894, p. 1.
“Reward of $750 For Butler’s Body,” Sioux City Journal, 28 Dec 1894, p. 2.
“Is Alive and Well. Walter H. Butler Is Said To Be In Indianapolis,” Chicago Tribune, 30 Dec 1894, p. 5.
“Is the Real Butler - Story of the Ex-Congressman Missing For Five Weeks,” Chicago Tribune, 31 Dec 1895, p. 1.
Copyright by Andrea Auclair © 2024
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