Bloodline(83)
I am nursing my baby. Slow Henry is sleeping on my lap.
We pass fire trucks screaming into Lilydale.
Regina is driving us south, toward Siesta Key.
She wanted to leave Lilydale immediately until I explained that Angel was being held at the Schramel house. I wanted to be the one to free him, but I didn’t have the strength. Fortunately, Regina didn’t question me, just ran into the house and came out with a sleeping Angel moments later.
When she leaned over to set him next to me in the back seat, her pearl necklace slipped out of her shirt. I blinked back tears, taking it as a message from my mother, a sign that she was with me now and would keep me safe, just as she had when I was a child.
I caressed Angel’s sleeping head as Regina drove us to his mother’s house. What monster could steal a child from its mother? How could the Mill Street families have possibly convinced themselves of their righteousness? I could live to be a thousand years old, and I’d never understand it.
It took some convincing for Regina to get Mariela to walk out to a strange car in the middle of the night, but once she did, and laid eyes on her son, she wailed in gratitude. She bundled him in her arms, rocked him, kissed him all over.
He woke up. “Momma?”
She wailed again. He clamped his wiry arms around her neck.
“You have to leave,” I said.
Mariela glanced at me, sitting in my own blood, clutching my newborn. She nodded once, her eyes wet and her mouth grim, and strode quickly back to her house.
I knew what her expression meant.
We don’t belong here, her and me.
We never did.
And we are going to escape and never return.
Minnesota Town Shaken by Rape, Kidnapping and Arson Allegations Spanning Decades
By Joan Harken
March 23, 1969
The New York Times
Section A, Page 16
“It’s your average small town,” declared Ernest Oleson, the newly elected mayor of Lilydale, Minn., population 1,464.
Unlike most small towns, however, 11 Lilydale residents, all direct descendants of the town’s founders and all with homes on once-bucolic Mill Street, are under indictment for rape, kidnapping and arson in a scandal that spans generations. The Lilydale police chief is one of those accused. One of the 11 died as a result of arson before charges were filed. The surviving Mill Street denizens deny all charges.
The opening trial, that of Barbara Schmidt, is coming to a close. Mrs. Schmidt, 56, is charged with abetting the 1944 kidnapping of Paulie Anna Aandeg, the recently uncovered 1946 kidnapping of Hector Ramirez, whom she raised as her son along with her recently deceased husband, Ronald Schmidt, and the 1968 kidnapping of Angel Gomez.
Ronald Schmidt, who died in a house fire believed to be started by him to gain insurance money, has been posthumously accused of the rape of Hector Ramirez’s mother, Maria Ramirez, orchestrating all three kidnappings, as well as insurance fraud. The child he helped abduct and raised as his own child, Deck Schmidt (formerly Hector Ramirez), has also been charged with insurance fraud.
District Judge Stephen L. Miller of Stearns County is presiding over the case. Earlier, the prosecutor, M. Elizabeth Klaphake, rested her case. She had called 13 witnesses, including the town physician, the editor and owner of the Lilydale Gazette and Grover Tucker, the now-retired county sheriff who oversaw the search for Paulie Anna Aandeg in 1944. The defense begins its case tomorrow and is expected to conclude within the week.
“A Dark History”
Lilydale was platted by Johann E. Lily and his wife, Minna, in 1857. They were German immigrants as well as brother and sister. Like many early settlers, they created an enclave built around their native language, customs and religion. Fred Munro, director of the Stearns County Historical Society, said Johann and Minna took it even further.
According to church records, the brother and sister had 12 children, only two of whom lived to adulthood, a son and a daughter. The rest were born horribly deformed; those who survived childbirth were kept hidden until their deaths days or weeks later. To guarantee their Germanic bloodline and keep their wealth intact and in the family, Johann impregnated other women in town, and Minna raised the children as her own. In exchange for providing half-Lily children, these women and their families got to live in Lilydale under the patronage of the Lilys.
The town grew and gained a reputation as a safe haven, an escape from the world. Johann and Minna formed a society called the Fathers and Mothers to ensure the town grew in line with their vision.
“Once settled, they only allowed marriage within the immediate family, creating one of the shallowest gene pools in the region. It’s a dark history in an otherwise beautiful part of the state,” said Munro.
Dr. Sebastian Krause, Lilydale physician and witness for the prosecution at Barbara Schmidt’s hearing, testified that intergenerational inbreeding at that level could be responsible for a low fertility rate and a high occurrence of genetic deformity among future generations. He also confirmed that 14 full-blood Lily children live in a facility in Lilydale and are adequately cared for.
“They couldn’t have their own children, not healthy ones, not with each other,” said Dennis Roth, Lilydale Gazette editor, who was offered a plea deal in exchange for his cooperation. “But they wanted to keep the Lily pedigree alive. So the current Lily men looked outside their marriages, just as Johann Lily had.”