The Time Capsule | Roy Marshall
There seems to be an increasing number of news items about middle-aged women, often school teachers, broadening the educational experience of teen-aged boys.
These headlines bring to mind young Charlie Bates of Villisca.
Charles was born in that town in 1896, son of a high school music teacher. He attended school in Villisca until his father passed away and his mother moved to Des Moines. Charles would go to high school at Des Moines West.
The scandal involving him and a woman identified as Mrs. Maude Bates, Francis Kinney and Maude Francis Patrick (all the same person) surfaced in a series of articles appearing in several newspapers between early December 1913, and March 1914.
The Des Moines Register and Leader first seized on the story when the Bradshaw law firm filed a petition in district court on behalf of Grace Bates and her son, a sixteen-year-old high school sophomore, seeking to negate his marriage.
A news article described Maude as a slender woman “with a wealth of black hair.” She also had four children and was divorced from a man named Edward Patrick. Her age was reported to be 40, although she was actually 38.
She told reporters she’d retained an attorney. She would not contest a divorce, but would fight an annulment “to the very end.” This was an important distinction. A divorce recognized the marriage and provided for obligations by both parties, while an annulment set aside the union as if it had not taken place. Judge W.H. McHenry directed both sides to prepare their arguments.
The story emerges that Maude managed a boarding house. One of her roomers was a musician and friend of young Charles Bates, who became a regular visitor in the spring of 1912. Her story was that she thought he was much older and succumbed to his advances. His story was that she charmed and seduced him repeatedly, then began to talk of marriage. He claimed he agreed only after she coerced him. In early July 1913, he and a man named Jack Evans, said to be a friend of Maude’s, traveled to Chicago. She joined them two days later. They applied for a marriage license, stating her age as 26, his as 23.
Bates swore that before the ceremony Evans provided liquor, causing him to be intoxicated while taking the vows.
The marriage was kept secret, but his mother soon learned of it. Grace Bates reacted by seeing a lawyer. Charles took his mother’s side, pointing to his wife as a seductress.
Judge McHenry heard the case in March of 1914. He ruled for the plaintiff, negating the union on the grounds that it was “not entered into in good faith.”
A greatly distressed Maude, while responding to questions from reporters, proclaimed that she’d appeal to the Supreme Court. The appeal wasn’t heard, and Bates got on with his life.
He became a noted musician and songwriter of the big band era. In the early 1920s he was one of several who teamed with the prolific Johnny Mercer (credited with “Jeepers Creepers,” “Ain’t She Sweet,” and about 1,500 other songs). Mercer and Bates wrote “On the Nodaway Road,” a number Mercer liked well enough to record. Everyone from Nodaway should listen to it at least once—more if you deserve punishment.
Bates, though, is best known for writing the lyrics to “Hard Hearted Hannah.” Published in 1924 the song, recorded by Peggy Lee, Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Tennille and many others, is still popular in Savanah.
A few years ago, a consulting job took me to that city. I stayed in one of the old hotels in the downtown area. The bar featured a singer who opened her routine with a welcome to Savannah and a few lines of “Hannah.” I told the bartender the song had been written by a man born in a town near where I lived. He gave me the same line a tour guide had—that the inspiration for Hannah has long been questioned; a flapper, perhaps his aunt, and so on.
I didn’t debate. That wasn’t the place and I don’t know. I suspect, though, that when Bates wrote “Hannah” and other songs about hard-hearted women he remembered Maude Kinney—and perhaps his mother.
A baby, Barbara Katherine Bates, was born to Maude a month before Grace’s lawyer filed to absolve him of any legal responsibility.
Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com.