A Fight Over the Moehl Houses

It was in February 1919 that the 75-year-old Caroline Moehl (mother of William Sr.) entered a contract to sell her lot and two houses to her neighbors, Theodore and Elfrieda Schroeder, for $2,500, to be paid in installments. As inducement to murder her, the contract provided that the Schroeders would take ownership of Caroline's property upon either full payment of the purchase price, or her death, whichever came first. As added inducement, the contract obligated the Schroeders to nurse her in any illness.

In spite of all that, the Schroeders restrained themselves. When death came for Caroline in June 1920, it had to seek her out far from her old neighborhood, for she was staying with her son on his farm west of Hobart. And her death was so sudden — reasonably healthy one day, suffering from "acute dilation of the heart" the next, and dead the day after — that the Schroeders had no opportunity to nurse her in illness. In their opinion, their contract with Caroline now entitled them to her property.

Caroline's heirs thought otherwise, and so the fighting began.


(Click on image to enlarge)
From the Hobart Gazette, 27 May 1921.

The other heir mentioned in the story, aside from William, would probably be Caroline's daughter, Mrs. Alvena Clemens of Canton, Ohio.


The second story marked on that page is about a possible successor to the Hillman soft-drink parlor.


Additional Sources:
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ "Mrs. Moehl Dies Suddenly." Hobart Gazette 11 June 1920.