Her neighbors filled the courtroom, the air heavy with hate and dread. The alleged witch sat before them on the witness stand, shrunken as an old apple.
CINDY LANGE-KUBICK / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Tuesday, October 30, 2007 7:00 pm
(Editor's note: The following account was written from old newspaper stories compiled and provided by Matt Piersol of the Nebraska State Historical Society)
Her neighbors filled the courtroom, the air heavy with hate and dread.
The alleged witch sat before them on the witness stand, shrunken as an old apple.
Tillie Lauber opened her mouth to show her long yellowed teeth.
The mob of mothers and housewives listened, hushed, waiting to hear the case of Matilda Lauber vs. Anna Small.
“We live down there right next door to each other,” explained Lauber of 615 L St., in the bottomland west of the city.
“This morning I threw some ashes and dirt out in my own yard and she got mad about it and struck me in the face.”
The curious crowd had gathered on Jan. 19, 1900, to learn more about this suspected sorceress who scoured streets and alleys in search of black cats, this declared dark fairy who cast spells on their menfolk and marked their children with the evil eye.
Now one of their lot had finally struck back.
“I am guilty of what I done to her,” Mrs. Anna Small told Judge Comstock.
She pulled a paper parcel from under her cape.
“This is the very dirt she threw! She threw it on my doorstep to separate me and my husband and cause sickness. That is bewitched!”
Her voice rose to a shriek.
The crowd leaned forward.
The judge opened the package, his nose wrinkling.
He closed it quickly, guarding the room against its foul familiar odor.
Those who read the Lincoln Evening News in the 1890s might have known the name Matilda Lauber.
They might have seen her small advertisements.
Miss Matilda Lauber is now at 836 S. 8th St. If you are sick or in distress of any kind don’t fail to call on her. She gives valuable reading upon love and business and all affairs of life … in possession of the Cleopatra Amulet, the only sure restoration of truant husbands, wives and lovers…
They might have paid her $1 fee, not a small price for the times, to “recover stolen goods or “lengthen your life.”
They might have read news of other witches, too, in other Nebraska villages.
The two respectable women of Jansen accused of bewitching little Frieda Pruder, causing her toes to curl and her limbs to twitch.
“Some of our good people are so frightened they see witches flying through the air on broom sticks,” the Omaha Evening Bee reported.
Yes, they might have remembered all of this as they listened to Mrs. Small wail and weep on the witness stand.
“I heard a noise night before last and I tried to wake my husband but she had me so stiff in a trance that I couldn’t raise my arm!
“Oh, I’m just wasting away!”
The alleged witch began to chatter and gibber, as alleged witches are wont to do.
At this, the judge rapped for order, as judges are wont to do.
What about the trouble this morning? he asked, bringing the testimony back to the case at hand.
It started with that awful dirt, the defendant said, the dirt Lauber scattered to break up her marriage.
Mrs. Small confronted her with it, chasing the wizened woman around the houses to the front yard, where neighbors stood peering.
“She said she didn’t do it and called me awful names,” Mrs. Small declared, trembling.
“Then I slapped her in the face.”
“So you struck her did you?”
“Yes, and if I’d been stronger I’d ’a given her more.”
The mother of six turned to her tormentor.
“You’ve got me so I can’t ’tend to my family for your spells!”
Matilda Lauber crowed merrily, her wild, cackling laugh echoing in the courtroom.
Then came the witnesses. Mrs. Miller. Mrs. Finley.
She’s got my baby sick!
She buys black cats for seven dollars and boils them alive for their bones!
At this, Mrs. Small, the prisoner, could take it no more.
She’s killing me with her witch dirt!
“Come down and see,” she beseeched the judge.
The judge drew back in alarm.
His gavel crashed down on the bar.
Due to extraordinary extenuating circumstances, I shall not fine Mrs. Small for assault, he told the court.
Case dismissed.
And thus abruptly ends the story of that January day.
How did Mrs. Small’s marriage fare? Would she ever sleep again knowing the woman next door meant her harm?
What was the fate of Mrs. Miller’s sick baby?
What became of the city’s unfortunate black cats?
We know nothing for certain.
As for our alleged witch, Miss Matilda Lauber, self-described clairvoyant, dispenser of “good advise,” she lived another 40 years.
She moved away from the bottoms west of the city.
On Nov. 14, 1940, at 12:30 a.m., the 87-year-old died at the Home for the Friendless on South Street and was buried the next morning at Wyuka Cemetery.
If anyone came to mourn the shrunken woman with the long yellow teeth, who lived and died alone, the newspaper neglected to mention them.
Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.