NY NY - Alice Parsons: Heiress, Long Island, 1937

Marilynilpa said:

I can just hear him saying that!!

I don't know what squab paste tastes like, and I don't really want to find out.

Click to expand...

To paraphrase Douglas Adams it is likely "one of those disgusting foods that rich idiots use to impress other rich idiots!"

--Bill who can cook and/or eat just about anything except sea urchin (or now squab paste)

iconoclast said:

To paraphrase Douglas Adams it is likely "one of those disgusting foods that rich idiots use to impress other rich idiots!"

Click to expand...

Douglas Adams is never wrong about these things!

I need to look up a recipe for squab paste, if possible, and see exactly what it is made of (other than squab, of course).

I am so ignorant I had to look up what squab is, okay? Then it was "oh yeah, that is squab". I wonder what it tastes like. I love trying new things but I don't think near here would serve squab. It is hard enough finding decent sushi or fois gras. I should be on Extreme Eats.

Back on topic, Marilyn, did the adoption go through? Do you know if there are decendants alive today? If you could talk to them that would be interesting.

tennessee said:

Back on topic, Marilyn, did the adoption go through? Do you know if there are decendants alive today? If you could talk to them that would be interesting.

Click to expand...

I have not done any research on William Parsons, Anna Kuprianova-Parsons or Roy Parsons and their lives after they moved to California. That is my next project, to begin this weekend.

I believe the adoption went through, but will need to confirm it.

According to Epicurious:

squab
[SKWAHB]
A young (about 4 weeks old) domesticated pigeon that has never flown and is therefore extremely tender. It was a popular special-occasion dish in Victorian England. Squabs usually weigh 1 pound or less and have delicately flavored dark meat. Fresh squab is available throughout the summer months (year-round in some regions) in gourmet markets. Frozen squab is marketed year-round. Choose fresh birds by their plump, firm appearance. Store as for CHICKEN. Likewise, squab can be prepared in any manner suitable for chicken. A classic method is to stuff and roast it.

I imagine that these days, the terminology would be different...it would probably be marketed as squab paté instead of squab paste.

You can see a recipe similar to what they might have made here:
http://www.squab.com/recipe/recipe.mv?1147924066

Squab has been a major big deal delicacy in many parts of the world, and would have been up there as a "must have" party food for the high-fliers, along with their beluga caviar and fine champagne. I imagine that it was a good venture for them.

So I suppose that this might provide an alternate theory. What if Anna was being pushed out by the Mrs. or otherwise had some kind of dispute with her? It might have been the last straw.

Dear me, I just figured a squab was a plant - something like okra maybe. Killin' baby birds!!??

Seriously, I had no idea and was too lazy to go looking!!

Bluecat said:

So I suppose that this might provide an alternate theory. What if Anna was being pushed out by the Mrs. or otherwise had some kind of dispute with her? It might have been the last straw.

Click to expand...

That is a good theory. From what I have read so far, the squab paste business was very lucrative. Anna owned the recipe, and the Parsons provided the squab. There could have been a dispute in connection with this partnership.

Thanks for the squab info. I agree that what was called squab paste was probably what we would call squab pate. I believe this is quite popular in China.

A few days ago, Liz325 posted:

I did a quick search last night in the archives and I found an article in an Oshkosh, WI newspaper from August of 1937 that said Anna was not the only witness who saw Alice in the black sedan. I think it said a postal employee saw her in such a car as well.

I replied by saying that sighting had been refuted. However, while reviewing my research this weekend, I determined my reply was in error. There was an alleged sighting of Alice by a woman who worked for the post office and who saw Alice just about every day. She claimed that Alice was driving her own car and was alone. This sighting would have occurred well after Anna said Alice Parsons rode off with the mystery couple in the black sedan. It appears that the postal employee's sighting was considered by the police to be very credible.

During a thunderstorm here in Pittsburgh last week, my computer modem got messed up so I was unable to do any research over the weekend. However, I do have a lot more information to post, which I'll do today or tomorrow. In order to keep up the suspense, I'll leave you with this teaser: a bottle of chloroform was missing from the Parsons' home with no explanation.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

I wonder if she saw Alice, or if she just saw a female shape in the car? You see what you expect to see. Anna could have dressed like Alice, worn a hat that shaded her face (or had a little veil - which would have been common), and passed for Alice from a distance.

Was chloroform something normally kept in a house? That just seems weird.

Bluecat said:

I wonder if she saw Alice, or if she just saw a female shape in the car? You see what you expect to see. Anna could have dressed like Alice, worn a hat that shaded her face (or had a little veil - which would have been common), and passed for Alice from a distance.

Click to expand...

Two of the articles I've found say that the postal employee was very confident that driver was Alice. She handed Alice the mail almost every day. But I agree that you see what you expect to see, so it's possible she was mistaken about the car and/or the identity of the driver.

By the way, I've located some pictures of Anna Kuprianova. In one picture she looks relatively attractive, but in others she doesn't look very pretty. In fact, one of her pictures greatly favors the "Wicked Witch of the West" from the Wizard of Oz, nose and all!

tennessee said:

Was chloroform something normally kept in a house? That just seems weird.

Click to expand...

Supposedly the chloroform had been ordered by the Parsons to either kill a diseased squab (the story William told the druggist when he ordered it) or to clean some fabric (the story Anna told the police). The bottle was seen on a table in the Parsons' home, but the next time the police were there the bottle was gone. Neither Anna nor William provided an explanation at the time for what happened to the bottle. Later, the police hid microphones in the Parsons' home and picked up a conversation between Anna and William in which she tells him she has gotten rid of the chloroform bottle.

I guess when you raise poultry, chloroform might be needed for diseased or injured birds, so it may not have been unusual for them to have it. But if that is the case, then why did Anna get rid of it then deny any knowledge of what happened to it?? :waitasec:

I'll post more about this if I find out anything further.

I'm currently researching Anna's past, including her three ex-husbands and her claim that she was a Russian countess. It's getting quite interesting, and I can't wait to finish the research so I can post more info about her.

Marilyn, now that you posted that, I remember seeing it in an article. It was skimmed over quickly and I forgot about it (the chloroform, that is).

Since these folks are killin' birds on a regular basis, wouldn't you kill a sick one just like any other? Why would you use chloroform?

LisainWV said:

Marilyn, now that you posted that, I remember seeing it in an article. It was skimmed over quickly and I forgot about it (the chloroform, that is).

Since these folks are killin' birds on a regular basis, wouldn't you kill a sick one just like any other? Why would you use chloroform?

Click to expand...

That makes sense, what's one more bird killing to people who kill birds for a living? On my list of things to research (low on the list!) is what people use chloroform for. Anna said she used it to clean fabric, but that seems pretty potent for a fabric cleaner.

On a hunt, I did a quick google search of chloroform as a cleaner, and found that it is used to this day as a spot dry cleaner for fabric, among other things. So that might be plausible. It's definitely a hazardous chemical, but at that time of year there would have probably been plenty of windows open. So it's plausible, I guess. I can see how they could minimize the importance of it. It definitely sounds like the local P.D. were suspicious. No wonder they moved away.

Bluecat said:

On a hunt, I did a quick google search of chloroform as a cleaner, and found that it is used to this day as a spot dry cleaner for fabric, among other things. So that might be plausible. It's definitely a hazardous chemical, but at that time of year there would have probably been plenty of windows open. So it's plausible, I guess. I can see how they could minimize the importance of it. It definitely sounds like the local P.D. were suspicious. No wonder they moved away.

Click to expand...

What strikes me as suspicious is that Anna and William gave different reasons for why the chloroform was in the house, and both denied knowing what happened to it afterwards. Also suspicious is a conversation between the two of them, picked up by microphones hidden by the police, in which Anna tells William that she had gotten rid of the bottle.

Thanks for taking the time to research chloroform. I never knew it was used for cleaning fabric.

So, I guess that they raised pigeons instead of well-bred chickens. Maybe Anna cloraphormed(sp?) Alice, dressed like Alice, drove Alice somewhere and dumped her. This could be when the lady at the post office saw her or she could simply be mistaken on the day and time.

It's been quite some time since I posted anything to this thread. I've been spending most of my free time researching Alice Parsons, including her family and her husband's family. I've also communicated with two of Alice's nieces and one of her nephews. My research is about 90% complete at this point.

I now believe without any doubt that Anna Kuprianova, Alice's Russian housekeeper, and Alice's husband, William H. Parsons, Jr., conspired to kill and dispose of Alice. I still don't know for sure if it was done strictly for love (William and Anna later married) or money (Alice had just received money from her uncle's estate just two weeks before her disappearance) - most likely a combination of the two motives.

William Parsons came from an extremely wealthy and influential family. His father owned W.H Parsons & Co., a paper manufacturing company. His uncle, Herbert, was a close friend and confidant of Theodore Roosevelt. The family socialized with the Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and other "movers and shakers" of the day.

Alice McDonell Parsons spent most of her childhood and early adulthood living with her wealthy maternal uncle, Timothy Shaler Williams. That uncle also paid for her brothers, Howard and Frank, to attend and graduate from Cornell University. She traveled to Europe and the Bahamas prior to her marriage.

By all accounts Alice and William, who married in 1926 when Alice was 25 years old, had a good marriage. They had no children, and enjoyed living on their estate (Long Meadows) in Long Island as opposed to life in New York. When Anna came to live with them in 1931, she brought along her young son Roy. Apparently they all lived as one big, happy family. Anna and her son changed their last names to "Parsons" when Anna became a naturalized citizen in 1936. She claimed this was at Alice's request, but I have my doubts about this. I believe that by this time, the plan to do away with Alice had already been formulated.

Also in 1936, Alice spent several days in California attending her brother Howard's wedding. Her husband and the housekeeper remained behind in New York, and some family members believe this may have been when the final plans for getting rid of Alice were hatched.

Alice could have been killed the day they claimed she disappeared, or even a day or two earlier. Only William and Anna claim Alice was alive and well that morning. William claims Alice drove him to the train station so that he could travel to NYC for a meeting arranged by, who else, Anna the housekeeper. Anna claims Alice returned from the station, worked in the yard a while, then changed clothes and accompanied a "mystery couple" in their car to look at some real estate in which she owned a partial interest.

The fact that a very thorough search was conducted of the surrounding area, without any trace of Alice being found, leads me to believe Alice was killed and disposed of prior to her alleged "disappearance". I believe Alice may have been killed in the basement of Long Meadows. It was the normal practice for the trash collectors to go down into the basement to collect the refuse, but on the day of Alice's disappearance, the trash was placed out in front of the house, and they were told they would not be allowed into the basement.

I also believe choloroform was involved in subduing Alice. William purchased some chloroform a day or two before Alice "disappeared", and the bottle disappeared shortly after the police arrived at the estate.

One area of research still incomplete is tracking down what happened to Anna Kuprianova after William Parsons died in 1969 in California. Also, I do not know what became of her son, Roy Cooper Parsons. He was in the Navy in 1944, and I have no inkling of where he went from there.

I am hopeful my book on this case will be ready for publication soon, and as I learn more info, I'll post it here.

After just reading the first page, it sounds to me like a suicide. Imagine for a moment that Alice finds out that her husband and this housekeeper had an affair dating back before the woman even came to work at the house. It would make sense that perhaps her husband wanted a child and could not have one with his own wife, so he has an affair. Than he finds out she is pregnant, and years after decides it would be much easier to have his cake and eat it too. So he talks someone in the family into recommending this other woman. They hire her, at first Alice wants money and to start a new life, so she sends the note, than decides she doesn't want to live without her husband. Her life insurance she divides up to the child and her husband and his mistress. Back than women were usually nicey nice to each other, even if there was an affair they knew about going on so she leaves the other woman some money. And than she leave and I dunno, jumps in the river? Perhaps she was even rescued and the note saying that she died of phnemonia is the truth. If she was fished out of the river, maybe no one knew who she was, she could have been so sick, like in a coma, she could not tell anyone who she was.

The point is, when she changed her will, etc, it sounds like she is tying up her lose ends before she dies. Like she knew her death was coming and she needed to figure out what went to whom, before she died. The only way she knew she was going to die, is if she planned on doing it herself. As I am sure she was not psychic.

Also money for motive does not make much sense to me. Unless the family was losing money in some fashion. Did the husband have a gamboling addiction or something? Wife out of the way I can sort of see if the child of Anna was actually his. I think he probably was. Or she may have just told him it was his. Knowing he wanted a child. Also, anyone know if these two love birds had kids after they got married? The thing is, perhaps Alice was NOT the one who was sterile as believed. If HE was the sterile one, but believed Alice was the sterile one, he may have cheated wanting a child. If Anna lied and told him, this baby is yours, or even perhaps believed it COULD be his, there was no such things as paternity tests at the time. And if he wanted a child, he may have decided that he wanted her over his wife. She could provide something he believed his own wife could not.