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| (Springfield Union) |
Some 89 years ago—ten years after
George Herman "Babe" Ruth shed his
Carmine Hose— something awful happened to his estranged first wife. On January 11, 1929, she was burned to death in a house fire in Watertown, Massachusetts —under odd circumstances. Her Watertown neighbors knew her only as
Mrs. Helen Kinder—the wife of the dentist whose house burned. The dentist could not be located to identify the burned remains (he was at a boxing match at the Garden)—so Mrs. Ruth's sisters (both of South Boston) confirmed that it was, in fact, her. The DA launched an investigation, which ruled the death due to burns and "suffocation". The Babe rushed to Boston two days after the incident and issued a statement that he had not been living with his former wife for three years.
"We had no permanent home", the Bambino told the Springfield Union newspaper,
"and Mrs. Ruth went to South Boston to be near her mother three years ago. She had been in Boston since." While in the Boston area, the Babe visited his nine-year old daughter, Dorothy—who was at a private boarding school in Weston. So, why was Mrs. Ruth living in this dentist's Watertown home—presumably posing as
his wife (despite the fact that he never married)? All very strange. Kind of like the Babe's life in general.
