Time Machine: Attorney Charley Wheeler

Among The Gazette's archives are hundreds of negatives from the 1940s-60s, some marked with a minimal amount of information, but usually enough to send me on a fruitful search for the stories that go with them.

One story, however, was elusive. For a while, I have been searching for the tale behind the negatives marked 'Wheeler Home (C.R. landmark) being razed April 13, 1956.”

The digital and microfilm archives turned up nothing, but I kept them in my 'story possibilities” file.

I tried again on a recent weekend, and came across Charley Wheeler or, more formally, Charles Earl Wheeler, attorney.

stolen calf case

Wheeler, born in Albion, Ind., in 1851, and his family moved to Marion in 1863. Four years later, they moved to Mechanicsville.

After completing high school, Wheeler went to the University of Notre Dame, graduating in 1871. He earned a law degree from the University of Iowa in 1874. That was also the year he became involved in the notorious Jones County calf case.

Wheeler's client, Robert Johnson, had been accused of stealing four calves from a neighbor, John Foreman, and selling them with 46 others as his own.

Johnson said he had bought the calves from a stranger named Smith in a deal that was overheard by a country store owner and several store patrons. Johnson offered restitution to Foreman - until he heard that Foreman was claiming those four were his best calves. He rescinded his offer because the four he had purchased from Smith were low grade.

Wheeler represented Johnson through losses and appeals and vigilante threats that spanned a quarter century, finally winning the case.

Wheeler described it as 'the most notorious piece of litigation in the United States.” Because of his work in such a notable case, Wheeler became known for his oratory skills and his dramatic ability in the courtroom.

family life & horses

Wheeler married Ella Frasier of Tipton in 1875, and they had two sons. Lucian Charles Wheeler, born in 1878, grew up to serve in the Secret Service detail that kept Presidents Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson safe. He later worked for a motion picture firm.

Jeffrey Earl Wheeler, born in 1889, became a salesman for Penick & Ford Co. (which would become Penford in 1997). He later became an investigator for the district attorney's office in Los Angeles.

After 13 years in Mechanicsville, Wheeler joined forces with Judge John T. Moffit and opened a practice in Tipton. Seven years later, Judge Preston joined, and the firm moved to Cedar Rapids.

Before Wheeler decided to partner with Judge N.M. Hubbard in 1897, the Wheeler family had moved into 853 Second Ave. SE, the house in the archive negatives. (It had been built by James Morton in 1883.)

The judge shared Wheeler's love of horses. He named a colt after the lawyer, and it became the fastest 3-year-old on a half-mile track.

When Hubbard died in 1902, the firm went on for a while before dissolving. Wheeler practiced law alone until becoming part of Grimm, Wheeler, Elliott & Jay n 1916.

Wheeler declined to hold public office while he lived in Cedar Rapids. He wasn't interested in politics beyond deciding who to vote for. In addition to his membership in the Linn County and the Iowa State Bar associations, he was a founding member of the local branch of the Humane Society.

case of orphaned boy

The story that best shows Wheeler as a man of character happened in 1904. He had finished a court case in western Iowa but was still in the courtroom when a rugged man dragged in a sobbing 12-year-old boy. The child tried to hold the sleeve of his oversized coat over his face to hide his tears.

Two angry young women followed the pair before the judge. The man, who turned out to be the boy's legal guardian, asked the court to send him to reform school. He explained the boy was orphaned and living with the young women, who were his sisters. His crimes were that he had played hooky from school twice, he wouldn't mind his sisters and he had not cleaned his shoes before entering the house.

When the judge agreed to commit the boy, the trio swept out of the room without even a look over their shoulders.

Wheeler, who had observed the scene and the dejected child, rose and apologized to the judge for speaking about a case that was not his.

'Your honor,” he said, 'it must appear to you that the case they have made against this motherless, fatherless boy is not sufficient to indicate that he is incorrigible or that he has done anything worse than hundreds or thousands of other boys of his age have done. As a matter of fact, if all the boys who have run away from school and who have forgotten to wipe their feet before entering the house had been sent to a reform school, there are only a few of us who would be here today, and I doubt not that your honor in his childhood did things even worse than this boy is charged with.

'When I saw his sisters walk past him just now without even kissing him goodbye, I made up my mind that there is something else wrong that those witnesses did not detail to you.”

An elderly farmer in the back of the room rose and beckoned Wheeler, asking him to see if the judge would let him and his wife take the boy home with them.

'We've got a great big farm where we can take care of him,” the farmer said.

When Wheeler returned to the town several months later, he met the farmer on the street.

'My wife and I can never thank you enough,” the farmer told Wheeler. 'That boy is the best lad of his age that I ever saw. He hasn't given us one moment of anxiety. He is doing splendid. I always believed a boy should have something of his own, and I gave him a fine colt to break so that he could have something to ride or drive to school, and he is just as happy as a lark.”

The farmer then told Wheeler that the boy one day would inherit one of the best farms in that county.

The boy was allowed to receive letters from his sisters and was encouraged to answer them with kindness, but the farmer assured Wheeler the child would not forget what might have happened if Wheeler had not interceded for him in court.

HORSES VS. CARS

Wheeler rode saddle horses into the age of automobiles, mainly because of his dislike of the machines.

But his wife, Ella, bought an electric car she kept in the barn by the house on Second Avenue SE. Although he refused to drive the thing, he allowed Ella to take him to a meeting at Alamo Park one evening in 1907. The speed lever got stuck at high speed, and Ella couldn't stop the car. The car tore through town, a frightened Ella at the wheel and a wildly cursing Wheeler in the passenger seat. They sped out Marion Road, then turned and came back to town. After several circuits and an ongoing argument that faded into stony silence, the couple saw Joe Lattner, the automobile dealer, and yelled at him about their predicament.

Lattner ran after the car, pulled out the key, cutting the current, and it stopped.

The problem was fixed, but from then on, Ella drove the car alone.

epilogue

Wheeler's law firm added V. Craven Shuttleworth when Wheeler retired in 1921. T.M. Ingersoll was added in 1928, forming a law firm that endurses to this day in Cedar Rapids.

Wheeler was 76 when he died Nov. 28, 1927. Soon after, Ella moved to California, where her son lived.

The house on Second Avenue became part of an area that was rapidly changing to a business district, and on April 12, 1956, it was demolished. Today, it is a parking lot in the MedQuarter District.

l Comments: (319) 398-8338; diane.langton@thegazette.com