Monthly Archives: January 2009

Author Q & A: Why Does Rosa Sutton’s Crusade to Save Her Son’s Soul Still Matter?

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For all the details about this case see the website home page, and the tabs for A Soul on Trial. www.robinrcutler.com

Was Rosa Sutton the first mother to challenge the military over the death of her son in a courtroom?

Probably; scholars and reviewers have all said this is a unique story. (See Press tab.)  But many military court documents still lay buried in the National Archives waiting to be discovered. So unless you know of a case, the answer may be unknown. My History News Network essay discusses this case and its relevance today.  http://hnn.us/articles/41493.html  Click here  or cut and paste to your browser.

And here are a few other questions I have been asked in interviews with some answers :

How did you come across this story and what convinced you to write a book about it?

After my mother died in 1987 I found a mysterious locket in a drawer with a photograph of a midshipmen and a lock of his hair. Years later, while going through other papers, I discovered the young officer was her uncle, James Sutton, and his death had caused a national sensation. (The locket had been worn by his sister Rose (then Mrs. Parker)* at the 1909 Annapolis inquiry into Sutton’s death.) It took several months for the wonderful staff at the National Archives to find the  court transcripts of both inquiries into the fate of Lieutenant Sutton. The 1907 transcript is full of inconsistencies and the lengthy report of the second inquiry that captivated Americans throughout 1909 is a fascinating window into military justice before World War I.

I also began searching for articles about the case in papers from Maryland and Washington, D.C. and soon realized what a big story this was and how reporters helped shape its outcome. The 1909 “trial” as the press called it was the trial of the decade to many contemporaries . In fact, headlines about Rosa’s crusade appeared all across the United States. An unusual set of circumstances made Rosa Sutton’s quest for justice and redemption for her son unprecedented .

What did you learn about Rosa’s personality? What was she like ?

Rosa was a feisty, funny, devout and irreverent woman devoted to her 5 children, especially her oldest son . She was horrified by the thought he might  have committed suicide–to her that was a mortal sin and much of her mission was shaped by her Catholicism.  Her outspoken temperament was formed in the Pacific Northwest where her parents were pioneers. Rosa’s apparent psychic abilities created quite a stir one hundred years ago when she came up against the United States government in a military forum. Her later years  as a grandmother and her role in her two grandchildren’s lives is part of the Salome to Hollywood Blog on this on this website.

Naval officials accused her of being cold and calculating as well as unstable – do you agree ?

Rosa’s mission and her goals changed over the course of her three-year crusade to find out what happened to Jimmie. After judge advocate Harry Leonard and Arthur Birney, the attorney for the young Marine Corps lieutenants, gave her a hard time and accused her of hallucinating, her views hardened ; at times she may have wanted revenge. But she never gave up her belief that her son had been murdered. Rosa had many supporters; she was not unstable. On the contrary, she was very sharp as Dr. James Hyslop proved in his exhaustive study of her premonitions and psychic experiences.  

Why did this story matter so much a century ago and what makes it timeless ?

I think it mattered then for the same reasons it matters now. It’s an appealing story of a mother desperate to find out the facts about what happened to her son. Rosa was a private citizen taking on big government and speaking truth to power. As I became immersed in the documents I became caught up in how complex it was to decipher the truth in the face of conflicting testimony. Also a century ago there was a great deal of interest in the paranormal which seems to be true today as well.

Even now (in 2012) many television programs are based on the paranormal; in fact Pilgrim Studios has just produced an episode of “Ghost Hunters” about a search for the ghost of Jimmie Sutton in Annapolis  (“A Ghost of a Marine.”  4/18/2012 ) It’s quite a yarn–with several inaccurate bits.( Such as Sutton’s brother was Don not Dan, his mother was Rosa not Rose.) The hunt is popular entertaining fantasy transformed  into a reality show. And almost all the still images in the program are identical to those in my book and the Soul on Trial gallery on this website so that may take a bit of detective work. (No one asked my publisher or me about using those images.) What is really surprising is that the ghost of Jimmie Sutton is apparently still around Annapolis and especially Beach Hall, the home of the Naval Institute where the Naval Academy hospital used to be located

Did Jimmie Sutton commit suicide or was he murdered?

Well that turned out to be a far more intriguing and complicated question than I realized when I started looking into this case . And for the answer you should read the book. It’s a detective story – and I hope readers will have fun following all the threads that I found; each reader will be a historian for a time and make up his or her own mind about what really happened in the early morning of October 13th (Annapolis time), 1907.

*A decade later Rose would become Mrs. Randolph Hicks. Her critical role in the life of her niece and nephew, Jane Hall and Dick Wick Hall, Jr. comes out in the Salome to Hollywood Blog on this site.

PLEASE USE THE CONTACT TAB AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE FOR ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS.

Sutton’s Lonely Grave and a Great Arlington Cemetery Website

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The body had been dressed for burial in socks, underclothes and an undress blue uniform. Lieutenant James Sutton’s limbs were so rigid by Sunday, October 20 that undertaker Raymond Taylor had to split his jacket in the back to get it on over his arms. The following day, after a brief service, Rose Parker traveled with her brother’s coffin to Washington and then to a hillside at Arlington Cemetery where he would be laid to rest in the “Southern division, officers section,” grave site 2102. Rose was the only family member to hear trumpeter Sam Nolan play the mournful sound of taps. She had made sure that roses, chrysanthemums and daisies covered the lonesome grave. Dwarfing the headstone behind it, a wreath stood propped against a stand encircling the word “Dad.” Below it, on the mound of fresh earth was a rectangle of large white flowers with the word “Mother” at the center. But the site had not been blessed by a priest and eight days after his death, the future of Jimmie Sutton’s soul remained very much in doubt. And so begins the story of A Soul on Trial.

On that sunny Monday afternoon in 1907, no one could have imagined that in September 1909 this grave would be opened, the body exhumed and an autopsy performed on remains that had remained, oddly enough, in almost perfect condition

Over the last century an enormous fir tree that may well be from Oregon has grown over the top of the grave; it is unlike any tree in the area. No graves surrounded Sutton’s small stone in 1907 but the scene is quite different today.

If you would like to see recent pictures of the grave or learn more about the later careers of some of the officers featured in A Soul on Trial check out  webmaster Michael R. Patterson’s  terrific site  about Arlington National Cemetery.  www.ArlingtonCemetery.net

Information about the Sutton story, can be found if you click this link or scroll down to “click here to search the site” on the home page and type in j n sutton. The Sutton is article no.1. Scroll way down for the pictures. Harold Utley has some info at no. 3. Thanks to “Holly” for adding the roses to the grave on the 100th anniversary of Sutton’s death in 2007.

Michael has been working on this site for more than 15 years. The site’s real value comes from the more recent moving stories about those who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan and tales of other military heroes.

Rosa Brant – The Daughter of Clark County Pioneers

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Rosetta Agnes Brant was born on January 27, 1860, into a pioneer family already overflowing with the laughter and tears of young children. Ten years earlier, Rosa’s German father, Joseph, and his Irish wife, Louisa Burgett Brant, had made their way on a journey of close to 2000 miles from Dayton Ohio, to Clark County, Washington. They followed the Oregon Trail. Joseph had taken out a donation land claim on the Lewis River, but as his family expanded, he moved his wife and children to the town of Vancouver, on the North bank of the Columbia River. A wagon and carriage maker by trade, Joseph also owned a livery stable and built and operated a hotel on Main Street with a dance hall and a theater; for several years he served as justice of the peace. But suddenly, on New Year’s Eve, 1872, Joseph died, leaving his 44-year-old wife with 12 children, six were still under 13. (Rosa was the seventh of the Brant children.) Without the support of the Sisters of Charity of Providence it might have been quite difficult for Louisa Brant and her family to survive. Rosa never forgot her schooling with these dedicated women dressed in long black habits and blue aprons. And the fates she acquired as a child  would shape her response to the horrifying death of her oldest son many years later.

Joseph and Louisa Brant and some members of their family are buried in Vancouver, Washington. Much of what I learned about them came from the Clark County Genealogical Society. The CCGS discovered information about the Brant family and even material about Lieutenant Sutton’s close friend who disappeared, Edward Roelker. Dozens of people in Vancouver have the surname of Brant and probably some are descended from Rosa’s large family.   Go to http://www.ccgs-wa.org ” for the latest news from Clark County.