Cover Story

She was a “beaut.” Fashioned from cypress in 1922, in a shipyard where Elmira Street met the muddy waters of Mobile Bay, the classic launch boat glistened in lacquered grain and glass casement windows.

The Ladd family bought the vessel in 1932 and along with it came a caretaker. Lewis Johnson, a light-skinned black man with curly hair, was as integral as the boat’s Stearns engine. “He wouldn’t sweep or clean or nothing,” said Russell Ladd, “but he could take care of a boat.”

In the 1980s, the Ladds donated the launch to Spring Hill College whereby the school’s president, Father Paul Tipton, named the craft the King Louis. According to Russell Ladd, Tipton’s inspiration was Mon Louis Island in southern Mobile County.

The Ladd family never knew the boat as such. To Russell, she was always the African Queen, borrowed from the 1951 Humphrey Bogart film.

But for the boat’s original owner, Mobile attorney Foster Hale, the launch was one of two queens in his life. One delivered escape while the other brought him death.

Foster

According to the Mobile Register, Foster K. Hale, Jr. was born to a prominent Mobile family on March 17, 1878. He “read law” in the offices of McIntosh & Rich and passed the bar exam at the age of 19, though he was unlicensed to practice until a few years later. He also once served as city recorder.

Hale was a well-known character in the Mobile legal system. In attorney Harry Seale’s book “Stories of the Mobile Bar,” Hale wasted no time setting his priorities in line. “Foster K. Hale, Jr. represented more clients in the Inferior Court and the Recorders Court than all the other lawyers in the city combined,” wrote Seale. “His standard fee was $10.00, no more, no less. Upon arriving in at his office around 7:30 a.m., he would find it jammed (sic) packed with clients who were being charged with misdemeanors and had to face the court in a preliminary hearing. He would ask those with money to stand. He would then direct the standing clients to move to one side of the waiting room and directed all others to leave. He did not do a credit business and depended on low charges and volume.”

Hale reaped the benefits of his station in life. He invested wisely and accrued wealth to go along with his social stature.

Foster enjoyed leisure. “Mr. Hale was a great sportsman and frequently went fishing in his ‘Gulf’ boat,” described Seale. “He also hunted ducks, quail, geese, dove and deer. He did not expect any favors from the judges, but he delighted in furnishing them fish and game. They realized that he did not expect favors and they gave him none. They were honorable men.”

Other game was also his target. Attorney David Bagwell said that pleasure was little secret at times. “Tommy Haas said that he was told years ago that Mr. Hale occasionally sat as a substitute judge,” wrote Bagwell, “and one time, in the prosecution of an insider of a house of ill repute, Foster felt that as a judge he had to say something, so he asked an inane question of a policeman about the location of a piano, to which the prostitute replied from the dock, ‘Oh, Foster; you know exactly where it is, as many times as you have been there!’”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Hale had an almost irresistible impulse to associate intimately with lovely women,” wrote Seale. “As a result, he had a ‘girlfriend.’”

Willie Mae

Willie Mae Hancock was born to an older couple in rural Alabama in 1897. She described her father as a village blacksmith.

Willie Mae wanted to be a schoolteacher, but lacked the funds to seek training. According to Willie Mae, she knew Foster Hale’s brother and had heard of the successful Port City attorney when she was “12 or 13 years old.”

In 1910, 13-year-old Willie Mae walked into Foster’s office and told him her plight. She said she agreed to accept three $10 bills from him so she could begin preparation, but only under the agreement that she pay it back.

A year later, Willie Mae reappeared in the attorney’s office to tell him that she couldn’t afford to repay the loan. By this time, her adolescent body had experienced a growth spurt. Aaron Reid later told the courts he knew her in Repton, Ala. in 1911 and she appeared to be 19-years-old.

Hale took one look at the14-year-old and devised another line of remuneration. “You have developed wonderfully,” Willie Mae recalled him saying, “and you will not have to work if you’ll let me take care of you.” Foster wanted a “kept woman.” Others referred to her as his “concubine.”

Hale entertained the youngster, showing her the advantages of his lifestyle. According to attorney Sam Johnston, Foster promised her love, happiness and betrothal on through the time he married another woman. Willie Mae said Foster promised to adopt her “and take care of me” until she was 16, then Hale would get a divorce and marry Hancock. The charade continued.

Willie Mae began to have second thoughts. “I decided early that I had made a mess of my life,” she later sobbed. She said she wanted a change.

In April of 1913, Willie Mae met Jesse R. Pugh. “Foster heard about my friendship to him,” Willie Mae recalled, “and said he would run him out of the city.”

Willie Mae married Pugh, but didn’t reveal her relationship with Hale. She insisted the newlyweds move to Birmingham, “away from Mobile so that my marriage would be a happy one.” They relocated but later returned, since she claimed Jesse could earn a better living in the Port City.

Hale caught wind she was back in town and though Willie Mae had a husband and son, Willie “Bobbie” Pugh, it didn’t stop the clandestine affair from rekindling. She said Hale threatened to expose her secret to her husband from time to time in order to keep her in line.

“I could not explain one day how I got money,” said Willie Mae, “and I remember my husband slapped me.”

During a trip to Hatttiesburg, Miss., Jesse introduced Willie Mae to army captain Frederick Clausen. She said she saw Clausen “once or twice” after that.

The ongoing tryst with Hale wore down the Pughs’ marriage. They divorced. Jesse said she begged reconciliation in 1925, but he refused.

She tried to leave Mobile again and wrote Foster telling him in the most affectionate terms she couldn’t return until he agreed to marry her. She still acknowledged her eternal love for her master. Foster threatened to use his power to take her son from her unless she returned to Mobile.

Once back in town, Willie Mae claimed Hale grew more abusive, that he even locked her in his boathouse for a period.

Willie Mae testified the first pistol she owned was given to her by Foster when his wife Catherine threatened to kill her “if you do not leave my husband alone.” The mistress testified Foster advised her, “Kill Mrs. Hale if she bothers you.”

Willie Mae testified Hale gave her an allowance of $65 per week and a $2,000 automobile. Then, Hale leased a six-room bungalow for her in Biloxi and would visit her on weekends “but not at home” because of her son Bobbie.

Willie Mae attempted another break. She married Frederick Clausen and they moved to Aberdeen, Wash., near Seattle.

The distance did no good. Three letters from Hale awaited her arrival at her new address. Fred finally intercepted a telegram from Foster demanding she return to Mobile. In a fit, Fred threw her wedding ring in her face. The couple separated.

Illness

Willie Mae was sick. She became fixated on illnesses and sought the counsel of out-of-town doctors while Hale footed the bill for it all.

A close acquaintance of Hale’s revealed to the Mobile Register that the attorney confided he was worried about Willie Mae’s mental state.

Hale’s concern was echoed by doctors. Willie Mae was advised to move west, to see if a change in climate might do her some good. Willie Mae and Bobbie headed to Phoenix for her treatment. Foster sent her $105 a week for treatment.

The payments were no longer an easy matter for Hale. The attorney’s finances had suffered greatly in the stock market crash of 1929. Though he retained the status Mobile society afforded him, including a mansion on Spring Hill Avenue, he was in no position to afford his former lifestyle. Hale mortgaged his home and borrowed heavily to send money westward. Meanwhile, Willie Mae heard an unwelcome prognosis from her Arizona doctors. She and Bobbie moved to Dallas to seek other care and sent Foster a telegram asking for a car.

Hale could afford little more. He returned correspondence describing himself as “old, tired and broke.” He told her to stay away from Mobile as he didn’t plan on being “worried to death” by Willie Mae and his wife.

Willie Mae later said the weekly stipends of $65 dollars stopped June 1, 1931. She would not be thwarted.

She packed up Bobbie and returned to Alabama.

Home again

Willie Mae and her son moved to Atmore where her mother tended a boarding house by this point. The prodigal daughter was paranoid and poor.

Willie Mae still harangued Foster for funds. His patience and fortune exhausted, Hale would have none of it. “I am sick and tired of being down and broke by you,” Hale wrote her. “I am willing to try and get the $30,000 and settle up.” Willie Mae later said she only asked Hale for the $3,100 she claimed he owed her.

On June 16, 1931, she sent another telegram pleading for $35. According to historian Jay Higginbotham, Hale went to a friend, borrowed the money and wired it to Atmore.

Willie Mae never received the wire. She grabbed Bobbie and headed for Mobile.

Once in town, Bobbie was sent to see his father, Jesse. Willie Mae registered at the Bienville Hotel and phoned Hale’s law office.

Foster cursed her and reiterated his poverty.

Willie Mae hung up the phone. She retrieved her 32-caliber pistol from her suitcase, loaded it, wrapped it in brown paper and headed out on foot. The late summer afternoon was cooled by the breezes picking up off the bay.

Willie Mae reached 66 1/2 St. Michael St. in the fading daylight and climbed the steps to Hale’s office.

The exhausted mistress stepped through Foster’s door.

Clausen said Foster cursed her again and ordered her out.

It didn’t faze her. Willie Mae rebuked him and laid the brown paper package on his desk.

They argued back and forth. Foster shouted. “I’ll have Police Chief Burch run you out of town or you can go to hell.”

“Then you’ll go to hell with me,” Hale claimed she said.

Both lunged for the firearm.

The pair tussled. Shots rang. Hale was struck in his abdomen and left side then collapsed.

A neighbor heard the gunfire and called the police. When officers arrived, Willie Mae stood over Hale, the revolver on the floor.

“He wrecked my life and he got what he deserved,” she told them.

Hale was rushed to the city hospital. Always sharp, the attorney managed two statements while conscious, both naming Willie Mae as the killer. One was made to a Register reporter, the other to police. “She shot me for nothing,” claimed Hale. He hung on for an hour then slipped away.

Willie Mae was in police custody and under scrutiny from the circuit solicitor-now called the district attorney-Bart B. Chamberlain, Sr.. Willie Mae flatly stated the events and her complicity.

The news ran through town at lightning speed. The trial was rescheduled several times due to the illness of Chamberlain, a prosecutor with a notorious reputation.

Local hotshot defense attorney Sam Johnston came to Willie Mae’s defense along with a team of lawyers including young female attorney Rosa Gerhardt in her first high profile case.

Willie Mae whiled the days away in a jail cell, reading from a collection of books, sewing, poring over letters and writing poetry. “Mine hasn’t been a life of sunshine and roses,” she told one interviewer.

The mid-winter court date arrived. The trial was a distraction for many in the throes of the Great Depression and heavily attended by an audience of mostly women who showed up each day with bag lunches and eager ears.

The defense offered an insanity plea, madness induced by the years of abuse and heartache Foster dealt the “faded flaower.” The attorneys called a slate of notable professionals and lay witnesses who testified as to Willie Mae’s obvious mental imbalance.

Willie Mae herself offered explicit and lengthy testimony broken by frequent sobbing fits and emotional collapses, often comforted by her teenaged son Bobbie. Interestingly, her testimony of the events on the day of the murder varied considerably from the statements she gave authorities on the night of the murder.

At one point, the prosecutor presented the contents of Hale’s safety deposit box, a bundle of correspondence between Foster and Willie Mae that seemed to reveal a deep well of affection bubbling from the older man.

During proceedings it was revealed Hale’s last will and testament named Willie Mae as the beneficiary of half his estate. Predictably, Willie Mae wept when she admitted knowledge of the inheritance.

The trial began, broke for a weekend and resumed on Monday. All told, it was nearly a week of testimony and questioning.

The closing statements were rife with imagery. The defense said the day young Willie Mae walked into Hale’s office was “like a fly walking into a spider’s nest.” They claimed Hale waited until she was “used up” before he decided to cast her aside, that the attorney asserted she stay away from town in contrast to his former insistence of her constant immediate presence.

Prosecutor Chamberlain hammered home the idea of Willie Mae as a “gold-digger” who waited until Foster was financially tapped out before shooting him. Chamberlain demanded the electric chair.

On Wed., Feb. 3, 1932, the jury of white, male businessmen withdrew at 5:05 p.m. and went to supper three hours later. They returned and deliberated until 9:38 p.m. when Judge Joel Goldsby ordered them sequestered.

On Thursday, they reconvened at 8 a.m. and deliberated until noon when they delivered a verdict of manslaughter in the second degree. The courtroom gallery of jubilant women exploded prompting Judge Goldsby to hammer his gavel and threaten fines. The sentence: one year in the county jail.

According to Jay Higginbotham, Willie Mae’s escapades weren’t over. Within weeks, she had seduced a jailer, Dewitt Pryor. Dewitt’s brother Frank was forced to relieve him from duty but when Willie Mae was set free, Dewitt was there to meet her. The couple quickly tied the knot and moved to Birmingham.

Months later, Frank Pryor heard from a friend in the Magic City that Dewitt had “lost his wits” and needed retrieval. Frank rescued his brother and, once back in Mobile, Dewitt obtained a divorce.

•••

According to the family of Sam Johnston, Willie Mae eventually reappeared in town. During World War II, Sam sat in his law office when a woman entered draped in jewelry and fine clothing. It was Willie Mae complete with a new last name. Through the window, she pointed to her sleek new automobile. Willie Mae mentioned she had married a wealthy Englishman and was passing through Mobile on vacation.

Years later, former husband Frank Pryor heard word she was living in Pensacola. Understandably, he didn’t bother to confirm the rumor.

Beyond that, Willie Mae seems to have vanished into the mists of time.

•••

Foster Hale’s Springhill Avenue mansion has changed hands through the decades. The big white house presently known as Magnolia Manor now plays host to wedding receptions and formal events, happy times that hide its sad past. But guests and residents over the years have told stories of lights that mysteriously turn on and off, of faces in the windows or female figures at the top of the stairs.

Maybe its just imaginations sparked by the shadows of the Spanish moss-draped oaks and the historic architecture.

Or perhaps Willie Mae finally has the house she always felt she deserved.

Kevin Lee is Lagniappe associate editor. Contact him at klee@lagniappemobile.com.

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