Isabelle "Belle" O'Dowd, was about 17 or 18 years of age when, using the stage name Effie Ellis, she came to Springfield at Christmastime of 1886 as an actress and a song and dance girl for a traveling variety show out of St. Louis. Fenton Cox, son of G. M. Cox, a prominent Springfield physician, became infatuated with the beautiful and charming young woman, and she seemed to return his affection to some degree. She lingered in Springfield, and young Cox tried to set her up with a variety show of her own in Springfield. Alarmed by his son's infatuation with a person he considered to be a loose woman and little better than a "demon harlot," Dr. Cox tried to break the couple up. He thought Effie was only spending time with Fenton so he would support her financially, and he finally succeeded, with the help of the local police, in running Effie out of town.
However, Fenton followed the girl to cities throughout the Midwest, including St. Louis, Memphis, Kansas City, and Topeka. Dr. Cox made several trips to bring his son home, and he even set him up with a couple of different jobs, one in New York, to try to keep him away from Effie. But Fenton and Effie kept writing letters to each other and seeing each other on the sly. The couple even passed themselves off as man and wife in St. Louis during early 1888, but they did not live together. Dr. Cox traveled to St. Louis to bring Fenton home once again, but the young man swore he was in love with Belle (i.e. Effie) and wanted to marry her for real. Dr. Cox vehemently opposed such a union, but he was at his wit's end as to how to break the couple up. He finally decided to resort to desperate means. Using Fenton's name, Dr. Cox wired Effie in St. Louis beseeching her to come to Springfield.
Effie balked at making the trip and even expressed to a female friend of hers that she feared something bad might happen if she went to Springfield. The friend later said that Effie seemed more afraid of Fenton because of his insane jealousy than she was in love with him. The telegrams kept coming, though, imploring her to come to Springfield, and she finally relented.
She arrived at the Frisco depot in North Springfield on the morning of March 14, 1888, expecting Fenton to meet her there. Instead, Dr. Cox was there to pick her up. She boarded his carriage, and they started off together, being driven by a hackman. They had gone just a short distance when Dr. Cox began verbally abusing the young woman. Next, he grabbed her by the throat and began beating her. She begged him not to kill her, and he said he wouldn't kill her but he might do something worse. He then pulled out a bottle of carbolic acid and threw its contents in her face.
Effie was taken to a Springfield hotel, where she received medical treatment. It was feared she had been blinded by the acid and left permanently disfigured. A day or so later, though, doctors announced that she would not lose her sight in both eyes and maybe not in either. Her face would be scarred, they said, but not severely so.
Meanwhile, Dr. Cox was arrested on charges of felonious assault. At first, there was considerable talk of mob action against him, but when it was learned that Effie would not die and might make an almost complete recovery, such talk died down. Dr. Cox gave bond and was allowed to go free.
Newspapers, while generally deploring Cox's desperate measure, seemed to sympathize with him and tended to cast blame on the victim, calling her such names as a "soiled dove," and a "fallen angel" and accusing her of being "oblivious to the seventh commandment," despite the fact that no proof was presented to suggest she was promiscuous. The most damning evidence against her seemed to be that she was associated with a "low" variety show. One newspaper did admit that, although Cox was generally respected in the community, some people didn't like him because of his quick temper.
To the contrary of the way Effie was generally portrayed in the press, the best evidence suggests that she was not a prostitute or a promiscuous woman. Effie had been orphaned about five years earlier when her mother died, and she had to support herself. The woman who knew her in St. Louis (the theater manager's wife) said that Effie did not seem to especially enjoy the theatrical life and only stayed with it because it was the only way she knew to make a living. Despite her apparent lack of enthusiasm for her job, Effie discharged all of her duties satisfactorily. The woman also said Effie did not seem to particularly care for male company. In addition, Effie's landlady said the young woman mainly kept to herself in her room and was "very circumspect" in her behavior.
On March 17, three days after his attack on Effie, Dr. Cox was driving a buggy on the Springfield square "at a brisk speed" when the shaft of the buggy struck a man who was carrying a basket of fish and knocked him down, bruising him in several places. The man filed charges against the doctor, and he was arrested for criminal negligence. Taken before a judge, he gave bond on the new charge and was again released. The doctor claimed his mind was so preoccupied with his troubles with his son that he didn't see the pedestrian.
Later the same day, Fenton and Effie, who was on the road to recovery, met with Dr. Cox in his office with the doctor who had treated Effie acting as an intermediary. Cox told his son to choose between the support of his family or the girl, and Fenton said without hesitation that he chose the girl. Dr. Cox said that settled the matter and peremptorily dismissed the couple.
Effie had recuperated enough that she was able to travel, and it was thought she would not be disfigured or blinded after all. She and Fenton made plans to leave for St. Louis. From there, they planned to cross the Mississippi River to Illinois and get married. However, a prosecutor informed them that they needed to stay around so they could testify at Dr. Cox's preliminary hearing, and they delayed their departure.
Later that afternoon, a reporter interviewed Effie and Fenton at her hotel room. Effie said it wasn't true that she was attracted to Fenton only because of his father's money and that she loved him "for his own self." She pointed out that, while it was true Fenton had furnished her money on occasion, she had also given him money from her scant savings a few times when he was short on funds, and the young man confirmed that the statement was true. Effie said she had no desire that Dr. Cox should be punished for his attack on her, even though he had "dogged and hounded" her relentlessly for the past year and had even knocked her down one time in Memphis. Effie said that, from what she knew of Fenton's mother and sister, she had the kindest regard for them.
At his preliminary hearing on March 20, Dr. Cox waived examination and gave bond to appear at trial. The speculation was, however, that the case would never be prosecuted because Effie would not appear to testify against him, and Fenton seemed to confirm that such was the case.
On March 22, Effie and Fenton traveled to St. Louis as planned, but when they called at the probate judge's office for a marriage license, Fenton learned his father had already contacted the judge and told him not to issue the license since the boy was not of legal age to get married. This was not true, and Fenton hotly denied it, but the marriage was nevertheless postponed. Although Effie had said she did not want to see Dr. Cox punished for his attack on her, she promptly retained a lawyer when she reached St. Louis with plans to sue the doctor for damages. Dr. Cox tried unsuccessfully about this time to get his son committed to an insane asylum.
When Dr. Cox's criminal case came before a grand jury in Springfield in the early summer of 1888, the jury declined to indict him. Near the end of the year, a different jury did indict Cox for the assault on Effie, but she could not be located to return to Springfield and testify. The case was not further prosecuted.
Dr. Cox died in June of 1889. Later that year, Fenton and Effie attended a theater performance in St. Louis, and the next morning a man who had shared the same theater box with them filed a complaint of larceny against Fenton for allegedly taking off with the man's coat and watch after the man fell asleep. Fenton denied the charge at first but finally broke down and confessed, claiming he only did it because he was drunk at the time. He also claimed Effie, whom the St. Louis Globe Democrat called a "disreputable woman," had no knowledge of the theft. One report near this time said that Fenton and Effie were now married, but this was apparently not true.
Effie and Fenton traveled together for a time in a variety show, spending a lengthy sojourn in Peoria, Illinois, but now that Dr. Cox was no longer around to try to keep the couple separated, Fenton's infatuation with the girl gradually waned and they went their separate ways. Effie continued her association with the theater a while longer, but then she married a plumber named Lauer and they moved to Kansas City and stayed a few months before moving back to St. Louis. Meanwhile, Fenton's separation from Effie did not put him on the straight and narrow path, because in 1891, he once again got into trouble for stealing but this time it was highway robbery. He and two sidekicks held up a traveler and robbed him of a $200 watch and some money. Young Cox was unable to give bond and remained locked up several days after the crime. Fent, as he was often called, got into a couple of more scrapes with the law over the next year before finally being convicted in Jasper County for a burglary at Sarcoxie and being sent up the river to Jeff City for two-plus-year stint in the state prison.
In 1897, Lauer sued Effie for divorce in St. Louis and asked for custody of their 5-year-old daughter, claiming that Effie had deserted him and gone to live with another man. Effie, or Isabella Lauer as she was now known, counter-sued. In her cross bill, Effie said Lauer knew what manner of woman she was and knew that she had been living with Fenton Cox without the benefit of matrimony when Lauer married her. Presumably the implication was that Lauer should not now be able to use her questionable reputation against her. In addition, Effie said that Lauer was abusive and often beat her. They had a son together that was born in Memphis, but Lauer took the boy from her in New Orleans and left him on the steps of a church. The reason she "deserted" Lauer, she said, was because he gave her a hard beating, then gave her three dollars, and ordered her to leave and do the best she could on her own. Effie asked for custody of the five-year-old girl.
Lauer was finally granted a divorce in 1898 and was given custody of the daughter. And that was the last that was ever heard of Effie Ellis (aka Isabella Lauer).
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