Samuel Maurice Adesska
World War I Veteran
By Camille Arbogst
Samuel Maurice Adesska, known as Sam or Sammy, was the child of Maurice and Fanny (Shore) Adesska. He was probably born in Kishinev, Bessarabia, Russia (today Chisinau, Moldova), though he sometimes reported that his birthplace was Odessa. He used a number of birthdates, most often March 1, 1894 or 1897. Maurice and Fanny had four older children: Philip born in 1883, Jacob, known as Jack, in 1886; Florence in 1888; and Israel in 1892.
The Adesskas immigrated to the United States in the early 20th century. According to Sam’s citizenship record, they sailed from Liverpool, England, on a White Star Line ship, arriving in Boston on August 15, 1904. In 1909, Sam graduated from the Wendell Phillips School on the north slope of Beacon Hill. The next year, the census recorded the Adesskas living not far from the school, at 78 Phillips Street; Maurice had died by this time. In 1912, Sam, his mother, and Florence appeared in the Beverly, Massachusetts directory, residing at 128 Water Street. Florence, a candy dipper, was active with the labor movement. She studied at the Women’s Trade Union League’s Training School for Women Organizers in Chicago, was a Boston Union Workers’ Credit Union board member, and frequently spoke at labor rallies. The Adesskas returned to Beacon Hill in 1913, living at 14 Irving Street. A year later, they moved to the other side of Cambridge Street, to 39 Chambers Street. By 1916, the Adesskas had relocated to 243 Woodrow Avenue in Dorchester.
Sam was employed in 1910, working as a shoe factory office boy. By 1917, he was a self-employed traveling salesman, working out of Cleveland, Ohio. On May 26, 1917, he married a Cleveland woman, Estelle Wallenstein.
Sam enlisted in the Regular Army at Fort Slocum, New York, on December 14, 1917, giving his address as 46 Harwood Street, Dorchester, his brother Jacob’s home. He was initially sent to the United States Aviation School at Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas.On March 12, 1918, he was assigned to the 401st Aero Construction Squadron, Air Service, Signal Corps; later he was transferred to the 409th Aero Construction Squadron. Both units were stationed at Vancouver Barracks, Washington. On June 11, he was transferred again, this time to the 24th Spruce Squadron, 2nd Provisional Regiment, Spruce Production Department, Bureau of Aircraft Production Cut-up Plant at Vancouver, Washington. According to a history written for the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, “The Spruce Production Division (SPD) was a hybrid military/industrial organization that provided special lumber for manufacturing military aircraft … Soldiers attached to the SPD were stationed in lumber mills and logging camps throughout western Oregon and Washington.”On August 18, 1918, Sam was naturalized as an American citizen. Five days later, he was transferred to the 105th Spruce Squadron, based in Portland, Oregon. On September 9, he was promoted to corporal; a month later he was made a sergeant. He was discharged on December 19, 1918.
Sam appeared on the 1920 census as a dealer of dental supplies living with his mother and sister at 337 Charles Street, Boston. Estelle and Sam appear to have divorced in Baltimore, Maryland, in the 1920s. During the decade Sam began using the last name Allen; he legally changed his surname on January 14, 1929, in Los Angeles, California.
On February 3, 1927, Sam boarded the S.S. Maui in San Francisco, California, and sailed for Honolulu, Hawaii. In Honolulu he was frequently in the public eye as a promoter, first hyping a carnival for the local Order of Foresters, then a circus for the Elks. He regularly traveled back to San Francisco, ostensibly to book acts for the events. After one trip to the mainland, he returned to the east coast, marrying Dorothy Adams in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on July 17, 1927. She returned with him to Hawaii in October.
In February 1928, Sam was involved in a headline-grabbing crime: a wealthy tourist was swindled out of $140,000. After the theft, Sam had served as a middle man, negotiating the return of half the money if the victim agreed to not press charges. An agreement was reached, but Sam was unable to deliver the cash due to police surveillance, and the deal fell apart. Sam was charged with first degree conspiracy to obstruct justice, one of a handful indicted in the case. At the same time, he faced a separate charge, accused of committing “larceny, embezzlement and gross cheat” at the Elks’ carnival, newspapers reporting “the lodge is out about $20,000 as the result of the venture.”
The conspiracy trial was held in May. Sam was described as “the most dapper of the three male defendants. … he arrived in court dressed in light colored trousers, grey sports coat, striped shirt, black and white shoes and a ‘polka dot’ tie. … ‘My home is where I hang my hat but my address is Boston,’ he informed the court.” Sam, along with the other defendants, was acquitted. He left Honolulu the day after the verdict was returned.
In 1930, while on a trans-Atlantic voyage, Sam met Frank Behrle, a New Jersey interior designer. The two became friendly enough to travel together after reaching Europe, visiting Hamburg and Berlin. Later, “seemingly by accident” they found themselves at the same Munich hotel, where they shared a suite. While together, Sam found a wallet containing $100 and information about a stock transaction. The pair returned the wallet to its owner, Mr. Thompson; grateful, he offered them $100, which Sam declined. In April, the trio met again in London at the Charing Cross Hotel, where Thompson told them about an upcoming stock deal. Sam and Behrle decided to buy in and Sam went to the exchange to purchase the shares. When he returned, he told Thompson and Frank that they had earned £50,000, but good faith money was required to cash in. Behrle gave them £15,000 towards the necessary funds, according to news reports.It was all a ruse: the wallet had been planted; Thompson was Sam’s associate; the stock tips were fantasy; Behrle’s good faith money was the objective of the crime. Sam returned to the United States in May 1930, a first-class passenger on the Holland America Line’s S.S. Statendam.
In 1933, he turned up in Denver, Colorado, promoting a circus and “winning the confidence of Denver business and fraternal leaders who claimed he took from them a considerable sum of cash.” Sam also romanced Iva Lillian Watkins of Paducah, Kentucky. On January 17, she took poison, ending her life. In her suicide note she urged Sam to “Try to be good.” Sam was arrested on February 27. According to the arresting officer, Sam “admitted he had three wives.”
Newspaper coverage reported that Sam belonged to an “organized gang of international swindlers” led by Richard Elbert Golden, the mastermind behind the Hawaii fraud, known as the “Butter Kid.” The gang paid Sam $15,000 to find a victim for the con, the proceeds of which were to be shared amongst its members. But Sam double-crossed his colleagues, keeping $40,000 for himself. Discovering this, the gang tipped off the police as to Sam’s whereabouts, leading to his arrest.
Frank traveled to Denver to identify Sam. “Hello, Behrle,” Sam said upon seeing his one-time mark. “I’m sorry it had to be you. It’s all in a lifetime.” After extradition to England, Sam was sentenced to three years penal servitude with a recommendation for deportation. He served 27 months. Returning to the United States in August 1935, his last permanent residence was recorded as the Isle of Wight, suggesting he may have been jailed at one of the prisons on the island.
In 1936, Frank sought damages in civil court. Taken into custody on the civil arrest order, Sam was held on $30,000 bail. He “sought his release citing Section 846 of the Civil Practice Act, which … states that a defendant should be released at the court’s discretion if it can be shown that a plaintiff delays enforcement of his civil remedies for the purpose of effecting ‘extended imprisonment.’” A judge denied Sam’s request, ruling that “a criminal must not only satisfy the obligations of society but also those of the individual particularly aggrieved.” Frank was awarded $108,000 in damages. In 1937, in a Federal Court in Newark, New Jersey, Sam was sentenced to two years for “violating the National Stolen Property Act.”
He was possibly the Samuel Maurice Allen who divorced Rosella Allen in Miami, Florida, in 1940. Sam was in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 1941, where he fleeced a retired chicken farmer, once more using the “lost pocketbook racket.” This time he was sentenced to up to three years in the Lackawanna County Jail and paroled on July 24, 1943. Less than a year later, he was picked up again for swindling, this time in New York. He had posed as a manager of a tire company, collecting $1,700 from an unsuspecting would-be tire purchaser. He was arrested once more on June 30, 1945, the leader of a gang “charged with criminally receiving army woolens valued at $52,000.” When the police raided Sam’s hotel room, they found “1,500,000 red ration points and $25,204 in cash.” They alleged Sam was “responsible for hijacking $500,000 worth of woolens, mostly government owned.” It was Sam’s nineteenth arrest. He pled guilty and was sentenced to a year in jail.
On July 8, 1964, Sam was found in Room 243 of the Riverside Hotel in Reno, Nevada, dead of an accidental barbiturate overdose. According to his death certificate, he was a salesman with the Michael Lawrence Corporation, an Inglewood, California, paint company, living at 512 North La Brea in Los Angeles. The informant on the death certificate, Henriette Allen, may have been another wife. His remains were cremated on July 14 at Reno’s Mountain View Crematory.
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Jacoby, Robin Miller. “The Women’s Trade Union League Training School for Women Organizers,” Sisterhood and Solidarity: Workers’ Education for Women, 1914-1984. Philadelphia: Temple University: 33; Archive.org
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<https://www.nps.gov/fova/learn/historyculture/upload/Tonsfeldt-SPD-Study-2013-2.pdf>
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