While we're on the road travelling to our January/February snow bird home, I'll share a story I found while researching Ryan family history last week. This vignette, entitled "Murderous Assault,"  is found on page 568 of Child's History of Waseca County: One of the most tragic events of the year occurred on Sunday afternoon, Nov. 27, 1904, at Waseca. Miss Alice Ryan, aged nineteen years, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Ryan, was occupied as "central" at the telephone office. A few minutes after 5 o'clock, Charles Smith, about twenty-six years of age, son of C.A. Smith, grandson of J.B. Smith, and brother-in-law of Miss Ryan, came into the reception room of the telephone office, and, with scarcely a word, drew a revolver and fired at Miss Ryan three times, the third time the bullet striking her in the back of the neck and lodging in her body. Smith was overpowered and arrested. Miss Ryan was taken to Dr. Cummings' office and placed in his care. The would-be assassin was a young man, who had been engaged for several years as brakeman and freight conductor on the Chicago and North-Western railway. Some four or five years before this event, he had married a sister of Miss Alice. About a year after the marriage a babe was born to them, the mother dying some two weeks later. The child was cared for by the grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Ryan. Meantime Smith desired to marry Miss Alice, but her mother not approving of the union, Miss Ryan refused to wed. Smith brooded over his dismissal, and finally became jealous. The day of the shooting, he had been drinking considerably. It was generally believed that Charlie Smith, sober, was not the guilty party, but that Charlie Smith, crazed with saloon liquor, was the criminal. Charlie Smith's hands are red with the blood of this innocent girl - and whose hands in Waseca are clean? Smith, full of cruel, murderous, licensed liquor, plans to murder a helpless girl. He secures cartridges, marches directly to his victim, and, without the least warning, in open day, in the presence of three witnesses, shoots her with murderous intent. And now as to the sequel. Miss Alice rapidly recovered. Mrs. Ryan, mother-like, visited her son-in-law in jail. As soon as Alice was able, she also went with her mother to see him. As a result, Smith soon obtained bail, and, on the evening of his release, he married the girl he would have assassinated; at the March term of court, 1904 [sic], Smith was let off with a fine of $100 on a charge of assault in the second degree. Even though I've found no evidence of a connection to this branch of the Ryan family, my curiosity demanded another sequel. Did Charlie and Alice live happily ever after? I quickly discovered there were about as many Smiths as Ryans living in Waseca County. With a little persistence I found marriage and birth records:

1. Charles J. Smith married Margaret Ryan in Waseca, MN, on 27 October 1897.
2. George Dewey Smith was born in Waseca, MN, on 7 August 1898. The baby's father was Charles J. Smith.
3. Charles J. Smith married Alice Ryan in Waseca, MN on 13 December 1904.

After pursuing many dead ends, I looked at Dalby Database obituaries and hit pay dirt. Here's what I found in the Waseca Herald, 29 September 1911: Following an illness of several months of tuberculosis, Charles J. Smith died at his home in Albert Lea Sunday morning. He was 35 years of age, the last six of which he had been employed as switchman in the M. & St. L. yards at Albert Lea. His father, his wife and one child by his first wife survive him. Funeral services were held at his home Tuesday. The remains were brot [sic] to Woodville cemetery for interment. Charles J. Smith, son of Charles A/Elizabeth (Martin) Smith, (4-13-1876 -- 9-24-1911) no marker. Looking for the family in the 1910 census (enumerated 28 April 1910), I found Charley J. Smith, railroad switchman, as a boarder in a rooming house in Albert Lea. He was reported as being 36 years old and single. The 1910 census shows 11-year-old George Smith living in Waseca, next door to Thomas Ryan and his family. I didn't find Alice Ryan Smith in the 1910 or subsequent censuses. A sad story with a sad ending.