Abortion, death and a prominent family: An early Jefferson scandal

An incident in Jefferson back around the turn of the 20th century, almost totally unknown today, must have been the big topic of conversation in whatever coffee shops, social clubs, professional organizations and similar venues existed back then.

It involved abortion, death, criminal charges and, eventually, the Iowa Supreme Court.

And a professional from one of the most prominent Jefferson families was at the heart of it.

The case arose from the death of a local woman from infection following an apparent abortion performed by Dr. Augusta “Gus” Grimmell, an admired Jefferson female physician, the daughter and granddaughter of physicians.

Dr. Gus Grimmell’s father, longtime local doctor George H. Grimmell, was the namesake of Jefferson’s Grimmell Road, on which their showcase family home was located.

“Dr. Gus,” as she was known throughout the community, had graduated from Jefferson High School in 1889, just seven years after the first graduating class. She then enrolled in the University of Iowa, where she received her degree from its medical school in 1893, and returned to Jefferson to open her medical office, independent of her father’s practice.

Dr. George Grimmell and a business partner had built the Columbian Block building on the west side of the Square, where his office was located. When she came back to town, Dr. Gus opened her practice on the north side of the Square, catering particularly to women and children.

A “Who’s Who” of prominent Jeffersonians, published in 1896, referred to Dr. Gus in glowing terms: “... one who enjoys the confidence of the community, and is favored with a flattering practice.

“She is a refined, intellectual young lady, endowed with great ability, a careful student of her chosen profession and has achieved a success of which she rightfully should be proud.

“Personally, she is a most charming lady, a brilliant and interesting conversationalist and withal popular in the highest social realm.”

She was also reputed to “swear like a trooper.”

But in early 1901, she was hauled into district court in Greene County by county attorney E.G. Albert (later himself a judge) on a charge of second-degree murder in the death of Mrs. Ed Sherman.

After Mrs. Sherman developed serious health issues, her husband called in another physician, a Dr. Enfield, to diagnose the problem.

Enfield later stated in district court that he had traced Mrs. Sherman’s ailment to a lethal infection that stemmed from an attempt to — as court documents stated it — “produce a miscarriage.”

The infection spread rapidly throughout Sherman’s entire body and quickly proved fatal, Enfield stated. It had been introduced through non-sterile instruments or even from non-sterile hands during the procedure, he said.

(Abortion, while technically illegal in Iowa by 1900, rarely resulted in criminal charges at that time in the state, because a physician’s reason and prescription for the procedure were almost never questioned by the legal system.)

Dr. Gus and her attorney, the court documents indicate, apparently attempted to say that the operation actually was undertaken to fight Sherman’s cold, a line of defense that the Iowa Supreme Court later summarily threw out.

But the crucial defense on which they relied was that Enfield’s testimony had to be ruled inadmissible in court because it violated doctor-patient confidentiality. In other words, anything Mrs. Sherman had told Dr. Enfield before she died was privileged and therefore couldn’t be used by the state against Dr. Gus.

The Greene County district court agreed, thereby making a charge of guilty against Dr. Gus impossible to prove, and she was found not guilty.

But county attorney Albert, probably at the behest of Mrs. Sherman’s husband, appealed the decision, and it wound its way to the Iowa Supreme Court.

On Dec. 19, 1901, that court overturned the finding of the district court regarding admissibility of Enfield’s testimony.

The state’s top court ruled that it was never the intent of the Iowa Legislature that doctor-patient confidentiality be used to protect the doctor rather than the patient.

“This ... is a criminal case, and it surely will not do to hold that a statute intended to protect a patient should operate as a shield for one who is charged with murder,” the Supreme Court stated in its ruling. “The safety of the public is the supreme law of the commonwealth, and we do not think the legislature, in passing the act in question, intended it to operate as a barrier to the enforcement of the criminal laws of the state.

“In order to establish the correct rule of law in such cases, we disapprove of the holding of the trial court regarding the admission of the evidence of the physician,” the decision continued.

But “there cannot, of course, be a new trial,” the court concluded. So the “not guilty” ruling of the district court concerning Dr. Gus remained in effect, and she remained free.

“State v. Grimmell” has been cited several times in subsequent years by courts in cases where doctor-patient privilege has been raised.

However, the case had significant consequences for the Grimmells.

Dr. Gus’s father, George Grimmell, moved to Colorado Springs five years later in 1906, after 40 years of medical practice in Jefferson. He retained part ownership in his Columbian Block building on the Square.

The upshot of the charges had a more drastic effect on Dr. Gus.

She declared bankruptcy less than a year after the Supreme Court’s ruling, in September 1902, and married Mr. Selden Witbeck in March 1905. They moved to Ellsworth, Minn., shortly thereafter, and then to Syracuse, N.Y.

She never practiced medicine again. She died in 1945 and was buried in the Witbeck family plot in a Syracuse cemetery.