# MFM Minisode 480

An episode of [My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1074507850), 23 Mar 2026, 26 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/bdde8bb3-169d-43b1-91d3-b24c0047969c/c143345a-c97b-4029-96cc-b41301782492/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=f450d41f-16bc-4ecd-8f6c-b24c004796e2

This week’s hometowns are in honor of Women’s History Month! They include incredible survival stories and columnist Marilyn Hagerty. For our sources, please visit https://www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3UFCn1g. Head to social media to share your favorite moments from this episode. Instagram: instagram.com/myfavoritemurder Facebook: facebook.com/myfavoritemurder TikTok: tiktok.com/@my_favorite_murder Send your hometown stories to myfavoritemurder@gmail.com. Join the Fan Cult to access ad-free episodes of My Favorite Murder. Members also receive merch store discounts, exclusive audio and video content and more! Visit www.fancult.supercast.com to join. Shop for My Favorite Murder and other Exactly Right merchandise here: www.exactlyrightstore.com. Rate, review and follow My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you like to listen. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:16] Speaker 1: Hello, Hello, and welcome. So's my favorite murder the minisode.
[0:21] Speaker 2: We read you your stories.
[0:23] Speaker 3: And they're from emails, emails stories, you know those digital
[0:26] Speaker 3: stories you love to tell so much.
[0:28] Speaker 2: Imagine that.
[0:29] Speaker 3: Do you want to go first for this Women's History month? Spectacular?
[0:33] Speaker 2: Okay, let's do it. I have a really good first
[0:35] Speaker 2: one that I love. Okay, great, My bad ass great
[0:38] Speaker 2: grandmother escaped the Nazis.
[0:40] Speaker 3: Oh hell yeah, classic, But I want to kick off here.
[0:43] Speaker 2: We go gets pretty crazy, Hi team. Every time I
[0:48] Speaker 2: hear a minnesod that has a brilliant grandparent, I shout
[0:51] Speaker 2: at myself for not writing in so. Today instead of shouting,
[0:54] Speaker 2: I am writing in yay me. My incredible great grandmother
[0:59] Speaker 2: was brilliant and tearifying and one hell of a woman.
[1:02] Speaker 2: Lisa Letteemensen was born in Cologne, Germany, in nineteen thirteen.
[1:06] Speaker 2: Her family was all caps rich. I mean being driven
[1:10] Speaker 2: to school by a chauffeur whilst wearing furs. Rich.
[1:13] Speaker 1: Do you think that child being driven to school was
[1:15] Speaker 1: wearing furs?
[1:16] Speaker 2: I hope the car was wearing furs like everyone out on.
[1:21] Speaker 1: The chauffeur. The principle of the school.
[1:24] Speaker 3: Everybody's decked out in fur covered in furs. Here's our
[1:28] Speaker 3: new line of child furs.
[1:29] Speaker 1: That's Nicole. We have a whole new march idea.
[1:33] Speaker 2: She started off as a classical pianist and then decided
[1:36] Speaker 2: to retrain as a dancer and learned modernist ballet. Whilst dancing,
[1:41] Speaker 2: she met her soon to be husband, Ernest Burg. They
[1:44] Speaker 2: fell into a wild kind of love. They started to
[1:47] Speaker 2: make a name for themselves as dancers and became pretty
[1:49] Speaker 2: famous in Germany. And then the Nazis came. Unfortunately for Lottie.
[1:54] Speaker 2: Oh that's what she calls her great grandmother. Unfortunately for Lotti,
[1:57] Speaker 2: her rich family were Jewish. As defiant creatives, Lotty and
[2:01] Speaker 2: Ernest tried to carry on, but the SS made it impossible.
[2:04] Speaker 2: There was a time when Ernest was dancing. He wasn't Jewish,
[2:07] Speaker 2: so wasn't banned in a famous venue in Cologne, and
[2:10] Speaker 2: he was dancing a dance that usually involved Lotti. The
[2:14] Speaker 2: SS were surrounding the hall think the final scene in
[2:17] Speaker 2: Blues Brothers, looking out for Lottie to see if she
[2:20] Speaker 2: would break the rules and dance on stage. Lottie was
[2:24] Speaker 2: hiding in the wings and started to hear the crowd
[2:27] Speaker 2: shout her name. She defiantly went onto the stage and
[2:30] Speaker 2: the crowd went wild. People shouted dance, Lotti, dance. The
[2:35] Speaker 2: ss edge near, but she stayed on the stage. She
[2:39] Speaker 2: was showered with flowers and shouted back to the crowd,
[2:41] Speaker 2: thank you, thank you for not being Nazis. The next week, Lottie,
[2:46] Speaker 2: Ernest and esther their young daughter my grandmother, fled Germany
[2:50] Speaker 2: on fake British passports. They had nothing. They slept in
[2:53] Speaker 2: a cold room along with other refugee families. Britain wasn't
[2:57] Speaker 2: ready for their modernists dancing, and Lottie and Erniest struggled
[3:00] Speaker 2: to make ends meet. There are some old tape somewhere
[3:03] Speaker 2: of Lottie talking about sneaking back and forth to Germany
[3:06] Speaker 2: throughout the war to smuggle jewelry and money back into
[3:09] Speaker 2: the UK for them to survive on. I could tell
[3:11] Speaker 2: you so many stories about Lottie. Some are on her
[3:14] Speaker 2: Wikipedia page. Yep, she's even got one of those. I
[3:17] Speaker 2: checked it out. She does Lottie Burke if you want
[3:19] Speaker 2: to check it out. At forty she invented a new
[3:22] Speaker 2: exercise which is called bar If you know you know,
[3:25] Speaker 2: but it's bar. Everyone knows bar. The bar method She
[3:28] Speaker 2: was the most inspiring woman to me. She retained her
[3:30] Speaker 2: strong German accent, wore red lipstick and channel number five.
[3:33] Speaker 2: Every day. I have one of her fur coats. Is
[3:36] Speaker 2: it a child's fur coat?
[3:38] Speaker 3: Yeah?
[3:38] Speaker 1: What size?
[3:39] Speaker 2: And even twenty five years after her death, it still
[3:41] Speaker 2: smells of her. So stay sexy, love your brilliance combined
[3:45] Speaker 2: of humor, true crime, and mental health all my favorite things.
[3:48] Speaker 2: Vanessa from Shrewsbury, UK, and I looked her up. It's
[3:52] Speaker 2: like she's fucking totally legit. Her daughter, the Grandma, wrote
[3:55] Speaker 2: a biography about her called My Improper Mother and.
[3:58] Speaker 3: Me, Wow, it's all real, all right, legendary, I mean,
[4:02] Speaker 3: like people with books, all right. So well, here's another.
[4:06] Speaker 3: This is another badass great grandma story. I won't reach
[4:08] Speaker 3: to the subject line. It says, hi, ladies. I grew
[4:11] Speaker 3: up in southwest Michigan, near a little tourist town called
[4:14] Speaker 3: Saint Joseph. It sits right along Lake Michigan's coastline, a
[4:17] Speaker 3: short boat ride to Chicago, so throughout the peak era
[4:20] Speaker 3: of Mafia Rain, it became a known hotspot for mobsters
[4:24] Speaker 3: to escape the city. There used to be a popular
[4:26] Speaker 3: dance hall and amusement park right on Silver Beach that
[4:28] Speaker 3: high ranking members were known to frequent, but it's long
[4:31] Speaker 3: since been leveled to a single carousel with a small
[4:34] Speaker 3: history museum in the back dedicated to the site's heyday.
[4:37] Speaker 1: Side note. It's also where I had my senior prom learned.
[4:43] Speaker 1: I learned a lot.
[4:43] Speaker 3: About the Chicago Outfit that's title case Chicago Outfit when
[4:47] Speaker 3: I was in high school, which is definitely where my
[4:50] Speaker 3: love of true crime came from. But my favorite story
[4:53] Speaker 3: didn't come from a history book. Picture me, roughly sixteen,
[4:57] Speaker 3: sitting on the floor of my great grandma's trailer beside
[4:59] Speaker 3: a crocheted, doyly covered coffee table, picking the orange gum
[5:03] Speaker 3: drops out of a forever full crystal candy jar. My Mema,
[5:07] Speaker 3: as we called her, is chainsmoking in her Lazy Boy.
[5:10] Speaker 3: When in between drags, she shares that she not only
[5:12] Speaker 3: knew al Capone, but she in fact had been quite
[5:15] Speaker 3: close with him when she was young. What and then
[5:18] Speaker 3: an asterix it says pause for jaw drop, So then
[5:22] Speaker 3: it says a little context. Mima grew up one of
[5:24] Speaker 3: fourteen siblings and wasn't all that close with her parents.
[5:28] Speaker 3: She ran away from home when she was very young,
[5:30] Speaker 3: and her mother's parting words to her were, you'll end
[5:33] Speaker 3: up a knocked up alcoholic heartwarming right. Being the stubborn
[5:37] Speaker 3: badass she was a trait I can proudly say all
[5:39] Speaker 3: of the women in my family have. Mima was determined
[5:42] Speaker 3: to never drink a lick of alcohol and to save
[5:44] Speaker 3: herself for marriage. Not that I would necessarily follow such
[5:47] Speaker 3: resolutions myself, but I do give her major props for
[5:51] Speaker 3: the oh yeah, we'll see about that attitude. She had
[5:54] Speaker 3: to lie about her age to get a job that
[5:56] Speaker 3: would support living on her own, and eventually landed a
[5:58] Speaker 3: gig as a waitress at the shadow Land Ballroom, the
[6:01] Speaker 3: epicenter of Chicago gangster for Volity on Silver Beach. Most
[6:05] Speaker 3: young girls would be terrified in that environment, but not Mema.
[6:09] Speaker 3: Through whatever bravada she surely was giving off at the time,
[6:12] Speaker 3: Mema earned the attention of none other than Scarface himself.
[6:16] Speaker 1: Al Capone.
[6:17] Speaker 3: Holy shit, Now, I know the man was responsible for
[6:20] Speaker 3: horrible things, but when he caught onto my Mima's real age,
[6:23] Speaker 3: he began slipping her envelopes of cash at the end
[6:25] Speaker 3: of the night, no questions asked. Not only that, but
[6:29] Speaker 3: knowing she was living alone downtown. He had his men
[6:31] Speaker 3: escort her back home each night at the end of
[6:34] Speaker 3: her shift. I tried to pry for more details, because
[6:37] Speaker 3: holy shit, but Mima only added that she knew the
[6:39] Speaker 3: sheriff too, sussumed was never that concern for her safety.
[6:43] Speaker 3: I like to think hard knocks recognize hard knocks, and
[6:46] Speaker 3: maybe Capone just had a sweet spot for my gritty
[6:48] Speaker 3: great grandma doing what she needed to to get by.
[6:51] Speaker 3: Not hard to imagine, as Capone would frequently donate to
[6:54] Speaker 3: Chicago charities as well, earning him a Robinhood like reputation.
[6:58] Speaker 3: Mima sadly passed into twenty nineteen.
[7:00] Speaker 1: We have no idea how old she was.
[7:04] Speaker 3: I love it right before the world would have become
[7:08] Speaker 3: unrecognizable to her. Her final request is that we not
[7:11] Speaker 3: hold a funeral because she considered herself quote not worth
[7:14] Speaker 3: the fuss over. She threatened to haunt the hell out
[7:17] Speaker 3: of us if we didn't respect her wishes, so we'd
[7:20] Speaker 3: begrudgingly obliged. But it breaks my heart to this day
[7:23] Speaker 3: that she didn't see how much she was loved by
[7:25] Speaker 3: so many, and how much we would have appreciated the
[7:28] Speaker 3: opportunity to.
[7:29] Speaker 1: Celebrate her life.
[7:31] Speaker 3: She had her flaws, same as anyone, but her door
[7:33] Speaker 3: was always open to this once angsty teen whenever I
[7:36] Speaker 3: needed to drop by and vent or just listen to
[7:39] Speaker 3: her stories over a canna coke and a handful of
[7:41] Speaker 3: gum drops.
[7:43] Speaker 1: Her name was may Ma a e.
[7:45] Speaker 3: Yeah, and I hope she gets to hear her story
[7:48] Speaker 3: from wherever she's puffing her Marborough Light one hundreds nowadays.
[7:52] Speaker 3: Hearing how she fearlessly left home no doubt, gave me
[7:54] Speaker 3: the confidence post college to move from my small Midwestern
[7:57] Speaker 3: town to New York City to pursue my dream. I've
[8:00] Speaker 3: since relocated, but against all odds, I put my dual
[8:03] Speaker 3: English in dance degrees to use and became a professional
[8:06] Speaker 3: dancer and a literary editor for a big five publishing house. Jesus,
[8:11] Speaker 3: stay sexy and know you're worth, Caitlin. And then it says, ps,
[8:15] Speaker 3: here's a pick of the legend herself.
[8:18] Speaker 2: Oh what to cutie me? Mem mema with a tiny horse.
[8:23] Speaker 1: Al Capone took an interest in me.
[8:26] Speaker 2: Love it? That was great? Yeah, these are all just
[8:32] Speaker 2: pretty awesome. This one's a badass great great aunt story
[8:36] Speaker 2: so good. Okay, this one's my badass great great aunt
[8:40] Speaker 2: survived Joe Pelzinski, who I talked about in rewind episode eighty.
[8:46] Speaker 2: So good morning, friends, I'm taking a break from murder cleaning,
[8:50] Speaker 2: my Saturday morning ritual of catching up on the week's
[8:52] Speaker 2: MFM episodes while resetting the house to offer up some
[8:55] Speaker 2: background and additional details for the rewind of episode eighty.
[9:00] Speaker 2: My great grandmother's sister was the eighty one year old
[9:03] Speaker 2: who survived Joe Helsinski. In the show, she was mentioned
[9:06] Speaker 2: as a carjack victim, but there's more to it. Aunt
[9:09] Speaker 2: Dolly lived up the road from Mo, Mom ethel and
[9:12] Speaker 2: Pop Pop Bill late seventies early eighties. Mom took us
[9:16] Speaker 2: up regularly to visit, and my older brother and I
[9:18] Speaker 2: would immediately run over to Aunt Dolly's because A she
[9:22] Speaker 2: was no nonsense, cool as fuck, and didn't treat us
[9:25] Speaker 2: like to not be seen slash heard annoyances, even when
[9:28] Speaker 2: she began butchering a chicken while we watched b. She
[9:32] Speaker 2: had the greatest dog, Duchess, who looked just like Sandy
[9:36] Speaker 2: from Annie Oh See. She let us help collect eggs
[9:39] Speaker 2: from her chickens, and d there was no screaming at hers.
[9:43] Speaker 2: Pop Pop would turn down his hearing aid for peace,
[9:46] Speaker 2: so there was a lot of yelling down the road.
[9:50] Speaker 2: Fast forward to two thousand and there's a man hunt
[9:53] Speaker 2: for JP. I read or saw something on the news
[9:55] Speaker 2: about an elderly woman who was briefly held hostage before
[9:58] Speaker 2: JP stole her car, but since I'd never known Aunt
[10:02] Speaker 2: Dolly's actual name, Anna Etter, I didn't know it was
[10:06] Speaker 2: my relative until my mom shared the story.
[10:08] Speaker 3: Wow.
[10:09] Speaker 2: It was also when I learned that Aunt Dolly was
[10:11] Speaker 2: an Army Corps nurse in World War Two, clearly the
[10:14] Speaker 2: source of her level headedness and ability to deal calmly
[10:17] Speaker 2: with chaos and children. JP showed up at Aunt Dolly's house.
[10:21] Speaker 2: She kept the door unlocked when I was younger, so
[10:23] Speaker 2: he probably let himself in. He handcuffed her to the bed.
[10:27] Speaker 2: Aunt Dolly talked to him and he ended up uncuffing her.
[10:30] Speaker 2: She packed up some food for him, and he left
[10:33] Speaker 2: with her car. Mom said she was all right, and
[10:36] Speaker 2: more pissed off about learning that neither the police nor
[10:39] Speaker 2: her insurance would cover the damage to her car, which
[10:42] Speaker 2: she got back riddled with bullets from the shootout at
[10:45] Speaker 2: the motel. Holy shit, thanks for distracting me from the
[10:49] Speaker 2: dregs of choring and for the occasional delight of hearing
[10:51] Speaker 2: my nineteen year old tell her father to stay sexy
[10:54] Speaker 2: when she leaves the house as a reminder to lock
[10:58] Speaker 2: the door behind her.
[11:00] Speaker 3: Kathy, I mean, Kathy, that was a great story, but
[11:05] Speaker 3: it really built it the y.
[11:06] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, like a hard finish or a strong finish.
[11:09] Speaker 3: Strong finish, strong finish, with the teenager telling her own
[11:12] Speaker 3: dad to be to stay sexy. Yeah, that's the I mean,
[11:17] Speaker 3: here's the thing. It makes perfect sense. A combat nurse. Yeah,
[11:21] Speaker 3: when all of a sudden there's guns and threats and
[11:23] Speaker 3: men acting crazy, that's She's like, Yep, I've seen this before.
[11:27] Speaker 2: Totally. I know how to handle this.
[11:30] Speaker 1: That's incredible, incredible dolly.
[11:33] Speaker 3: Okay, Well here's some other this similar but like a
[11:36] Speaker 3: little left turn from there, and I won't read you
[11:39] Speaker 3: the title. It says high friendly murder fans. I've been
[11:42] Speaker 3: meaning to send in this story for a while now,
[11:45] Speaker 3: partly because it's inspiring and badass, and mostly because my
[11:47] Speaker 3: friends are sick of hearing it and I need another outlet.
[11:50] Speaker 3: My great grandmother was a true icon. She was born
[11:54] Speaker 3: in eighteen ninety one in a small fishing village in
[11:56] Speaker 3: northern Scotland. In nineteen sixteen, she became the first woman
[12:00] Speaker 3: to graduate with a medical degree from the University of Sheffield. Then,
[12:04] Speaker 3: because why not, she immediately volunteered her services as a
[12:07] Speaker 3: physician and surgeon on the front lines of World War
[12:10] Speaker 3: One in a Scottish women's hospital.
[12:12] Speaker 2: Wow.
[12:13] Speaker 3: Yeah, these hospitals are too cool not to expand on further.
[12:17] Speaker 3: After being rejected for her services by the British Army
[12:20] Speaker 3: because she was a woman, doctor, Elsie English decided to
[12:22] Speaker 3: form her own hospitals to serve Allied nations during the
[12:25] Speaker 3: First World War. These hospitals were all caps solely run
[12:30] Speaker 3: by women, women nurses, women physicians, women orderlies, women secretaries,
[12:34] Speaker 3: even women ambulance drivers. These women all banded together to
[12:38] Speaker 3: form hospitals on the front lines in France and Serbia.
[12:41] Speaker 3: My great grandmother served at the hospital set up in
[12:44] Speaker 3: France at Roemant Abbey Realmont Abbey. She operated uninjured soldiers
[12:50] Speaker 3: and often had to make the incredibly difficult decision of
[12:53] Speaker 3: who they would try to save when too many casualties
[12:56] Speaker 3: came in the door. While the work was taxing in
[12:59] Speaker 3: the hours were incredibly long. She reportedly often said these
[13:02] Speaker 3: are some of the best years of her life. After
[13:05] Speaker 3: the war, when all the soldiers had left the hospital
[13:07] Speaker 3: and everything had been packed up, my great grandmother took
[13:10] Speaker 3: a few things she found around the abbey as souvenirs
[13:13] Speaker 3: to take home on her trip back to Scotland. She
[13:15] Speaker 3: was staying at an inn in France, and she showed
[13:18] Speaker 3: off her souvenirs to a local man who.
[13:20] Speaker 1: Served in the war.
[13:21] Speaker 3: He proceeded to, quite rudely, she thought, grab one of
[13:24] Speaker 3: the trinkets, get out of his chair and walk briskly
[13:26] Speaker 3: out the door. My great grandmother, who I'm sure was
[13:29] Speaker 3: quite annoyed, followed him out. The man then proceeded to
[13:32] Speaker 3: throw the trinket into the lake in my head. She
[13:34] Speaker 3: yells at him some old fashioned form of what the fuck,
[13:38] Speaker 3: But then he explains that what she thought was a
[13:41] Speaker 3: fun little souvenir was actually a live hand grenade. Oh
[13:44] Speaker 3: my god, ah well, this is cute.
[13:48] Speaker 1: Excuse me, sir, Oh my god, I love these eggy shape.
[13:52] Speaker 1: Oh my god, I'll just put this up on the bookshelf.
[13:55] Speaker 3: Oh my god, remembrances. So it says, yes, my great grandmother,
[14:00] Speaker 3: who had survived the first World War working on the
[14:02] Speaker 3: front lines, operating on wounded soldiers, almost got herself blown
[14:06] Speaker 3: up because she wanted to take home a few cute souvenirs.
[14:10] Speaker 3: Although I never got to meet her, my great grandmother
[14:12] Speaker 3: has always been a huge inspiration to me, and she's
[14:14] Speaker 3: a big reason why I decided to pursue my own
[14:16] Speaker 3: career in medicine. In two years, I will graduate medical
[14:20] Speaker 3: school and become the first woman descendant of hers.
[14:23] Speaker 1: To become a doctor.
[14:25] Speaker 3: Wow. If I do even a very small portion of
[14:29] Speaker 3: the good in the world that she did, I will
[14:31] Speaker 3: be a very happy person. Stay sexy, and don't take
[14:34] Speaker 3: lethal weapons home as souvenirs. Kay, she here from Canada.
[14:39] Speaker 3: And then you can look up information on the Scottish
[14:42] Speaker 3: women's hospitals from World War One in the book The
[14:46] Speaker 3: Woman of Royal malt a Scottish women's hospital on the
[14:49] Speaker 3: Western Front by Eileen Crofton. Wow, legendary literally, right, great
[14:55] Speaker 3: grandmother with a book under her belts.
[14:57] Speaker 2: Damn, come on, just love like you're in the train
[15:00] Speaker 2: and you have a fucking grenade in your pocket.
[15:04] Speaker 1: Oops, that soldier who himself made it all the way
[15:07] Speaker 1: back home. And then I'm talking to this bird and.
[15:11] Speaker 2: A body lady a grenade. My last one is actually
[15:19] Speaker 2: a trash sister story. Wat she's a woman for Women's Month. Hey, MFM, fam.
[15:25] Speaker 1: She's a woman like any other woman.
[15:30] Speaker 2: I inherited the inability to tell a short story from
[15:33] Speaker 2: both parents. So buckle up, do y'all. Remember lime Wire
[15:36] Speaker 2: great because I have a trash sister story for you.
[15:40] Speaker 2: LimeWire was where you stole music from the Internet in
[15:44] Speaker 2: the very beginning before they had like free Spotify.
[15:47] Speaker 3: I exactly, it was the original. Uh, I'm not I'm
[15:51] Speaker 3: going to burn this onto a CD. Yes, and fuck
[15:54] Speaker 3: the man, right, but.
[15:54] Speaker 2: It is illegal, yeah, exactly. My parents were extremely strict
[15:58] Speaker 2: about music growing up. My dad was an Episcopalian priest,
[16:01] Speaker 2: so my approved playlist was gospel, musical theater and my parents' music.
[16:06] Speaker 2: The Beatles, Nat King Cole Being, Crosby Motown all great,
[16:10] Speaker 2: but for a seven year old it was not exactly hitting.
[16:12] Speaker 2: When Britney Spears was out here changing lives, the only
[16:17] Speaker 2: place I could listen to the music of my generation,
[16:19] Speaker 2: Britney Destiny's Child in Sync was dance class and I
[16:23] Speaker 2: lived for it. Enter my sister Stacy, she knew I
[16:27] Speaker 2: loved music and had caught me watching MTV approximately a
[16:30] Speaker 2: million times. So when she went off to college, she
[16:33] Speaker 2: became my underground music dealer via a little website called LimeWire.
[16:37] Speaker 2: Hell yeah, anytime I visited, I'd bring blank CDs like
[16:41] Speaker 2: it was a drug deal.
[16:43] Speaker 1: That's such a cool sister.
[16:44] Speaker 2: My sister would have never done that for me. I know.
[16:46] Speaker 2: My favorite one she made me was labeled Holy Hip Hop,
[16:49] Speaker 2: which was how I discovered Tupac and Biggie. I listened
[16:53] Speaker 2: in secret on my portable CD players so my parents
[16:56] Speaker 2: would never know. I was absolutely not listening to church
[16:59] Speaker 2: approved content.
[17:00] Speaker 1: It's amazing.
[17:00] Speaker 2: Turns out I wasn't the only one benefiting. Half her
[17:03] Speaker 2: dorm used her computer to burn CDs, and her IP
[17:06] Speaker 2: address eventually landed on an FBI Internet piracy watch list. Ooh,
[17:12] Speaker 2: then it says casual, fast forward, Stacy studies abroad in
[17:16] Speaker 2: Australia and hands the computer down to our other sister, Annsley.
[17:21] Speaker 2: Since I knew the login info, I naturally used LimeWire
[17:25] Speaker 2: a few more times before Annsley took it to college.
[17:28] Speaker 2: During Annsley's sophomore year, the FBI started cracking down hard shit.
[17:34] Speaker 2: They tracked the computer knocked on her door and seized it. Annsley,
[17:38] Speaker 2: who barely used LimeWire, kept saying, my sister gave this
[17:42] Speaker 2: to me. Unfortunately she was the current owner and ended
[17:46] Speaker 2: up with forty hours community service.
[17:48] Speaker 1: Girl. Oh my god, yeah, I would kill my sister.
[17:53] Speaker 2: Yeah, my parents were livid. Stacy and I just kept
[17:58] Speaker 2: telling Annsley, I mean, don't do the if you can't
[18:00] Speaker 2: do the time, she fucking did it.
[18:03] Speaker 3: Remember the commercial that was like there are victims and
[18:06] Speaker 3: piracy or whatever.
[18:07] Speaker 2: It's not a crime. Oh my god, it's her sister.
[18:11] Speaker 3: Ansley is the victim actually of her sister's stupidity.
[18:15] Speaker 2: Right, and then it says, you know, as trash sisters do.
[18:18] Speaker 2: Since my dad has dementia, we've been sharing a lot
[18:20] Speaker 2: of family stories lately and laughing a lot. When he
[18:23] Speaker 2: heard this one, he cried from laughter and said, now
[18:26] Speaker 2: that was funny, mean, but funny. I miss my dad,
[18:30] Speaker 2: But moments like that, getting to share stories and hear
[18:32] Speaker 2: his laugh give me the little glimpses of the dad
[18:35] Speaker 2: I've always known. Anyway, stay sexy and legally purchased music.
[18:40] Speaker 1: Abne, Abne, Abney and Ansley.
[18:43] Speaker 2: Yeah, great names.
[18:45] Speaker 1: Just improvising over there.
[18:48] Speaker 3: Oh, that's such a classic, like the frustration of the
[18:52] Speaker 3: youngest sibling of being the clearing house of fuck ups
[18:56] Speaker 3: that everyone else does and is good at pinning on you.
[18:59] Speaker 2: Totally totally like you get away with more as a
[19:02] Speaker 2: little sister, but she knows how to get away with more.
[19:06] Speaker 3: Yeah. The reason you get away with more is because
[19:08] Speaker 3: you had to learn your lesson when you were four
[19:10] Speaker 3: years old, not when you were twelve. No one carried
[19:14] Speaker 3: you to the junior high exactly. You were in the
[19:17] Speaker 3: game way too early.
[19:19] Speaker 1: Okay, not bitter.
[19:21] Speaker 3: This email may be my favorite email we've ever gotten.
[19:26] Speaker 1: Oh my god, and.
[19:28] Speaker 3: How fitting for Women's History Month. Okay, you'll see. Okay,
[19:31] Speaker 3: it just says hello. This might be a long one,
[19:33] Speaker 3: so I'll get right to it. My grandma on my
[19:36] Speaker 3: mom's side, is famous in her smallish town in Grand Forks,
[19:39] Speaker 3: North Dakota. She's been writing columns for the Grand Forks
[19:42] Speaker 3: Herald since the nineteen fifties, where she is known for
[19:45] Speaker 3: her straightforward attitude and quick wit. While only a fraction
[19:49] Speaker 3: of her columns were restaurant reviews, these columns skyrocketed her
[19:53] Speaker 3: from small town legend. Yep, yes, it's her to viral
[19:56] Speaker 3: Grandma of the Year.
[19:58] Speaker 1: It's her.
[19:58] Speaker 2: It's Olive Garden.
[20:00] Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I listen.
[20:02] Speaker 3: Sorry, we're getting the Olive Garden journalist's granddaughter to tell
[20:08] Speaker 3: us her story.
[20:09] Speaker 2: This made the past ten years all worth it, everything
[20:12] Speaker 2: that happened.
[20:13] Speaker 1: It's our Our lives have been leading up to this meal. Okay.
[20:17] Speaker 1: The national attention began at twenty twelve. I just love
[20:20] Speaker 1: this story. I've read and reread this story online so
[20:23] Speaker 1: many times because I love it so much.
[20:24] Speaker 2: Okat it Okay.
[20:26] Speaker 3: This all began in twenty twelve when she wrote an
[20:29] Speaker 3: overall positive eat Beat. The name of the call eat
[20:33] Speaker 3: Beat it works. It's so good of the new Olive
[20:38] Speaker 3: Garden in town. I believe she said something along the
[20:41] Speaker 3: lines of quote a warm meal on a cold day
[20:44] Speaker 3: end quote. She was absolutely torn apart by the millennials
[20:47] Speaker 3: of the Internet, going viral as the old lady in
[20:49] Speaker 3: the middle of nowhere saying nice things about a mediocre
[20:52] Speaker 3: chain Italian restaurant. She quickly went from writing her weekly
[20:55] Speaker 3: columns to being interviewed by Anderson Cooper and Piers Morgan.
[21:00] Speaker 3: Following all of this attention, Anthony Bourdaine himself published My
[21:04] Speaker 3: Grandma's book Grand Forks, which is a collection of the
[21:07] Speaker 3: local eat beat columns.
[21:09] Speaker 1: She wrote over the years.
[21:11] Speaker 3: She went on to be a guest judge on Top Chef,
[21:13] Speaker 3: where she called a Tomalia taco and then a parentheses.
[21:17] Speaker 1: In parentheses, it.
[21:18] Speaker 3: Says white people, Am I right? And then it says
[21:21] Speaker 3: and continued the media frenzy until the attention died down.
[21:25] Speaker 3: As a kid, my siblings and I always knew Grandma
[21:27] Speaker 3: em was kind of a big deal around town. When
[21:29] Speaker 3: we'd go up to North Dakota and spend a few
[21:32] Speaker 3: weeks with her every summer. Oh she'd take us to
[21:35] Speaker 3: restaurants and ask our opinions as she jotted down notes.
[21:39] Speaker 3: My mom passed away in twenty eleven, only a few
[21:42] Speaker 3: months before my grandma walked into the Olive garden that
[21:44] Speaker 3: started it all. My mom would have had the time of
[21:47] Speaker 3: her life if she were here for it. Probably the
[21:50] Speaker 3: first in line to shake Anderson Cooper's hand in her
[21:53] Speaker 3: long career. I can't imagine the glass ceilings she has shattered,
[21:56] Speaker 3: all while raising three kids, who became a judge, a lawyer,
[21:59] Speaker 3: a Wall Street journal journalist, and in the words of
[22:03] Speaker 3: Marilyn Haggerty, herself quote I've been a lot of other things,
[22:07] Speaker 3: but never viral.
[22:11] Speaker 1: Good Thanks for.
[22:12] Speaker 3: The hours and hours of stories to keep me company
[22:15] Speaker 3: during my weekly panic cleaning. Sash stay sexy and long
[22:19] Speaker 3: live never ending soups, salad and breadsticks. Anna she her
[22:24] Speaker 3: and just here's a little note that Allison added in
[22:27] Speaker 3: that it says Marilyn Haggerty passed away on September sixteenth,
[22:31] Speaker 3: twenty twenty five, at the age of ninety nine wo
[22:34] Speaker 3: Her last column for The Harold was published on October
[22:37] Speaker 3: twenty six, twenty twenty four. Over her nearly seventy year
[22:41] Speaker 3: career at The Harald, she wrote approximately two thousand eight
[22:45] Speaker 3: beat columns. And that's just her food column output.
[22:49] Speaker 1: Oh my god.
[22:50] Speaker 3: And in the opening of her book, Anthony Bourdain writes, quote,
[22:53] Speaker 3: mss Haggarty is not naive about her work, her newfound fame,
[22:57] Speaker 3: or the world she has traveled widely in her life.
[23:00] Speaker 3: In person, she has a flinty, dry, very sharp sense
[23:03] Speaker 3: of humor. She misses nothing. I would not want to
[23:06] Speaker 3: play poker with her for money. This is a straightforward
[23:10] Speaker 3: account of what people have been eating, still are eating,
[23:13] Speaker 3: and much of America as related by a kind, good
[23:15] Speaker 3: hearted reporter looking to pass along as much useful information
[23:19] Speaker 3: as she can while hurting no one. Anyone who comes
[23:21] Speaker 3: away from this work anything less than charmed by missus
[23:24] Speaker 3: Haggerty and the places in character she describes, has a
[23:28] Speaker 3: heart of stone. This book kills snark dead end quote.
[23:36] Speaker 3: What an honor, What an honor to get an email
[23:39] Speaker 3: about Marilyn Haggerty.
[23:41] Speaker 2: Incredible. And I will say, as someone who married into
[23:44] Speaker 2: an Olive Garden family, I've never been disappointed by what
[23:49] Speaker 2: I've had Olive Garden, you know what I mean? Like, yes,
[23:52] Speaker 2: always what I thought it would be. It's never bad. Yeah,
[23:55] Speaker 2: it's exactly what it is.
[23:57] Speaker 1: It is what it is everyone fuck everyone. But also
[23:59] Speaker 1: I I'll point this out too.
[24:02] Speaker 3: I feel like Marilyn Haggerty and that column and then
[24:05] Speaker 3: what happened there and the lesson everybody learned in twenty
[24:09] Speaker 3: twelve was the beginning of the end of gen X
[24:12] Speaker 3: ninety snark shit toxic, like everything from let's say nineteen
[24:17] Speaker 3: ninety up until the Internet started. And it was almost
[24:22] Speaker 3: like the Internet was doing its own little purging of like, hey,
[24:25] Speaker 3: we're not going to treat a Marilyn Haggerty like right.
[24:28] Speaker 2: Like everyone who tries doesn't get like fucking torn down.
[24:32] Speaker 2: That's not what we're doing here anymore.
[24:34] Speaker 3: Right, And also if you can stop being snarky for
[24:36] Speaker 3: one second because she's praising Olive Garden, you could actually
[24:40] Speaker 3: take a look at the body of work and who
[24:43] Speaker 3: you're talking to. And then and just the idea that
[24:46] Speaker 3: all these people rallied for her, including Anthony fucking Bordains, it's.
[24:51] Speaker 1: Just so bad.
[24:52] Speaker 2: As you know what we need, I'm requesting a very
[24:54] Speaker 2: specific thing. We need the granddaughter of the woman who
[24:57] Speaker 2: did the touch up of the production of that painting
[25:01] Speaker 2: years and years ago and just completely I don't want
[25:04] Speaker 2: to say ruined it, but changed it. We need moan daughter.
[25:07] Speaker 3: I wasn't it turned into something they called like monkey
[25:10] Speaker 3: Jesus or something.
[25:12] Speaker 1: I have a T shirt of it. I bought a
[25:14] Speaker 1: T shirt of that picture.
[25:15] Speaker 2: Or requesting her family, I think they're like Italian so
[25:18] Speaker 2: maybe they can't. But whatever we want it.
[25:22] Speaker 1: Biral Grandma's Yes, tell us your story.
[25:25] Speaker 2: My favorite murder at Gmail. Thank you guys for listening.
[25:28] Speaker 2: And Happy Women's History Month.
[25:29] Speaker 3: Happy Women's History Months, Stay sexy and don't get murdered.
[25:33] Speaker 2: Good Bye, bye Elvis. Do you want a cookie?
[25:44] Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production.
[25:45] Speaker 2: Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer
[25:48] Speaker 2: is Tessa Hughes.
[25:49] Speaker 1: Our editor is Aristotle Ascevedo.
[25:51] Speaker 2: This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.
[25:53] Speaker 3: Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.
[25:56] Speaker 2: Follow the show on Instagram at my Favorite Murder.
[25:58] Speaker 3: Listen to My Favorite Murder on iHeartRadio, app, Apple Podcasts
[26:02] Speaker 3: or wherever you get your podcasts.
[26:03] Speaker 2: And now you can watch My Favorite Murder on Netflix.
[26:06] Speaker 3: And when you're there, hit the double thumbs up and
[26:08] Speaker 3: the remind Me buttons.
[26:09] Speaker 1: That's the best way you can support our show.
[26:11] Speaker 2: Goodbye,

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