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William Frederick Parker drawing, appeared in the Nov. 5, 1931, Omaha World-Herald.
Omaha’s man of mystery at the turn of the 20th century was the millionaire hermit of Florence, Fred Parker.
Parker had the Gatsby-like lifestyle 25 years before literary great F. Scott Fitzgerald created his protagonist.
Parker had a huge home, filled with treasures, that he’d open at times to elaborate costume parties. That was Parker’s personality in a microcosm. He’d open up to only the most intimate in his social circle. To the rest of the city, even the elite, he was eccentric, strange, offbeat. A recluse. A hermit of the first class.
“Bohemia mourns a Prince,’’ began a World-Herald full-page photo story just days after his death in 1902 at age 47. “He was Fred Parker, lawyer, painter, sculptor, author, antiquarian, savant and delver into the folklore of the Missouri valley.
“The Hermit of Florence was one of the most peculiar characters of that land of mystery to a cold world that is barred — the land of camaraderie, of congenial, informal atmosphere.”
Parker estate, 3021 Vane St., taken April 6, 1956.
William Frederick Parker’s father, James Monroe Parker, was a founder of the Bank of Florence in 1856. The elder Parker split time between his business interests in Florence and the Quad Cities before he brought his family west in 1863 to the farm he bought south of Florence. The farmhouse was at present-day 3021 Vane St.
Fred Parker graduated from Harvard Law School, but never entered into practice. While his family returned full-time to Davenport, Iowa, in 1876, he went to Europe after graduating and studied painting in Rome.
Upon his return to the old homestead, the younger Parker added a fireproof brick studio. He began his entertaining and was said to have the finest wine cellar in Nebraska. After another extended trip, this one to Mexico, he extended his studio to a second, enormous room. An imposing fireplace was the entrance to the multi-tunneled cellar.
The studio housed his vast library of rare books and manuscripts. Walls were filled with paintings, many copies he made of famous works. He liked to paint his subjects in the nude. One unfinished painting stood on his easel 17 years after his death. It was said he and a group of friends once went into the hills to sketch a portrait of a nude woman. She quit when the mosquitoes also got interested.
Another of his quirks was bathing pools. He built one of concrete in his bedroom ... on the second floor. A second one outdoors in the courtyard, plaster statues from the Trans-Mississippi Exhibition adorning it. But once the first frost came, with the pool partially filled, the pool cracked and the Great Gats, er, Parker, let it fall into disrepair. Not an unusual occurrence, either, as Parker was not known for upkeep of his grounds.
“(One) knows the neglected and luxuriant garden, where the pretty terraces have long since fallen one upon the other and lost their outlines; the cedars and pines are unacquainted with the knife of the pruner; the grass grows in long and untended masses; the wild grape climbs as it hikes about the trees,’’ wrote World-Herald pioneer female journalist Elia Peattie in 1894.
Taken in September 1938, this photo shows the large gallery of the studio inside Fred Parker’s Omaha home.
The city of Omaha bought 80 acres of the Parker farm in 1893 for what became Miller Park. The namesake was park commission chairman George Miller, an Omaha physician and co-founder of the Omaha Herald (1865), which merged in 1889 to form The World-Herald. The rest of the farm became the Minne Lusa and Florence Field subdivisions in the 1910s and 1920s, respectively.
Fred Parker’s death didn’t end the intrigue into his life or estate. He never married. His will, however, left the net proceeds of his estate to housekeeper Pauline Fraissenet. But his half-interest in his father’s $1 million trust was left to Frank Fraissenset, named in the will as Francis Tadmir Parker and recognized by Parker in his will as his son. Other relatives, actual and purported, also figured in the legal case that needed more than a year to resolve.
Ultimately, Francis Parker (1888-1957) was acknowledged as a legal heir. He kept the home and zealously guarded his father’s possessions in the studio when not visiting his investments that included a Florida orange grove. He was away on New Year’s Day 1920 when police found Harriet Bemis, the widow of Omaha pioneer George Bemis (namesake of Bemis Park), inside the house suffering from hypothermia — and insanity. She believed an army captain from Fort Omaha was to come and claim her for his bride.
Francis Parker finally opened the “mystery house” to selected guests in 1938. In 1947, he auctioned off what was left of his father’s collection. It included Indian relics and curios, the first safe from the Bank of Florence and “an 80-ton whale.” Early arrivals were welcome to explore the many tunnels. No telling where the whale went.
Same for a 12-foot petrified log, said to weigh five tons, that vanished in the dead of night.
Francis Parker sold the property in 1950, with the building remodeled into apartments. It fell into disrepair and was torn down in 1956.
The Parker family saga became so fascinating to chronicle that you’ll have to wait until next week to read about the hermits of Fontenelle Forest and Keystone.
That idea to move traffic from 30th Street has been bandied about since the 1930s.
Many Omahans of a certain age remember visiting Santa at Toyland in the Brandeis department store. The tradition dated to the 1900s when J.L. Brandeis and Sons were the proprietors of the Boston Store.
The Benson and the Hanscom are only two of the more than 70 theaters that sprung up outside downtown Omaha during the first half of the 20th century. The majority opened — and closed — during the era of silent films.
Omaha’s first auto club, formed in 1902, included 20 of the city’s 25 auto owners. Their first activity was a road rally to Blair and back.
Take a look back at the history of the Chermot Ballroom and some of the big names that played there.
The New Tower’s front lobby had a Normandy castle motif with great stone walls, heraldic crests and wood-burning fireplace. The massive beams and lofty ceilings carried over into the Crest Dining Room.
A generation of Omahans — and newcomers to the city — likely are unaware that Peony Park, the major amusement spot from the 1930s through 1994, was at 78th and Cass Streets.
Pardon the pun, but another of my deep digs has turned up forgotten burial grounds across Douglas County.
The fame of Curo Springs was so far-reaching that in pioneer days — every fall and spring — people from 100 miles away (some crossing the Missouri in crude boats) would come to load up with the water.
Here are some books relating to Omaha and Nebraska history, many by local authors, to check out.
They were the twin banes in Omaha’s pioneer years. One of them came back to life during the nighttime deluge that hit the area last weekend.
The Omaha Chamber of Commerce was prepared to remove its $35,000 hangar — built in modular sections — until the city was ready to build a municipal airport. Then came back-to-back windstorms.
Research has turned up a juicy nugget — the whereabouts of the burial site of Omaha, the Triple Crown horse in 1935. Hint: there are people resting every night on top of it.
Keystone has become the name applied to the area bounded by 72nd and 90th Streets, Maple Street, Military Avenue and Fort Street. It has expanded since Keystone Park was platted in 1907.
Ezra Meeker’s crusade is credited for reawakening awareness of the Oregon Trail in the early 20th century. In the process, he erroneously linked Omaha to the trail and others took his word for it.
An Omaha real estate firm had the idea in the heyday of the '20s that it could sell 1,500 cottage lots platted away from the lakes and the Platte River. So what happened?
Check out a glimpse of Omaha’s Black history before 1880.
The Dan Parmelee-Tom Keeler feud, which included an Old West shootout on the outskirts of old Elkhorn in December 1874, left Keeler dead and made news nationwide.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Omahans had their pick of drive-in movie theaters. Cars with families and cars with teens -- some watching the film and others, well, you know -- side by side, wired speakers hanging inside a car door.
Clontarf never was incorporated as a village, but functioned like one and wielded political clout larger than its 47 acres. There was a lawless element, too.
'Mascotte was a big joke but it looked good while it lasted.' The village had a factory, railroad depot, hotel, general store, school and about 40 cottages. By 1915, it was all gone.
West Dodge Road has been rebuilt over and over. And along the way, the Old Mill area has lost its mill, its hazardous Dead Man’s Curve and the most beautiful bridge in the county.
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Stu is The World-Herald's lead writer for high school sports and for golf. Follow him on Twitter @stuOWH. Email stu.pospisil@owh.com
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William Frederick Parker drawing, appeared in the Nov. 5, 1931, Omaha World-Herald.
Parker estate, 3021 Vane St., taken April 6, 1956.
Taken in September 1938, this photo shows the large gallery of the studio inside Fred Parker’s Omaha home.
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