Norma ¹

  Noted events in her life were:

1. Newspaper: St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Beekers Arrested, 19 Feb 1924, Saint Louis, St. Louis, MO. ² Honeymoon Hardship Her Forgery Excuse
Police Sympathetic, With Reservations, Toward Bride and Her Husband.

Mrs. Norman R. Beeker, 17 years old, small and with bobbed black hair, tells an appealing story of honeymoon hardships which, she says, drove her 19 year old husband and herself to the expedient of writing and passing bogus checks.

The police, who are holding the couple, are inclined to think the wife's story is true. But they are waiting to see whether similar operations by the pair are reported from some other place before giving their sympathy too unreservedly.

Learned in the Army.

The Beekers are from South Bend, Indiana, the young woman says. She was clerking at a shoe store, and Beeker was clerking at a rival shop. The stores consolidated, and reduced their sales forces, and both lost their jobs. With the confidence of youth, they chose the time as an appropriate one for getting married. their friends applauded their courage, but no one had a job for either. Beeker had been in St. Louis, and thought work might be found here. So they came, arriving with $5 as their capital.

The $5 was gone after a day here, and no job was in sight. Then, the girl wife says, Beeker remarked that he had learned to write checks while in the Army \endash he enlisted at 14 and was wounded in France, he told her \endash and he said he would write checks if she would cash them.

Store Owner Called Policeman.

He got some blank checks at a bank, and wrote fictitious names of signer and payee upon them, she says. Then she took them out, and invented little plausible stories for passing them at Neighborhood Grocery Stores. She passed the first in the store on South 39th Street without even making a purchase. In the second place, on Penrose Street, she bought $5 worth of meat, ordering it delivered to an imaginary address. Both of these checks were for $22.50.

At the third store she visited, at Natural Bridge and Sophie Avenues, yesterday, the proprietor called a policeman, who arrested her and her husband, the latter being outside the store. The two defrauded storekeepers are disposed to prosecute.

2. Newspaper: St. Louis Star and Times: Beekers Arrested, 19 Feb 1924, Saint Louis, St. Louis, MO. ¹ PREFERS WRITING WORTHLESS CHECK TO USING A CLUB
We Had to Eat, Say Newlywed Wife Cashed Them.
The difficulties of a young housewife in purchasing meat were recited to hard-hearted butcher and grocer by Norma Beeker, and the tale usually ended with the butcher or grocer cashing a check for $22.50. The final chapter was written when the checks came back marked "no account." "Your meat looks so nice here," Mrs. Beeker would say with enthusiasm.. "I have been trading up the street, but they gave me some bad meat up there. It is so difficult for the inexperienced housewife to buy things." The story usually went over.
Is Finally Arrested.
Last night Mrs. Beeker was arrested at Sophia and Natural Bridge avenue after she had attempted to pass a check in the neighborhood. Her husband, Norman, was also taken into custody. At the Deer street station, Mrs. Beeker took all the blame. "I wrote them myself," she declared. But Norman also declared he wrote them. "I wrote them, and she cashed them," he said. "I thought it was better than hitting somebody over the head." Beeker is 20 years old and his wife is 17. Mrs. Beeker said she had cashed two or three checks before she was arrested.
Unable to Find Work.
The couple came here two weeks ago from South Bend, Ind., where they were married in December. Shortly after they were married, both lost their jobs selling shoes. They arrived in St. Louis with $5, and were unable to find work. Beeker said he had learned to make out bad checks while held in the guardhouse in the army. He obtained the blanks, wrote the checks and his wife sent out to cash them.

3. Newspaper: Journal and Courier: Norman Beeker and wife Norma Sentenced, 6 Mar 1924, Lafayette, Tippecanoe, IN, USA. ³ BATTLE GROUND YOUTH IN TOILS
Norman Beeker, 19 and His Bride, Get Workhouse Sentence for Passing Bad Check in St. Louis.
Norman Beeker, 19, formerly of Battle Ground, was sentenced to six months in the workhouse at St. Louis on March 3, by Judge Calvin Miller. Beeker's wife, Norma, also 19 years old, was given a like sentence. The Beckers were convicted of passing a worthless check on a St. Louis grocer. They were arrested February 19, a week after their marriage. Beeker was the youngest Tippecanoe county soldier in the United States army during the world war. He had been working in South Bend shortly before his trip to St. Louis.

Norma married Norman Evans Beeker, son of Clyde R. Beeker and Nannie Estella "Essie" Evans, in Dec 1923 in South Bend, St. Joseph, IN.¹ (Norman Evans Beeker was born on 12 Oct 1903 in Battle Ground, Tippecanoe, IN ⁴ and died on 5 Nov 1950 in Detroit, Wayne, MI ⁴.)