Edward Theodore Gein – August 27, 1906

The Plainfield Ghoul

Edward Theodore Gein was born in La Crosse, Wisconsin, to Augusta Wilhelmine (Lehrke) and George Phillip Gein. Augusta was fanatically religious and preached to Ed, and his older brother Henry, about the evils of the world, and that all women (except Augusta) were promiscuous instruments of the devil. She isolated the boys on their farm and punished them if they tried to make friends.

The 1910 census finds the Geins living at 1032 Charles Street in La Crosse. At this time, George owned a grocery store which he later sold to move to the farm in Plainfield. Of 50 residents on the census page, 46 were born in Wisconsin with 1 sneaking in from Iowa and 3 from Norway. They were all working people, in occupations such as blacksmiths, carpenters, teamsters, and shoemakers.

Later Life

Ed and Henry spent most afternoons listening to their mother preach the Old Testament and Revelations with a heavy emphasis on death, murder, and divine retribution. When their father died in 1940, the brothers finally got off the farm for a bit picking up money as handymen and for Ed, babysitting. During this time Henry met a woman and planned to marry. He worried about Ed’s attachment to his mother and when he spoke ill of her Ed was shocked. In 1944 Ed was burning brush when the fire got out of hand. Firefighters found Henry dead, and since he wasn’t burned, declared he died of heart failure. There was no autopsy, but over the years, enough evidence piled up that an investigator who studied the case said it was “possible and likely” that Henry’s death was “the ‘Cain and Abel’ aspect of this case”.

After Henry’s death, Ed’s mother had several strokes and died in 1945. Harold Schechter wrote Ed had “lost his only friend and one true love. And he was absolutely alone in the world.” He boarded up the rooms used by his mother and lived in a small room next to the kitchen.

He developed an interest in adventure stories and pulp magazines, especially ones dealing with cannibalism, Nazi atrocities, and Ilsa Koch – The Bitch of Buchenwald. In 1947, he began acting on his fantasies by robbing graves and committing a couple of murders. A “woman suit”, shrunken heads, … I won’t go into the gory details. They can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Gein

Between 1957 and 1968, Gein was found incompetent to stand trial, then competent and guilty of murder, and later not guilty by reason of insanity. He spent the rest of his life in mental hospitals and died due to respiratory failure secondary to lung cancer on July 26, 1984, at the age of 77.

Several characters in movies were based on or inspired by Gein. They include:

• Norman Bates from Psycho
• Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre
• Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs
• Garland Greene from Con Air
• Castillo Sermano from House of the Dead
• Otis Driftwood from House of 1000 Corpses
• Dr. Oliver Thredson from American Horror Story: Asylum

Other happenings on August 27, 1906:

Nothing – I guess Ed Gein was more than enough

Tomorrow – The Man Who Made the Call

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Sources

• Wikipedia.org
• Ancestry.com
• Onthisday.com
• Picryl.com
• Youtube.com