The Dry Mary Jane on Barrett's Sealed Well: Who Placed It?

The Dry Mary Jane on Barrett's Sealed Well: Who Placed It?

A child's leather Mary Jane, dry and clean on a frozen concrete well cap the morning of November 2011, points east while every blade of grass holds frost - and no mud marks its sole. Who set a 1950s child’s size five shoe deliberately atop a sealed twelve-foot farm well on the 125th anniversary of Peggy Barrett’s fall, and why does that timing matter?

In this episode, we follow the documents, letters, and photographs tied to a small Wisconsin town and a sealed well to outline what happened and what was altered afterward; can the odd shoe and a later inked word in the county ledger answer the town’s unasked question?

Person: Peggy Barrett Date: November 10, 1886 Location: Prospect Hill, outside Grelle, Waumont County, Wisconsin Event: discovery of Peggy Barrett at the base of her well; ledger later amended Case: child's Mary Jane found on Barrett well cap on November morning 2011

- Diane Carter took eleven photographs of a small brown leather Mary Jane sitting perfectly centered on the concrete cap. - The shoe was dated by a Madison vintage clothing dealer to between 1950 and 1960 and identified as child’s size five. - The morning the shoe was found was the 125th anniversary of the night Peggy Barrett failed to walk out and feed her goats. - The county foreman’s entry for November 10, 1886 records "exposure following accidental fall" with the word "accidental" added later in a different hand. - Grelle’s population in 2011 was 841 and the town retains a Lutheran church built in 1883, a grain elevator, and a bar called Patton’s.

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