Trapp Family Zingers

From a post here on November 8th, 2009:
"Yesterday, I heard from a relative named Bonnie who has Gerhard Naber in common with us:  if you recall, Gerhard was married twice to women named Elizabeth.  Bonnie's descended from the first Elizabeth's family, and we're descended from the second.
The first batch was Herman, Bernard, Henry, Mary, and Anna.  Henry was Ida & Walburga's dad, but Herman was Bonnie's connection.
Herman Naber was born Mar 6, 1861 New Vienna, Delaware Co, Iowa, and died Feb. 15, 1928 in Randolph, Cedar Co., Nebraska.  Herman Naber married Anna Trapp Feb 10, 1897 in St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Granville, Sioux Co, Iowa. They lived at or near Bancroft, Iowa, for about 7 years, then moved to Randolph, Nebraska.  Herman died from burns due to a house fire.  They lost their home and everything in the fire.  He's buried at St. Frances de Chantal Cemetery in Randolph.". 

Now, Randolph is about 100 miles northwest of Omaha, but evidently there were also Trapps living in Benson and Clifton Hill, suburbs of Omaha.

The following articles were all in the Omaha Daily Bee newspaper, starting with this one on  20 April, 1891► 

How horrible to have a house burn down, and then to be hit by lightning in your rental house two months later. Perhaps he figured things couldn't get worse, so why not try politics and public office?

This more cosmopolitan part of the family made the newspaper fairly often in the 1890s.

Larry and I were entertained by the snarky tone of this article from 1892--"Trapp is a man who has a grievance and a lacerated reputation which nothing but a money judgement in the sum of $5,000 will heal"...  

(The follow up article the next day said he was awarded $250.  We don't know if that did the trick or if his nose was permanently out of joint...)

Here's another sarcastic but fun article from June 14, 1893.  We don't know that this particular "Mr Trapp" was Edward Trapp, but it's pretty likely. Ed's reputation was restored now, and  he probably intended to run for public office in the future.  Being appointed park cop was a way to begin, but it sounds like he almost blew it.  
We hope they had some of that $250 left to apply toward Mrs Trapp's bail.

Evidently, Ed lost an election that fall, and didn't take it lightly.  He was either a very interesting character or.....kind  of a jerk.

BTW, checking out references made in the article, like "Captain Jenks"...(which turned out to be a satiric poem by one Earnest Crosby), I couldn't find the actual poem online. Also, since Mr Trapp "has the reputation of being a politician of the E. H. Cole stripe", I tried to find Mr Cole, but he, too, is lost to Janson history.  Oh well!