GUSTUS, Victor E. (1870-1940)

GUSTUS

Posted By: Karon Velau (email)
Date: 9/7/2020 at 13:32:12

Victor Emanual Gustus
(November 13, 1870 – July 26, 1940)

Ida County Pioneer, Ida Grove, Iowa, Wed., Nov 5, 1913, p.8
He Was Demented
Victor Gustus Declared Temporarily Insane
Taken to Cherokee Friday
Victor Gustus, a farmer residing in Hayes Township, was before the insane commission of last week and Sheriff McLeod took him to Cherokee via the automobile route. Mr. Gustus is a single man and has been farming with his brothers in Hayes. Some weeks ago the township trustees had a small bridge put in near their place and he began to worry for fear that when the waters came thru it would flood their farm. A week ago Friday he had been to Arthur, and when he came home he told his brothers that he had shaken hands with a stranger and had received a hypnotic stoke. One day last week he went to the barn to do the chores and found an old, greasy glove lying near the barn door. He imagined that it had been dropped there by the black hand society, and he at once went to bed and no inducement could get him to do any work. Dr. Garner, of Kiron, was summoned, and he told the relatives that physically there was nothing the matter with him, that he thought it would be advisable to send him here he could have treatment for the mind, which he thought would prove only temporary. Mr. Gustus has been in Ida Grove on numerous occasions, and contracted considerable attention by reason of the fact that he wore his hair long, and had the appearance of a medicine doctor, or wild west hero. The brother, in his testimony before the commission, said that he had invented a number of articles and had spent a great deal of time in working on them and for some time had shown symptoms of failing memory and other signs that he was nor correct mentally. He has always been a quiet and law-abiding citizen and The Pioneer hopes that he will soon be cured of the affliction.