The Last Lemp

If you’ve heard even a few of the stories, your spine goes cold just thinking about the Lemp family’s tragic history. Maybe you’ve gone to a mystery dinner at their “haunted” mansion, crept inside the old Lemp Brewery, or toured the Lemp Mausoleum and felt the damp chill of 16 restless souls. Maybe you’ve pored over crumbling newspapers, cringing—and leaning closer—to read the details of one suicide after another; of fortunes made and lost; of melancholy and eccentricity and bitter, scandalous divorces.

Pity the smart, sane descendants of this troubled family, who go to great lengths to avoid publicity. One woman even forbade her children to use the name “Lemp.” Its story is one of disappointed dreams, burned promises, and death.

But five years ago, a new Lemp rose from the ashes.

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Man says he’s the last Lemp descendant” read the November 2010 KSDK.com headline. On camera, a young man  introduced himself as Andrew Lemp Paulsen, “the last descendant from the eldest daughter.” He’d traveled to St. Louis from his home in northern Illinois, eager to show off family artifacts he hoped someday would be in a museum.

Paulsen and a friend, Cheryl Sochotsky, were also selling memorabilia—with vivid stories of their Lemp ownership—on Etsy, eBay, and a website called Lemp Treasures. “Our desire and passion is to let the wonderful people of St. Louis and the world know there is a Lemp descendant who is willing to share never before told stories of the famous Lemp family of St. Louis,” Sochotsky wrote.

Paulsen also introduced  himself to Paul and Patty Pointer, owners of the Lemp Mansion. To trustees of the Chatillon-DeMenil Mansion. To Karl Lemp, a St. Louis lawyer whose family branched off higher on the family tree. To Richard Lay, vice president of Bellefontaine Cemetery, where the Lemp Mausoleum sits. Paulsen talked about his beloved grandmother, Anne-Marie Konta, teaching him how to mix a martini, telling him family stories, instilling in him a determination to preserve the Lemp legacy.

There was no reason to doubt him. He had a key to the Lemp Mausoleum; he owned paintings done by Louise Lemp; he had portraits of Lemps and memorabilia that could well have come straight from the Lemp family.

Paulsen even looked like a Lemp—strong-jawed, pale, with dark eyes and hair. He was always immaculately groomed, his hair never too long or too short, his hairline so straight it looked like his barber held a ruler horizontally against his forehead.

He began posting bits of Lemp history on his Facebook page and regaling tour-goers and the media with colorful stories. References to his grandmother partying with Carmen Miranda; shopping in Mexico with Barbara Hutton; visiting her dear friend Millicent Rogers, the Standard Oil heiress, in Taos; cherishing a friendship with Katharine Hepburn. A picture of a diamond ring he said she had designed by Cartier in Paris. Photos of her standing romantically close to Cary Grant, smiling coyly at Clark Gable in New York’s famous El Morocco nightclub, sipping a cocktail with Ernest Hemingway, standing behind a fur-coated Truman Capote.

Likes and comments bubbled over: “You are fortunate to come from such a classy family.” “Thank you so very much for sharing your families* rich history with us. I love your postings so very much!” “Andrew, you are truly blessed to have such a richly documented history of an amazing family lineage.” Readers asked him questions: Was this article true? Was that a portrait of Lillian Lemp, the “Lavender Lady”? One woman offered to be his “willing scribe” and help get all these amazing family stories written down.

On October 18, 2012, the Riverfront Times published a story headlined “One of the Last Lemps,” identifying “Andrew Lemp Paulsen” as “the last remaining descendant of Anna Lemp” and describing his tours of the crypt, with “insider history.” Paulsen told the reporter he’d never known that people were so interested in his family’s ghostly history until he was in college and happened to see a magazine that named the Lemp Mansion one of the “top 10 most haunted places in America.” The RFT article included photos of Paulsen and of William Lemp Jr., the latter captioned “Proof that well-defined jawlines and strong schnozes run in the family.”

There was one small problem. According to her obituary in The New York Times, Anne-Marie Konta died on April 16, 1973—11 years before Andrew Paulsen was born.

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What’s indicated by public records and the birth, engagement, marriage, and death notes in The New York Times is that Anne-Marie Konta, granddaughter of Annie Lemp of St. Louis, grew up in New York, married three times, and bore two daughters—neither of whom had children.

In January 2013, the elder of those daughters (both asked that their names not be used in the story) happened to be searching online for an article about her step-great-grandfather, Alexander Konta. Up popped her mother’s name, which led her to an eBay listing and a young man claiming to be her mother’s grandson. 

Alarmed, she asked a cousin, Geoffrey Goodhue Legler, to look into it for her. Legler found scores of photos of a woman Paulsen had identified as his grandmother and a portrait of her that Paulsen claimed was done by Salvador Dalí. Legler also found a photo of his own grandmother, Marie Amanda Fisher Goodhue, which Paulsen posted with this annotation: “According to family legend before one of her legendary party’s a chandelier fell and killed a staff member when asked if they should cancel the party she replied ‘course not the caviar will go bad’…..not one of my prouder family moments.”

Legler nearly spat out his coffee.

Shops labeled “Lemp Treasures” started popping up on Etsy, eBay, Bonanza, Blujay, and eBid, with memorabilia accompanied by marvelous little stories about Ann Marie (Paulsen’s spelling of her name).

There was “an amazing bronze Art Deco style metal desk box” that her great uncle had supposedly warned her never to touch. “She couldn’t open the box when he was alive, so she made sure she got it when he died.”

All sorts of Pyrex dishes were listed for sale—supposedly the Houghtons, owners of the Corning Glass Works, had loaded up Ann Marie’s limo with their  Pyrex because she’d admired it at a dinner party.

A vintage bracelet by Nolan Miller, costume designer for Dynasty, was said to be one of Ann Marie’s guilty pleasures. She died years before the show aired, Legler muttered to himself.

Ann Marie was described on these pages as “a prominent New York socialite” who “had homes in Italy, New York and Chicago.” Initially she was said to have had three husbands, the last being Wilfred Brewer. “Ann Marie and her grandson are responsible for keeping all these amazing heirlooms in the family,” Sochotsky wrote. “Ann Marie instilled in her grandson a great pride in the family legacy.”

“Our mother spelled her name Anne and hyphenated Anne-Marie,” her elder daughter tells me crisply. “Her last husband was James Cecil, not Wilfred Brewer. And the idea that she instilled a love of all things Lemp is quite hilarious. Our mother wasn’t close to any of the Lemps—she almost never mentioned them.”

Many (but not all) of the photos Paulsen posted of his grandmother look to be of the same woman, dark-haired and striking, with Jackie Kennedy’s wide but never-quite-relaxed smile. The photographs her daughters send me are of a woman who is also dark haired and lovely, but with far softer features—the lips fuller, the nose slightly snubbed—and her frame more petite than statuesque.

When the elder daughter saw the fashion photographs Paulsen posted of “my grandmother during her little modeling gig for Harpers Bizarre in the early to mid 1930s,” she did a double take—their mother was 5 feet tall and had a permanently stiff leg. She did model once, the daughter says: “She bought $2.99 paper dresses from Woolworth’s and glued  photographs of herself wearing them into a mock fashion layout, just for fun.”

Yes, her father was Geoffrey Konta, a lawyer who represented William Randolph Hearst and several Hollywood motion picture companies. But Anne-Marie’s brief period of glamour was the time of her debut and her art classes in Paris. After that, “she was a homebody whose loves, besides us, were her home and garden, her art, and in later years, her work as a professional puppeteer,” the elder daughter says.

Her sister was especially bemused by the Edith Head designs Paulsen claimed were created for his grandmother: “Edith Head did fashions for movies, didn’t she? Most days my mother wore A-line skirts and a shirt, although on Christmas Eve we all dressed up, the women wearing long gowns, and had an elegant dinner.”

Looking at one of the photos Paulsen posted of his “grandmother,” the younger daughter says, “No, that’s not Mom. Nor is the photo next to it. Trimming Yul Brynner’s hair? No way. She cut my hair, sometimes a little too short.”

She turns to the glamorous black-and-white vintage photo in which she’s identified—supposedly out to dinner with Paulsen’s father, great-aunt, and great-uncle—and giggles: “I’ve never been tall, blonde, and skinny in my life.” 

I read her a story Sochotsky put online about some black Americana dolls for sale: “Andrew and I believe they were made by one of Ann Marie Konta Brewer’s employees and left in the playroom for everyone to enjoy. Ann Marie allowed her employees to bring their children to work on occasion, and she had a designated playroom in the back of her mansion for the children. By all accounts, it was a very nice well stocked playroom and the children loved it. (So did Andrew.)”

“Well, it’s news to me,” she exclaims. “Mom was not a servant person. There was one couple when we moved to Locust Valley—they had an adult son—and they stayed until her death.”

At their homes in Italy, New York, Chicago, and the Hamptons? “She only had two homes ever, both on Long Island, one inherited from Annie Lemp Konta and the other bought with an inheritance from Charles Lemp.”

What about the Pyrex story? “Mom would not have had a limousine! She did have Pyrex—what else could you bake in?”

Another post reads, “If you’re wondering what Ann Marie’s connection to Bloomington Illinois was”—Bloomington being close to Paulsen’s home—“she was a very savvy businesswoman and she purchased several country estates (at a price she couldn’t refuse) in the Bloomington, IL area.”

“Bloomington, Illinois?” the younger daughter repeats, trying to make sure she’s hearing right.

The photo that hurts is the one that shows a white-haired woman, her face lined, with a tender note from Paulsen mourning his grandmother’s death (in 2002) from Alzheimer’s disease.

“She died in 1973 of cancer of the esophagus,” the younger daughter says, “and that doesn’t wait for anything.”

Anne-Marie was only 59 at the time of her death. “Sharp as a tack,” her elder daughter adds. In 1972, she’d mentioned having trouble swallowing. “We said, ‘Oh, you probably didn’t chew your food enough.’” But the problem persisted, and she saw a doctor. “By October, I was thinking, ‘There’s something wrong. She’s on all these meds and isn’t feeling any better.’ So I stormed into the doctor’s office and said, ‘What’s going on with my mother?’ and he said, ‘She has esophageal cancer.’ He’d told my sister’s husband she had less than a year to live and made him swear not to tell either of us—that’s how they did it in those days. That Christmas she said, ‘It’s the first time in my life I’m as thin as I want to be.’” There’s a catch in the daughter’s sigh. “She was stoic throughout. Even in extreme pain, she’d try to put up a good front.”

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But she didn’t live another three decades. On January 11, 2013, Geoffrey Legler fired off emails to Paulsen and Sochotsky’s eBay store, identifying himself only as a member of the family and representative of the real descendants and demanding that they explain themselves. He received no reply, but on January 13, 2013, the eBay blurb was changed to note that “Wilfred Brewer was her third husband and James Cecil was her fourth.”

On January 28, Legler tried the email address listed on the Lemp Treasures information site. Still no answer. He started phoning people in St. Louis—the Pointers at the Lemp Mansion; Lynn Josse, then director of the Chatillon-DeMenil Mansion, where Paulsen had given a talk; Bellefontaine Cemetery, where he’d led tours.

In mid-February, Sochotsky answered, explaining that she’d had surgery. Like Legler, she was careful; he’d identified himself only by first name, as a designated representative of the Konta family, and she wanted to know his last name  before giving him Paulsen’s contact information. “Well, I didn’t want to tell them, because I was a little afraid of them,” Legler admits. The two danced an email minuet, each coming forward slightly and then retreating. When Legler left his phone number and Paulsen failed to call, Legler emailed, “Game over. I have given you more than enough information… I have no need to prove anything to you. It is you who must prove to us, the well-documented family of Geoffrey and Phyllis Goodhue Konta, that Andrew’s claim is valid.”

In March, the bio of Andrew’s grandmother changed again: Instead of four marriages, it read, “Not unlike Clark Gable & Joan Crawford, she had a love affair with a very handsome and charismatic man named Richard. For personal family reasons, I am not going to divulge his full identity on this forum. Come join us on our famous Lemp Mausoleum Tours and we will be happy to answer that question… She did not pass away in 1973 as [a popular genealogy site] erroneously suggests, but rather almost thirty years later.”

Legler demanded a valid birth certificate. None was offered.

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By the time Legler made his phone calls, many St. Louisans who’d met Paulsen already felt a vague unease.

Back in the spring of 2010, the Pointers had warmly invited him to come stay at the mansion. “He was wearing an ascot and drinking martinis,” Paul recalls, his voice as dry as the gin. They hosted a series of “Conversations with Andrew Lemp Paulsen,” and they invited their old friend Steve DeBellis—“a great historian, and a cynic,” who’s since died. “I’m watching Steve watch Andrew, and he’s shaking his head,” Paul says. “Afterward he said, ‘I’m not buyin’ it.’”

Lynn Josse, at that time director of the Chatillon-DeMenil Mansion, says she had lunch with Paulsen, and he was charming. “He had some pants that belonged to Gustav Pabst—the Pabst pants! And he brought a cut-crystal banana boat and had this whole wonderful story about how Mrs. Lemp admired it and Mrs. DeMenil had it sent over the next day with bananas in it as a gift.”

Katherine Kozemczak, a formerDeMenil board member, remembers that when Paulsen said that the banana boat was a gift from a Mrs. DeMenil, “we innocently fed him all this information and said it must have come from Bessie [DeMenil].” After that, she says, he showed up with all sorts of things purportedly from Bessie—except that the linens were monogrammed with a B, which seemed oddly informal for the time.

Then there was the picture of a couple in their thirties at a lawn party. Kozemczak distinctly remembered Paulsen identifying it months earlier as Louise and Edwin, but the second time he showed it, she says, he identified the woman as his grandmother. “At that point I thought, maybe all this is just wishful thinking.”

After receiving a lengthy phone call from Legler, Josse called Paulsen. “I thought it was only fair to let him know there was a Lemp relative claiming Andrew was not who he said he was, and that was kind of a serious problem for us as a museum. ‘What?’ he said. ‘What?’ Very blustery. Honest to God, I don’t know if he knows he’s not a Lemp.”

Is she sure he isn’t?

“If he is somehow related to the Lemps, it’s not the way he says it is. You lose credibility when you have anecdotes about spending time with somebody who died before you were born.”

Josse says she told Paulsen that they’d have to take all his wonderful things off display, and she hoped he’d be able to provide her with some kind of documentation so they could display them again. People care deeply about provenance when they visit a historic site—and they also crave backstory.

“He sounded very understanding,” she says. “Then he posted on Facebook that he couldn’t believe an institution he’d been so generous to would act that way to him!”

Richard Lay, vice president of customer relations at Bellefontaine Cemetery, says that when Paulsen first showed up, the lineage didn’t make sense. “I was having trouble connecting the dots. On the other hand, he had the key to the mausoleum, and he had some pictures. As time went on, he began to do tours—he would dress up; he got very into it—and he’d bring all this family memorabilia. Well, it was oddball stuff, like a Pyrex dish. Now, how could you know that belonged to a Lemp? Then we found out he was charging people $20 a head. That bothered us, because we do a lot of free tours; we don’t charge people to come to the cemetery.”

Lay knows Lemp descendants who “are very prominent St. Louisans. I asked them, ‘Have you heard of this guy?’ and they said no.” Deeply concerned, the cemetery trustees decided to padlock the mausoleum. Lay says Paulsen had been planning to give tours in October 2013 but never returned or contacted him again.

Paulsen’s still furious that Lay never contacted him: “I showed up in July for a Lemp family reunion, and the mausoleum was padlocked!”

Davidson Mullgardt and Stephen Walker, who’d researched the Lemp history (Walker wrote Lemp: The Haunting History, and Mullgardt wants to write the story of Edwin Lemp, shorn of spirits and sensationalism) were already suspicious of the lineage. Now they had to find a new ending for their Lemp bus tours, which went from the Lemp Mansion to the Old Courthouse, where “the Lavender Lady” (even her horses’ bridles were lavender) divorced Lemp Brewery president William “Billy” Lemp Jr. (He strenuously denied striking her, going on “midnight expeditions,” and informing their small son that God did not exist.) The Lemp tours had ended, quite naturally, at the Lemp Mausoleum—but now it was padlocked.

“This guy has ruined it for all of us,” Mullgardt says. “Although people using the Lemp name to gain power, money, or social standing is nothing new.” In 1915, he tells me, Mrs. Fannie Zell sent herself flowers from Billy, Charles, and Edwin Lemp, hoping to convey the impression that they were her admirers. “There was also a kidnapping and murder plot against Louis Lemp that was foiled.” And in Rebecca Pittman’s new book, The History and Haunting of Lemp Mansion, we hear about a “smooth-faced young man, in a black broadcloth cutaway suit” who stepped into a downtown jewelry store in 1901, identified himself as William Lemp Jr., and asked to see the largest diamond sunburst in the house. “I will take it with me now, and you may send the bill to the brewery,” he told the storekeeper. Then he pawned the brooch, one diamond missing.

“This is the family that had it all,” Pittman remarks. “At one point in the Gilded Age, they were the wealthiest family in St. Louis.” Mystery still surrounds the suicides, she adds. The first, when William Lemp Sr. was grief-stricken after the sudden death of his favorite son, seems straightforward enough. But Pittman’s convinced (as is Paulsen, for that matter) that the second suicide was murder. Elsa Lemp, who was for a time the wealthiest woman in St. Louis, had married, divorced, and remarried one of St. Louis’ most prominent clubmen. Just weeks after their remarriage, in March 1920, she reportedly shot herself in their Hortense Place home. “But her husband waited 25 minutes to raise the alarm or call a doctor,” Pittman points out.

When Billy Lemp raced to Hortense Place to see his sister’s dead body, he exclaimed, “This is the Lemp family for you.” Yet two years later, he shot himself—twice, the bullets entering his heart half an inch apart. He was said to be despondent over the sale of the Lemp plant—valued at $7 million when Prohibition forced its closing—for only $585,000.

In 1949, Charles Lemp shot his Doberman Pinscher, then himself. He was the only Lemp to leave a note: “In case I am found dead, blame it on no one but me.” The following year, the lavish Lemp mansion was turned into a rooming house.

Family members cringe at the retelling of these stories, understandably. But the fascination’s too strong to let them fade.

After the Lemp Mausoleum was padlocked, Paulsen and Sochotsky went ballistic on Facebook, claiming that Legler was a “psycho nutjob” who had been an inpatient in a psychiatric hospital at least three times and was on welfare. (None of which is true or has ever been true, Legler says dryly.)

In February 2013, Mullgardt posted on Paulsen’s Facebook page, “Andrew, you should request your father’s official birth certificate…and shut everyone up.” Paulsen replied, “Thanks Davidson I already did. I went all the way back to Annie.” Below that he posted, “I have not told my father yet and keeping him out of it as he is not in the best of health and this would just upset him to much.” (He later removed the post, but not before Legler took a screen shot.)

On August 9, 2013, Paulsen and Sochotsky’s attorney wrote, advising Legler to “cease and desist” defamatory activities. Legler fired back an 11-page letter and a notarized affidavit from one of Anne-Marie’s daughters.

Paulsen maintained that his father had been illegitimate and that therefore no documentation of his parentage could be provided.

Legler pointed out that public records show Frederick Paulsen’s birthdate as December 7, 1943—three weeks before Anne-Marie gave birth to her younger daughter.

“Here is a gift,” Sochotsky retorted  online. “He was born in 1938.”

Legler didn’t bother pointing out that Anne-Marie’s elder daughter was also born in 1938—three months earlier.

Then, in December 2014, Paulsen posted “a shout out to my father who was born on this date in 1936.”

(Not that it makes an affair impossible, but Anne-Marie Konta, clad in fur-trimmed white crepe de chine, married her first husband on January 29, 1936, and sailed for the Ile de France the next day. If Enzo Lucci had believed that a child born in December 1936 was his own, there would have been a birth announcement in the Times. Grandson of an Italian princess, he was far splashier than his young wife, and he loved publicity. On the other hand, if she’d left New York to quietly give birth to another man’s child, he would have to have forgiven her—which those who knew him say wasn’t likely—because by the end of the following year she was pregnant with their daughter. And that birth was reported in the Times.)

By now Legler had realized that only a fraction of Paulsen’s endless trove of memorabilia and photographs could be authenticated, and the rest could easily have been acquired at estate sales or auctions. As far as he could tell, none of these treasures had come from the Konta branch Paulsen claimed as his own. And all of what was recognizably Lemp, Legler realized, could have come from Louise Lemp Pabst and Edwin Pabst. They’d had no children (they were cousins, both descended from children of William Lemp Sr.), and many of their possessions were auctioned off after their death.

The question that still nagged at Legler was how Paulsen could have gotten a key to the mausoleum.

Then he looked up Louise’s will and found his way to Neil Ostberg, who’d inherited Louise’s country house and a trust—and saved a few of her belongings. Ostberg told Legler that a young man named Andrew Paulsen had come to see him and that because he’d identified himself as a family member, Ostberg had given him a Lemp coat of arms and a key tagged “Cemetery.”

St. Louisans who met Cheryl Sochotsky say that she seemed entirely sincere in her belief that Paulsen was a Lemp descendant, and she acted as his intermediary with the world.

Not anymore.

She’s no longer one of his Facebook friends, the eBay and Etsy stores are closed, and she says that she and Paulsen are no longer in communication.

When I contact Paulsen through Facebook, he promptly friends me. He lists himself as Andrew Lemp Paulsen, class of 2003 at the prestigious Groton School and says he spent a year studying at L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

The Groton School’s alumni coordinator searches the class of 2003 and surrounding years and finds no record of an Andrew Paulsen.

Public records show his middle initial as J, not L.
I page through his posts. He’s what used to be called dapper, and his clothes always match the occasion, whether he’s clad in dark shades and a well-cut suit as he holds a martini glass, wearing an old-fashioned black frock coat, wearing jeans astride a motorcycle, or sitting poolside, palm trees in the background, “Rockin’ that lemp look,” as a friend wrote below one photo. This January, he posted a photo of himself in a bow tie, sitting in front of a marble mantelpiece, and captioned it, “Clearly born in the wrong era.” Last July, he posted a photo of himself standing next to what looks to be a gleaming black 1940s Packard and wrote, “I was so born in the wrong time.”

Another post is a motto: “People will stare. Make it worth their while.”

Elsewhere, commenting on a remark by someone else, he notes, “Hey you can always buy pedigree.”

“As a child growing up I would hear stories from my grandmother about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor,” one post rhapsodizes. “Because of my love for them my grandmother went to Sotheby’s and bought me the photograph of the Duke when he was the Prince of Wales. This came from their villa in France.” On January 1 of this year, there was a portrait: “My Grandmother with Truman Capote New Years 1958.” On February 5: “Grandmother dancing with Hotel magnet Conrad Hilton.” On February 11: “My Grandmother with Claud Cartier of the French Jewelry family and the famed fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli.”

I could be imagining it, but there seem to be a few tiny hints of skepticism even among the Facebook friends: “How many grandparents do you have?” “You sure have a treasure trove of family photos.” Despite the quantity he posts, Paulsen inserts explanations of gaps; at one point he writes, “My father was very protective of his mother and her privacy he decided that her albums be destroyed.”

I message Paulsen through Facebook and ask to interview him about his Lemp antecedents. He suggests meeting at Cragwold, the estate Edwin Lemp built in Kirkwood. He’s friends with the current owners, and this past November they threw him a Great Gatsby–themed 30th-birthday party. There are photos of Paulsen in a tux, champagne glass in hand, and a sheet cake decorated with the Falstaff shield.

He offers to bring Lemp memorabilia to the interview and asks what period most interests me. After I say I’d love to hear more about his grandmother, he cancels, writing, “While she meant the world to me and truly was a fascinating person, the family just is not comfortable with me talking about her for an article. My father, in particular, has asked me not to discuss details about his mother and grandmother in something that will be published for the public. He is of the generation that believes a person should only appear in the newspaper three times: a birth announcement, a wedding announcement and an obituary.”

When I tell Paulsen I’ve heard challenges to his claims, he says, “Basically there was an illegitimacy in there, so that’s why I really don’t talk about it. I am a member of the Lemp family.” When I say the cemetery wasn’t convinced of his lineage because the timeline didn’t jibe, he reiterates that his father was born in 1936, not 1943. I point out that a birth certificate would put all this mess to rest. “See, that’s the thing,” he says, his voice strained. “My father does not know about this whole issue with the cemetery.” He says he tried to get his father’s New York birth certificate but “they said since my father was still alive, I could not ask for it. My father’s really, really ill. He has fibromyalgia.”

His voice gathering strength, Paulsen insists on his bona fides: “I have three keys to the mausoleum. I’ve had these keys for years. I mean, they have been in the family. Plus the photographs, and jewelry, and monogrammed silver. I have the family coat of arms!” To have people not believing him, attacking him, “is hurtful,” he says. “It’s very hurtful.” 

He promises to look for some proof of his dad’s birth year. Or a marriage certificate, I suggest, or a high school diploma. Even vaccination records would do. He brightens and says he saw those just the other day.

We talk about the Lemp suicides, and he adds Louise Lemp to the list, saying she overdosed on pills. Years earlier, he says, she tried to slash her wrists and then admired the artistic spatter of the bloodstains on the pillow. He describes his joy at discovering a cache of Louise’s paintings that had been turned over to an auctioneer and says he’s been buying them back one by one.

The next morning, he emails: “I have to decided to contact a attorney in St Louis and will be having papers drawn up and served to the Cemetery. This has been extremely upsetting for me and I can not or will not take this lying down.”

He emails 16 scans of authentic Lemp portraits but no documentation of his father’s date of birth. He promises he’ll look for a college yearbook. A week later, he emails, “The documents that you have requested are not ones that we just have lying around. They also contain some fairly personal information about my parents. My mother and father are both elderly and neither in the greatest of health. I do not doubt your credibility as a reporter, but how do I know where this information is going? I have no intention of setting my parents up for identity theft or compromising their privacy in any way.”

He closes with a “kindly request that you leave my name and any mention of myself out of it. My attorney is aware of the situation. I wish you good day.”

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To Anne-Marie’s elder daughter, the real mystery is “Why? Why would anyone do this? What would motivate them to begin, and how would they begin? And how could they think they’d never be discovered?”

Either this story is about an innocent yearning for another time or the cold theft of someone else’s lineage. It’s about the ability to weave yourself into someone else’s family and change

history in the process—or it’s about illegitimacy, confused records, and a collision of separated worlds.

One wishes a spiritualist would contact Anne-Marie Konta. By all accounts she’s bound to have a witty and gracious take on the whole debacle.

“I can't think of anyone who didn't like her,” her elder daughter remarks, “and look how ‘beloved’ she was to Andrew Paulsen. At least he got one thing right!"

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* Written quotations are verbatim, the errors preserved.