Between the pages: the boy, the poem, and a riddle - Part 5

An old Sabbath School book, a photo of a young boy, and a handwritten poem about a frozen girl with a cryptic signature all led to a girl named Phoebe V. Lory and someone with the last name Leer.

If you are just joining me on this history detective adventure, start at part 1 to learn what I discovered so far.

With the assumption that the last name of the individual Phoebe wrote the poem for was "Leer," I researched all of the Leer families living in and around Latimore, Adams County, Pesnnylvania.

I found several. One individual that stood out was Annie Leer, age 8 in 1880, who was living in the home of her grandparents, M. and Sarah Stanbaugh, near the Lory home. In 1880 Phoebe was 12. I didn't know the chances that an 8 year old and a 12 year old would be close enough friends to exchange coded messages. But I couldn't ignore the fact that there was a Leer home so close. Researching Annie's relatives led me to Emma Elizabeth Leer.

Emma Elizabeth was living in Huntington, Adams County, Pennsylvania, in 1910. In 1910, she was married to George N. Bushey. That last name was familiar. I looked at the paper found inside the book again.

Mrs. G. N. Bushey was written in pencil beneath the name Phoebe Lory.

I am 100% confident that this is the right person and our coded message is solved! Emmie would have been a nickname for Emma. I believe the coded message at the end of Phoebe's poem reads:

"Written by Phoebe V. Lory for Emmie E. Leer."

With that information, I created a template for the PigPen Cipher to see if I could finally crack how Phoebe created her code.

Knowing that the original Pig Pen Cipher was a grid (like a tic tac toe game) and then an X, followed by another grid and an X but with dots, I drew the following and put the letters that fit the names I had. I left out the "m's" in Emmie's name, because I suspected Phoebe made a mistake since it was the exact same symbol she used for "o."

With the mistake she made of giving the "m" and the "o" the same symbol, I again thought Phoebe may have just randombly placed letters, creating her own cipher, using the PigPen grid and dot system.

Was there a pattern? And then I saw it.

She was going back and forth between the templates that were alike. She went back and forth between the grids, then back and forth between the X's, alternating letters as she went.

Phoebe's cipher:

This was further proof that the person who handwrote a copy of the "Frozen Charlotte" poem, was indeed Phoebe V. Lory and that she wrote it for Emmie E. Leer.

But how did the poem exchanged by these two friends end up in this book? And who was the boy in the picture?

More to come!

#historydetective