From Jack The Ripper To James Gordon Bennett Jr.

Many scholars believe old Jack the Ripper was a serial killer confined to Victorian London. Donna Ross, who lectures and writes about Jack the Ripper, said she believes the famous killer was actually Francis Tumulty, who left England and visited mayhem and murder upon St. Louis until his own death in 1903.

Ross not only plays and lectures about Jack the Ripper, she has written a soon-to-be-published Victorian Whodunit entitled, "Jack the Ripper in St. Louis." The Chesterfield resident won the Mayhaven Literary Prize for her fiction on Jack the Ripper's life.

"No one really knows who Jack the Ripper was, but everyone knows he was pretty strange," said Ross. "I have lots of evidence that he was, in fact, Francis Tumulty. And Tumulty probably committed a few bad deeds right here in St. Louis."

Like Jack the Ripper, who may have had multiple personalities, Ross brings forth many characters herself. Among the notables whom Ross performs are: James Gordon Bennett Jr., eccentric publisher of the New York Herald; Jesse Benton Fremont, daughter of Missouri's Thomas Hart Benton; and Marguerite Susanne DeRiehle McNair, wife of the first governor of Missouri.

"I like doing retirement centers because older people have a keener interest in history," said Ross. "Maybe that's because they have a little history themselves and they care about the past."

Ross taught speech, debate and English in the Parkway School District before retiring. She achieved all three honors bestowed by the Speech and Theatre Association of Missouri (STAM), and is in that organization's hall of fame.

Flamboyant Journalist

Ross recently performed publisher Bennett before a group of Webster University journalism students. She dressed in a men's Victorian frock coat and an impressive black top hat.

As Bennett, she made a number of observations as to the effects of being horsewhipped by opponents of his opinions expressed in print. This involved blood running from the sidewalk to the gutter. Bennett also explained just why the Herald's journalism was so successful.

"The lesson is to be as flamboyant and outlandish and to stretch the truth as much as you can," said Bennett, the man whose newspaper is credited with establishing the reportorial interview and the concept of the journalistic scoop.

"One of the first things Bennett did after inheriting the newspaper at 25 was to send a reporter to find a lost missionary in Africa," said Ross. "That stunt is remembered with the immortal words: 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume.'

"Bennett also scooped all the other papers with the story of how Gen. George Armstrong Custer managed to get himself killed at the Battle at Little Big Horn," Ross noted.

Ross said she thought about doing historic impersonations of William Randolph Hearst or Joseph Pulitzer, who are better known, but Bennett was too quirky and colorful to ignore. After all, only the irascible Bennett had the gumption to drive his horse-drawn coach stark naked when the moon was full.

Best of Bellefontaine

When Ross isn't playing Victorian James Gordon Bennett or Jesse Benton Fremont, she might just be hanging out at the celebrated St. Louis resting place known to many as Bellefontaine Cemetery.

Among the accomplished characters who've found a permanent residence at Bellefontaine are:

• A legendary steamboat pilot who taught Mark Twain how to navigate the Mississippi River for $500.

• A West Point grad who explored the American wilds and for whom the salt flats in Utah are named.

• An activist woman who founded the League of Women Voters (LWV) in 1920.

• An educator who came to found Washington University and whose grandson became a famous poet.

• A maker of rifles whose famous brand tamed the West and was used by the likes of Daniel Boone and Kit Carson.

• A noted lawyer who coined the phrase of praise to canines as "Man's best friend."

• An ad man who used Tom Mix and western fever to sell tons of Hot Ralston Cereal.

To identify these folks by name, you may seek out the answer key on her Web site about history at the Internet address of calixtaxis.com.

Ross's current creative obsession is refining a fictional character she calls Mrs. McBustle. She is writing a series of stories based on her 19th Century composite of an American woman whom Ross has affectionately nicknamed "Mrs. McB."

"She was created especially for lovers of flora. She can be slightly risqué," explained Ross. "The program demonstrates the ways ladies of yesteryear used their gardens to invite love and enhance beauty."