1920’s Female Boxer – Jeanne La Mar: Flash from the Past! —Part II

Story and investigative research by Terry Graham/Sarah Jo Rauschl    PART I

(OCT 17, 2005) WBAN has just received “Part II” on the 1920’s femaile boxer Jeanne La Mar.  (AKA: Jean La mar, The Countess Jeanne La Mar, The Countess, Jeanne Vina Lamar.)  Writer Terry Graham and Sarah Jo Rauschl provided this fascinating history of this past boxer, and a deep mystery that surrounds her.

THE COUNTESS OF BIG JOHN FLAT

A lone coyote roamed the brush field slope next to two tin shelters and a worn and abandoned cabin. His mind was on a tasty morsel of a rabbit that he just saw darting through the brush. As he turned to pad his way down slope, he glanced towards the tin sheds, and the weathered house above it.

The Countess Vina Jeanne Lamarr circ 1925

He couldn’t fight the shiver that raised the hairs on it’s back. Something about the quite place always gave him the willies. Then his brain focused on the task of capturing a meal, he turned away and heading down the slope.

There was good reason for the eerie sensation that the abandoned homestead caused. It once belonged to Countess Vina Jeanne Lamarr, a feisty tough little woman that might have been a world champion boxer in the early 1920’s.

Countess Lamarr once boxed in Allentown, Pa., and went three rounds with bantam-weight Bugs Moran and Bobby McLean. Lamarr’s boxing craze continued when she moved to Big John Flat. She knocked down forest Ranger “Mac” MacDonald with a single punch. Imagine her surprise when he got up, dusted himself off, retorted, “My lady, that’s it!”, and picked her up and bodily threw her over the railing of Big Pines ranger station. She landed on her fanny on the grass below the railing, and McDonald had no problems with her after that.

In 1941, Countess Lamarr also frequented the Valyermo, Ca. CCC camp, because boxing matches would be staged there. In one night, she knocked out two male fighters. Her 5’2 stature might not have seemed too threatening, but her 170 pounds appeared to be more muscle than fat.

Known as the “Mystery Woman of Big John Flat”, by Wrightwood, Ca. local newspaper reporter Susan Gates, Lamarr had suddenly disappeared, abandoning her home on Big John Flat in 1942. Rumor had it that she quickly left for sights unknown immediately after the body of her nephew was found near her isolated cabin. Finally, after almost sixty-three years, those rumors appear to be supported with fact.

According to Donna, Garry and Darell Farnbach, the surviving grandchildren of the original 1917 homesteaders of Big John Flat, Farnbauh and Cash, the woman known as Countess Vina Jeanne Lamarr obtained the permission to use their road in 1923, to transport building supplies to the slopes of Big John Flat to build her home.

Donna, Garry and Darell, lived with their parents, Alberta, daughter of homesteader Fanny and Albert Cash, and Gerald, son of Arilla and Joe Farnbauh. At first, the family came up to their homestead during the summer and on weekends. Subsequently, they moved up full time to the quiet area of Big John Flat. It was during these years, that they became very acquainted with Countess Vina Larmarr and a young man that Lamarr identified only as her nephew, Gus Von Harren.

One of the scraps of paper recovered from Countess Lamarr’s weathered and abandoned homestead was a automobile insurance policy belonging to “Gus”, which for the first time, provided his proper name: Gustave M. M. (Martin) Van Harren.

Countess Jeanne Lamarr got along with the Farnbauhs, but seemed ready to pick fights with ranch hands and forest rangers in the area. She also had the cravings for strong drink, and many times it brought out the worst in Lamarr.

The strong drink also loosened her lips. It was during these times that she would admit to the Farnbauh family that Gus was really her son. It was believed that the Countess kept that a secret from most people because she was ashamed that she had a child.

The Farnbauhs all loved the young Gus, he had a kindly spirit, was very helpful to them, and he loved the mountains in which he lived. He was an artist, perhaps a gift he picked up from a private finishing school that he attended during his teenage years. His art was done by pencil, and in very fine detail, he drew things that were mechanical, such as airplanes and automobiles.

Many things indicated that Lamarr did not treat him as a son. She refused to admit Gus was her son, and barely treated him like a nephew. She would frequent downtown San Bernardino, particularly around the seedy place of D Street. She was known to spend days away from home, leaving Gus alone in the isolated area.

Upon her many trips to San Bernardino, the Countess would later return with different “handymen”, to work on the house. According to then Angeles Forest Administrator Harry Grace, the men were dirty and unkempt and appeared to be homeless. Lamarr would apparently use the men for sexual favors in exchange for handy work around her Big John Flat home.

Countess Vina Jeanne Lamarr continued to frequent San Bernardino. At times she would put ads in the San Bernardino Sun for a handyman. But it seemed that most of the time, she simply picked them off the streets that were once known to support drunks and street walkers. The work at Lamarr’s house consisted of brush clearing and other outside work. Beside the normal ‘roll in the hay”, Lamarr would also pay the ‘handyman’ a small salary. “Sometimes a man would stay for a day and walk out, sometimes others would stay longer”, remarked ranger Harry Grace.

An unknown time in the middle of 1941, Ranger Harry Grace was living in the rock house, near present day Jackson Lake and Camp Big Pines. He and his wife heard shooting down towards Big John Flat. Approximately one half hour later, a unkempt man about 50 years old showed up and said, “That woman is crazy! She shot at me! It missed!” Shots might have missed him, but his suitcase was supporting a bullet hole in it’s side.

The strange man at Grace’s door claimed that Countess Lamarr was shooting at him with a 30.30 rifle, and he wanted ranger Grace to go down and arrest her. Harry Grace said he had no authority to do that, for her house was outside forest lands. He was not a law enforcement officer, anyway. He told the man that he should get in touch with the L.A. County Sheriff.

The man told Angeles Forest ranger Harry Grace the following:

Countess Lamarr had sent him out to kill a rabbit for dinner. While he was out crawling around looking for a rabbit, he discovered a skeleton near her house. Lying beside the skeleton was a .22 cal. Rifle. His first thought was that Lamarr killed the man (the dead one) as he hunted rabbit for her. After he had discovered the skeleton, he quickly went into the house, got his suitcase and took off. Lamarr shot at him, and then followed him part way down the trail towards Big John Flat and towards her garage.

Ranger Grace told the man to go the the Park (Big Pines Ranger Station) and make a call to the Sheriff Department, and they would determine if it was a murder case or not. According to the audio statement of Harry Grace, the man did.

Angeles Forest ranger Harry Grace continued by saying that Countess Lamarr told “county people” who worked in the area, that the skeleton was that of her nephew, who had been living with her three or four years before he had ‘disappeared”. As far as ranger Grace knew, nothing was done about this skeleton business. It soon became a regular story among the people at Big Pines.

Grace concluded by saying that in 1942 (he did not know the exact date), he heard that the Countess Vina Jeanne Lamarr was found dead in a hotel in downtown San Bernardino, California, from unknown causes.

Was the skeleton that the handyman discovered on Lamarr’s property, that of her son/nephew?

The Farnbaughs told this writer that the Countess gave them two different stories of what happened to her son/nephew, Gustave M. Martin Van Harren “Gus”, when the Franbaugh family showed concern when he was suddenly missing. Lamarr first said that he got mad at her and ran away. The Farnbaughs was suspicious of that story, since “Gus” always came to their ranch when he had problems with his mother, Lamarr. The second story came over a week later, when Lamarr came to their house drunk. She yelled and screamed that their father, Gerald, killed her son “Gus”, and she had his fingers in a box to prove it. At the time of this incident, Mr. Farnbaugh was at work at present day Edwards Air Force Base.

The Farnbaughs described the last resting place of the bones that belonged to Gus. It was small pit area used by Lamarr to dump her garbage. His bones were covered with lime.

A short time after the handyman had discovered the skeleton on Lamarr’s property, the Countess Vina Jeanne Lamarr abandoned her home on Big John Flat and was never seen by the Farnbaugh family again.

At the current time, the writer is waiting word from local law enforcement agencies to verify the finding of Gus Van Harren’s body, and what was the outcome of the discovery of Countess Vina Jeanne Lamarr’s body in San Bernardino.

As for the legend of “The Mystery Woman” of Big John Flat, it seems to have ended right where it began. Among the quiet isolated slopes of Big John Flat.

Just a blast from the past -Terry Graham, Wrightwood, CA