“The story of the undoing of the most youthful political idol in the history of Salt Lake” The Oregon Tribune
My dad told a story that his Grandma Rule’s (Louisa Wechsung) father was a physician to the Kaiser. I never thought much of it, and could not find any information to back it up. Louisa’s mother Agusta Bock died when Louisa was young, and she was raised by her Aunt Sophie Droz in Berlin. When Louisa was 16, she traveled to the United States to visit her Uncle, Dr. Gustav Carl Bock.
What does this all have to do with the mayor of Salt Lake?
Dr. Bock had a son, another Dr. Gustavus Bock, who had a son, Edmund Alvin Bock. Edmund is the one that led me to find the Dr’s Bock, as I found a great story about Edmund. I think he would have been my Grandpa Ernie’s second cousin.
Edmund Bock was born in Smithton, Illinois, in 1882. He earned his Master of Accounts degree and was teaching accounting when he decided to go west. In 1906, Edmund moved to Salt Lake, marrying Laura Denton on July 9, 1912.
Edmund was elected city auditor by a landslide vote in 1916. At this time, he began embezzling funds from the city’s accounts to fund his investments in mining. In 1918, he obtained a leave of absence from his position, to serve overseas as a Red Cross worker and auditor for the war department. Prior to his departure, he had continued the embezzlement scheme to make sure his family had enough money to be secure when he went to France, because “I did not know if I would ever return”. However, he did return within the year and soon became a candidate for mayor. He was elected the 18th mayor of Salt Lake City by a substantial majority in the November 1919 election becoming the youngest mayor of Salt Lake City. According to The Oregon Daily Journal (Sun, Jul 25, 1920), he was not only the youngest mayor of Salt Lake but also one of the youngest mayors in the United States. His political rise was almost phenomenal.
When the shortfall was discovered he resigned July 22, 1920, after less than seven months in office. At the time of his resignation, he turned over a check for the entire amount that he had taken.
He was sentenced to an indeterminate prison term, not to exceed five years. I don’t think he was in prison long because three years after the sentence he was shot to death while duck hunting, his death certificate states “no evidence of foul play.”
When I was in Salt Lake in February, I located his grave and put a photo of the headstone on find-a-grave. Finding this story has opened a few doors about great-grandma Rule’s family. It helped me locate Dr. Gustavus Carl Bock’s obituary on the find-a-grave website, and it contains quite a bit of information about his family. Great grandma Rule’s mother, Agusta and Dr. Bock were children of Dr. Charles A Bock, who, according to the obituary was “an eminent physician, and held the position of medical doctor under the government.” So maybe my dad’s story was correct, but it wasn’t Louisa’s father that was the physician to the Kaiser, but her grandfather.
Follow these links to the find-a-grave memorials for Gustavus Carl, Gustavus Gottlieb, and Edmund Alvin Bock.
Below are the news articles and documentation that I found for this story.
[pdf-embedder url=”https://www.familystoryproject.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/mosl-documentation.pdf” title=”Mayor of Salt Lake Documentation”]