Dorchester Times: Tragic Case In Crete: Woman And Her Three Kids Living In Storage Unit, Car

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Tragic Case In Crete: Woman And Her Three Kids Living In Storage Unit, Car

The story from York earlier this week (see below) was evidence that the world has changed in recent years, and not necessarily for the better.

More proof of that fact came from Crete yesterday, when news broke that a woman arrested in town had been living with her children in a storage unit and out of a car.

According to the Lincoln Journal Star, when Crete police arrested the 29-year-old mother last week on a Lancaster County warrant, officers found her three youngest children -- ages 5, 3 and 2 -- "in the back of an SUV, filthy, half-clothed and each holding a stolen boxer puppy."

From what we can gather, all the children had different fathers. (Yes, it matters, which is why we've included that in this post.)

The Journal Star's updated story reports: "The Crete woman arrested last week has five children according to court records. Her oldest daughter, 12, lived with her father at the time. The woman is not named here to protect the identity of her kids. Her second oldest, a 9-year-old boy, has missed school for days or weeks and bounced between Crete and Lincoln school districts seven times since 2013, according to court records."

According to the Lincoln newspaper, "School officials said his mother appeared intoxicated and unable to follow conversations. ... The boy spent days in intensive care this summer after he nearly lost his left arm when it became badly infected, and court records indicate his mother neglected to take him to follow-up medical appointments after doctors put pins in his arm to fix a broken bone.

"Crete police caught up with her Thursday as she dropped her 9-year-old son off at school after he'd been truant for days. In the back seat of her trash-filled SUV, officers found her youngest three children holding puppies. The 5- and 3-year-old girls each had one bare foot and the 2-year-old girl was naked from the waist down and wrapped in a blanket, according to court documents. ... Police arrested the woman on a misdemeanor warrant for pawning property by a convicted person and cited her for possession of stolen property, theft and child abuse.

"The children have been placed with their fathers. Their mother was in Saline County jail Monday evening."

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Dorchester: A Good Little Family Town

Dorchester, Nebraska (est. population 630) is located in northern Saline county. Close in proximity to Interstate 80, Dorchester is only 25 minutes from the state capital of Lincoln (est. population 250,000) and about 55 minutes from Omaha (metro population 725,000).

Dorchester's median resident age is 37 years. In 2005, Dorchester had a median family income of approximately $35,600. The median house value was about $63,000. About 95 percent of Dorchester residents commute to work via Interstate and highways.

The village has a quality public school, which received a $4.1 million expansion and modernization in 2008; it offers a small classrooms and individualized attention. Total enrollment of grades K-12 is around 230-250 students.

Ancestries of the Dorchester area are primarily German (42.4%), Czech (24.9%), Irish (12.5%), English (5.4%), and Dutch (4.9%).

Dorchester Historical Facts

* On July 4, 1871, the railroad reached Dorchester.
* Incorporated in 1881, Dorchester's population grew from 200 to 500 by 1882.
* In 1882, Dorchester had 90 buildings, 35 of which were businesses or public facilities. Brick buildings lined both sides of Washington Avenue for two blocks.
* Dorchester's longest-running newspaper was The Dorchester Star, which was published until the late 1940s.
* By 1889, Dorchester's population is said to have reached 800, while the town housed an opera house, a two-story brick schoolhouse with a bell tower, and four churches.
* By the 1910s, Dorchester had electricity, a water tower and a fire department.
* Dorchester's main arteries, Highways 6 and 33, were graveled in the 1940s.
* Dorchester's first irrigation well was drilled on Chris Weber's farm and rural electrification was finished following WWII.

A Village with History

Dorchester is one of the "alphabet towns" on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad line built west from Lincoln. The town site was selected for its pleasant location in the northern part of Saline County, about eight miles west of Crete. This situation is an attractive one, being on the level prairie land, midway between the West Blue River and Turkey Creek. The first named stream is three miles north, and the latter about the same distance south from the town. Dorchester was platted in 1870 and incorporated in 1881. The name "Dorchester" came from either for a suburb of Boston by that name or a town in England. No one is sure. Two of the very first settlers were James Seely and Edward McIntyre, who both made Dorchester their permanent home.

Dorchester: In The Beginning

Here is a look at Dorchester around 1890, less than a decade after its official incorporation, as documented by Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska:
* POPULATION: "About 300, and is made up of a substantial and progressive class of citizens, who are moral and industrious. ... The town grew but very little until the year 1879, for the reason that Pleasant Hill, on Turkey Creek, a short distance south, was the county seat and naturally drew a trade for quite a large scope of country."
* BUSINESS: "The business and professional interests of the town are represented by three general merchandise stores, two drug, one grocery, one furniture, two hardware, and two millinery stores, one bank, two restaurants, two hotels, three livery stables, a post office, one newspaper office, two elevators, two lumber yards, two coal yards, two blacksmith shops, two lawyers and four physicians."
* SCHOOL: "The schoolhouse is a good one. The schoolhouse was built in 1872, since which time the public schools have been continually kept up. The present schoolhouse is 24' x 40' in size, two stories high. The school is graded and consists of three departments. The house is found too small, and arrangements will soon be made to increase its size."
* CHURCHES: "There are three substantial churches."
* HOMES: "The residence portion of the village is made up of neat houses of different styles of architecture, but none of them very large."
* NEWSPAPER: "The Dorchester Star, which was established August 21, 1881, by H. C. Bittenbender, who edited it until January 19, 1882, when he sold it to Ryerson & Bullock, the present proprietors. The Star is a bright weekly paper, five-column quarto, in size, and is Republican in politics."