Banana Anna and other claims

There were a variety of scams but most common were called ‘banana peelers’ in the United States, people who slipped on banana skins and then made a claim. Claims seem to first appear in the last quarter of the 19th century, around 1870, and one of the earliest gangs was the Freeman family who made a career out of working full time fake accidents on railroads and streetcars.

There were so many claims it begged investigation, but they might never have been caught had it not been for one of the daughters, Fannie, who had feigned paralysis through numerous medical examinations. She was able to stand pins being stuck in to her legs and feet and not feel any sensation.

Chicago railroad detectives rented a room above the Freemans’ apartment and drilled a peephole through Fannie’s ceiling whereupon she was seen doing a hurdle race over the chairs in the room, dancing and manufacturing symptoms of paralysis.

Mrs Anna Sturla, known as Banana Anna, had 17 known banana related incidents linked to her and she kept this up until her last claim in 1912, collecting nearly $3,000. A sceptical New York Times, reporting?that she had been arrested for grand larceny in connection to her accident claims, joked that “banana peels seemed literally to dog her footsteps.” Oddly enough, my mother's father's surname was Sturla.

Banana peeling carried on in to the 20th century and by 1920 perhaps the most notorious of all was Frank Smith who, according to a 1921 New York Times article ‘Earned his living by slipping on banana peels’.?????????

Back in the 19th century, the accident faker was around about the same time as train robbers; the Reno brothers, the Daltons and Black Bart. Trains were central to fake claims; there were sometimes terrible train crashes with real victims whose claims were settled by cash by the railroads. It didn’t take long for the fakers to climb on the bandwagon, but they didn’t carry a gun, just a banana peel in their back pocket and perhaps a screwdriver or wrench to unfix a window.

But banana peeling was just one of different scams thought up by these crooks. As early as 1870 a Miss Baker married a Mr James Wheelwright. I don’t know how much control Mr Wheelwright had over his new wife but get this, he took his wife to the local railroad station and had her break a leg on a plank. She received $5,000 compensation. Now that was obviously worthwhile so she kept on breaking bones over the next few years, making successful claims.

Finally, Mr Wheelwright was set on going for the grand slam, a claim of $50,000 The couple planned for Mrs Wheelwright to break both arms in a slipping accident on a railroad station in Detroit, which she duly did but unfortunately fell so heavily that she not only broke her arms, but her neck.

During the first quarter of the 20th century claims were increasing, not least because of the vast opportunities available in cities and by the 1920s the automobile was playing a significant role in personal accident claims. ?

And the rest, as they say, is history.