One of the least talked-about downsides of America’s growing obsession with genealogy is what people sometimes find. Long-buried in dusty newspaper archives, stories once lost to time are now just a few clicks away—revealing crimes, scandals, even murders that never made it into family lore.
That’s exactly what happened to Rose Donovan. A few years ago, her husband Dave began casually searching online newspaper databases for information about her family in Des Moines. What started as a hobby quickly turned startling: Rose’s great-grandfather, Erastus Wallace Scott, emerged as one of Iowa’s most notorious figures—a con artist, pimp, and murderer. The deeper Dave dug, the more unbelievable the story became, until the couple decided it had to be a book.
They were well suited for the task. Rose and Dave met in journalism school in Iowa and later worked together at a Florida newspaper before their careers diverged—Dave becoming a lawyer in Washington, D.C., and Rose a copy editor at The Washington Post while raising their three children. Now retired in Oxford, they spent several years writing and editing together. The result is The Nastiest Saloon in Iowa, just published.
The Spy sat down with the Donovans recently to talk about this dark family history—and how a simple search can uncover far more than expected.
This video is approximately five minutes in length. The Nastiest Saloon in Iowa, The: Murder, Prostitution and Corruption in the Heartland will be availble at local bookstores and Amazon June 17th.
