Towards the end of April 1904 a tragic case was brought before the Sheffield Magistrates, where an Austrian woman called Amalia Zoder had been charged with ‘wandering abroad.’ This was a term for people who had been found in the town with no fixed address. It seems that Amalia appeared to be a woman in her late twenties, but unlike many charged with this offence, she was described as being ‘of respectable appearance’. What’s more, in her possession was a bank book containing quite a considerable sum of money. Just a month previously she had arrived in Sheffield in search of a lost lover.
This was a Sheffield man to whom she became engaged in her home town of Vienna a few weeks before that. Amalia claimed that after a quarrel, he had left her and she had come to Sheffield to try to effect a reconciliation. After hearing what the prisoner had to say, the case was dismissed by the bench and she was discharged. Nevertheless, such was Amalia’s persistence that on Thursday 19 May, she was brought into court once again, charged with the same offence. Dean Dolan, the Roman Catholic clergyman of Saint Marie’s church told the court how the prisoner had become very annoying by constantly ringing the presbytery bell at the church.
He claimed that she had also been pestering the clergy and what made things more difficult was that her English was very poor. This resulted in her time in custody and before the court, the authorities had great difficulty in making her understand the position that she had found herself in. Amalia claimed that she had simply been looking for work in Sheffield. In the end the magistrates decided to remand her to the Fir Vale Workhouse, so that enquiries to be made into her mental condition.
They soon established that Amalia had sought the aid of the Catholic priests at Saint Marie’s church and had actually managed to find one who spoke fluent German.
On her behalf, he had interviewed the errant lover who was now living and working in Sheffield.
Sadly it was a case of ‘love grown cold’ and he stated that he had no wish to marry Amalia having, in the meantime, married someone else. The poor abandoned girl simply did not want to accept the situation. Amalia had found out that as he had married his new wife in a local Protestant church, she was therefore convinced that if the priests of St Maries church would just marry him to her, he would come to his senses. To this end, the prisoner had persistently arrived at the presbytery and rang the bell to the point that she finally declined to leave the premises at all. She simply sat down just where she was.
The priests had no option therefore but to call in the police, who found her sat on the presbytery doorstep. Amalia was, for the third time brought before the Sheffield magistrates on 27 May 1904. The bench were told that during her stay in Fir Vale workhouse enquiries had also been made in Vienna. However it was found that her parents were very poor and were not in a position to help their daughter. In the meantime the medical officer of the workhouse had found her to be perfectly sane and well able to take care of herself. Finally Amalia was discharged from the workhouse and given money to find lodgings in Howard Street, Sheffield.
Sadly the severe mental strain which the poor woman had been under, appeared once more and the landlady gave her notice to quit. Finding herself in the difficult situation, Amelia returned back to St Marie’s Presbytery where she again made a nuisance of herself sitting on the doorstep and ringing the bell. Once again the police were called and Amalia was brought before the court. In frustration the magistrates remanded her to the workhouse for a fortnight whilst further enquiries were made, but nothing new could be established. Sadly that is where the mystery of Amalia Zoder ends. Did she find her errant lover and make things up with him or did she go back to Vienna a sadder, but wiser woman?
Sadly we will never know.