Batavia's most famous madam

Gruber's adopted daughter, Edna (left), her daughter Florence (pregnant with Bill) and son-in-law Charles Miller. Gruber had Charles beaten when he refused to leave Batavia without his children.

Edna Gruber's generosity is legendary in Batavia. “She had great, great compassion for underprivileged people, especially children,” her granddaughter Edna Miller said. “She came from a very deprived background.”

In the early 1920s, Gruber rescued three small girls living in squalor in a house behind the Palace Hotel. New York Central Railroad men who worked nearby were aware of the children's plight and clapped when Gruber walked into the house one day and removed the girls, ages 7, 5 and 2.

“They were so glad to see something done for the girls,” Police Chief McCulley said, praising Gruber's actions.

The children, whose father was working on a farm in Attica, and whose mother had abandoned them, were being cared for by a woman living in the father's house. Dressed in dirty rags, they were unwashed and slept on bare floors.

“I couldn't bear to see them under such conditions,” Gruber later said.

Eventually, the oldest girl went to live with an aunt and the middle child with her mother. The 2-year-old was adopted by Gruber, who named her Edna. When the girl became ill with tuberculosis, Gruber sent her to the sanitarium at Mt. Morris and paid for her medical expenses until she died. There is no shortage of tales about Gruber's generosity.

At age 16, Harold Greening, 72, was employed at Davis Wheel Goods. He remembered Gruber coming in at Christmas time and spending hundreds of dollars on toys.

“I'll take this. I'll take this,” he recalled Gruber saying, pointing out her purchases. Later, someone would come to pick up the gifts, which Greening thought probably went to the Children's Home or to families who “were up against it.

“Everything you heard about her was good,” Greening said. “She did a lot of good for the town...and she was a good tipper to delivery people.”

On April 23, 1931 a story appeared in the Daily News stating that Gruber had an 18-hole indoor miniature golf course, which she was hoping to donate to a children's organization.

Les Wright, who worked in Marshall's newsstand, said Gruber “sure was funny. At that time news carriers were paid by the month and had to collect their own bills. She was on my list.

“So, I'd go to her house with the bill and she'd say, 'Come on in. What the hell are you doin'?'

“I'm collecting,” Les would respond.

“The hell with collectin'. Sit down. Want some food? Want something to drink?”

Lois Brockway, a research clerk at the Genesee County History Department, has made a personal project of collecting Edna Gruber lore. “During World War II, Edna would see a soldier or sailor on the street, stop him and give him money, which she kept rolled up in her sock,” Brockway said.

For years Gruber paid a local priest to purchase First Communion dresses and suits for needy children in her neighborhood.

Owners and sales clerks at Thomas & Dwyer's Shoe Store were told by Gruber to keep an eye out for children walking to school barefoot. They were instructed to fit the children with shoes and send her the bill.

Clerks at McAlpine & Barton's clothing store were used to people explaining that Edna Gruber had sent them in to be fitted with a warm suit of clothes, Miller said.

“Her philosophy was that you did not hurt somebody who was already down. You never hurt them. You helped them,” Miller said. Brockway said Gruber always fed children at noon during the Depression.

Gruber's generosity extended to the police and fire departments, buying them uniforms. “She had a lot of politicians in her pocket, and they'd tip her off to police raids,” her granddaughter said. That assessment is corroborated by Brockway.

As the story goes, Gruber would receive a tip, load her girls, johns and other incriminating evidence into a big truck and drive around the corner. A few minutes later the police would arrive, scour the house and find nothing. They'd leave, the truck would return, unload and business would continue as usual.

One local patrolman, Brockway said, decided to keep a personal eye on the Palace Hotel situation. Caught in a raid, taken to the police station and reprimanded, Officer McCurdy declared, “Where do you look for crime? You go where it is.”

Georgia Mullen lives in Avon and is editor of Genesee Country.

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