She got fan letters from the four corners of the earth and many ne'r-do-wells offered to serve under her banner if she would pay the fare. Some of them were humdingers, like the one about Pablo Rolando and his bride, Rosa, who were shipwrecked on their honeymoon tour and drifted ashore to Floreana. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the uninhabited island served as a hiding place for English pirates and way station for whalers. Nothing was heard from them till months later, [when] Lawrence and Vuggerad were found dead on Marchena, a desert island over 100 miles from here. Ritter died mysteriously of arsenic poisoning [sic, food poisoning].

On one of my wanderings on Floreana, I happened to shoot a steer in self defense, near his place, so I took what meat I could carry to the Ritters.
Then something happened to bring me into this history. She soon declared herself "Queen" of the island and announced her intent to build a grand hotel, which would attract even more visitors.

He announced his intention to live 150 years or more. She did not get along well with the other residents, and fighting between the homesteads ensued. Dore made several statements, none of them alike.

They were nudists and the doctor got sore as hell when people walked in without warning. For some reason unknown to me, she shot this fellow and nearly killed him which goes to show that she could be dangerous. When my hunting dogs saw him tear into the meat with those glistening steel fangs, they got an inferiority complex that they carried with them to their grave. Some way those two did not look the type. In 1929, he moved to the remote location with his lover and former patient, Dore … The doctor gave a long and fearsome sermon on the evil of eating meat, but in the meantime Dore kept on frying and as the aroma of the cooking reached his nostrils, he gradually changed the tune of his sermon.
Once inhabited by an indulgent baroness and her three lovers, the history of this island is intriguing. Scuba divers who want to focus on underwater adventures have a few options in the Galápagos Islands as well. Waldo Schmitt first became familiar with the Baroness and her cohorts while collecting specimens with a group of scientists in the Galapagos during the 1933-1934 Hancock- Pacific Galapagos Expedition upon the ship, the Valero. In 1929, he moved to the remote location with his lover and former patient, Dore Strauch. Islands Animals.

He put away more meat in that one sitting than I could eat in two months. In a place like Galapagos, where people don't get news from the outside world for months on end, it is natural when a boat comes, to gallop down to the coast, tail in the air and burning up the road. The Galapagos Islands, off the coast of Ecuador, were a wet, rocky, and generally inhospitable place in the early 20th century.It was far from an island paradise, but it was exactly what a German doctor named Friedrich Ritter was looking for when he decided it was time for a fresh start. This is the second in a series of “murder mystery” posts about a 1930s Smithsonian scientific expedition, based on records in the Smithsonian Institution Archives’ collections. Dore did not seem to mind. It seemed even more suspicious when Lorenz left the island in a hurry, hitching a ride with a Norwegian fisherman to San Cristobal Island. A single long scream pierced the quiet air, and the Baroness and her lover, Philippson, were never seen again, according to Culture Trip. The dramatic story of the Baroness ... there’s quite a large percentage of flamingos living in one single pond considering that the entire population of Galapagos Flamingos amounts to only about 1,200 to 1,500 individuals scattered across the archipelago. He had a strange tale to tell.

I spread my blankets in a strategic corner of the veranda and waited. Despite being the only other people on the island, the Wittmers had little contact with the doctor, and both families mostly kept to themselves. Violent quarrels resulted. The Baroness circulated many wild versions of her biography, but the true story, which Smithsonian scientist Waldo Schmitt pieced together from interviews with fellow colonists, still sounds like the plot of an early Marlene Dietrich movie. Among them were Rudolph Lorenz and Robert Philippson. Madame Bosquet the elder’s plot was evidently successful, since Monsieur Bosquet filed for divorce. In 1832, Ecuador attempted to colonize Charles Island with a group of convicts. The island's peace and quiet wouldn't last long. The Empress of Floreana is a 1934 silent adventure short film made on Floreana Island by a millionaire captain who originally came with a crew to visit the Galápagos Islands for purposes of zoology.The crew chose to visit Floreana because of the rumors that surrounded the island's only two inhabitants, a German diaspora couple Dr. Friedrich Ritter and Dore Strauch, who … The Wittmers remained on the island, turning the press and media attention into a lucrative tourism business.

The Baroness chose to play a new role or maybe she was just natural for once. On leaving Berlin, he had his teeth drawn and false teeth made of stainless steel. Doctor Ritter especially couldn't stand her. 1935. §. I wonder why she did not kill me in Post Office Bay.

The self-proclaimed island queen stirred up a lot of trouble. I went to sleep. I think she came to Floreana with the intention of getting some millionaire to finance her in building a tourist hotel there, and given time, I think she would have done it. A small island around 80 kilometers (50 mi) from Santa Cruz, the nearest neighboring island with even any suggestion of a populace, Floreana would be their paradise.

The dream of life on a tropical island was especially appealing to Germans suffering the political and economic upheavals of the 1920s. In 1931, visitors arrived who intended to stay for good. There were two of them. I persuaded a Norwegian named Vuggerad [sic, Nuggerud] to sail over with me. The fact [is] that the Baroness disappeared, hide, horn and holler, and has not been heard from to this day. "The Baroness curled up on one of the couches with gleaming, half-closed eyes, and told, without encouragement, her romantic story... She is dressed like a baby in the same kind of rompers used by chorus girls when they are exercising…" Excerpt from “Monsumens Reise,” H. Mielche, Translated by Miss Deichmann, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Waldo Schmitt Papers, Record Unit 7231, Box 88. The fact [is] that the Baroness disappeared, hide, horn and holler, and has not been heard from to this day. The Baroness continued her Three Musketeers relationship with her boyfriends Lorenz and Philippson. He inserted these and went to work. Baroness Viewing Point. There remained a generous stock of French silk lingerie from the shop, which the Baroness would find to be ideal beach wear. Produced by the Smithsonian Institution Archives. It is the site of the first “post office”, established in 1793 by whalers, and it was the home to the first Galapagos resident — a bold Irishman named … The only special thing I remember her by is that I never saw her neck clean. Most of them didn’t leave without giving a generous donation for the upkeep of the Baroness’ homestead, “Hacienda Paradise”. They wanted to know what I was doing there and if I did not know that it was forbidden to land. Newspapers in Guayaquil sent out reporters and a lot of nonsense was written.

I suppose that subconsciously, I felt that I should be taking a more active part in the social doings of Galapagos. Lawrence wanted to get to the mainland and he was in a hell of a hurry to get there. They married and went to live in Paris with his mother. She broke the monotony of Galapagos life and I …

Dr. Ritter had a modest racket, but he got by on it while it lasted. She took me to “Hacienda Paradise” and showed me her fan letters and clippings from the European press. A short time after my visit, she took to her court a young Dane.

Directed by Daniel Geller, Dayna Goldfine.

The peace did not last long, as this chronicle will show. They were eager to make their otherwise dreary travels seem interesting and get their name in print and connected in some way to the outer edge of some adventure. She said that nothing amused her more than fooling the people.

All this was not so good for poor Ritter. She was the Baroness Boise Bosquet de Wagner Whereborn [sic, Eloise Wehrborn de Wagner-Bousquet] of Vienna and Paris.

§ See the Notes page for comments on Finsen's unfortunate choice of words.

People thought him mad, but I always insisted that he never had enough intelligence to get that way.