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Fred Wolford was known to his neighbors in the Pilot Mound area of Boone County during 1929 as a mild-mannered bachelor farmer of middle age who made his home with a sister, Minnie, two years his elder and a school teacher by profession. If he had his peculiarities, and it seems likely that he did, they were taken as a matter of course.
But during 1929, Fred decided to seek help as a private patient at University Hospitals in Iowa City for what was described as a nervous condition, rheumatism and other unspecified troubles. And it was there that his extreme affection for coffee got him into trouble --- and attracted fleeting attention in newspapers across the Midwest during early March.
The difficulty seems to have been that over-consumption of caffeine caused Fred to behave as if he were drunk and that led to encounters with Iowa City law enforcement.
I ran across a brief version of his story on the front page of The Chariton Leader of March 12, 1929, then went to the Quad-City Times for more complete version, published on March 10 as follows:
POLICE LEARN 'DRUNK' ONLY COFFEE FIEND
Undergoing Treatment for Nervousness; Drinks 8 to 30 Cups a Day
Iowa City, March 9 --- The amazing story of a coffee fiend who was arrested for intoxication after drinking too much of his favorite beverage was revealed here Friday when Fred Wolford of Pilot Mound, 57, asked Chief of Police C.F. Benda that he be unmolested on his daily "sprees."
The "Coffee Man," who is at University hospital here undergoing treatments for nervousness, rheumatism, and other ailments, drinks from eight to 30 cups of the Java product at a sitting, and charters a cab two or three times a day to come down town and indulge himself. He is said to have drank 84 cups in the last four days. Tuesday, he drank 38 cups in three sittings.
Believed Intoxicated
He was found Thursday by Officer H.F. Beranek using the buildings in every way to assist himself, and was taken to the station. He declared that he had tasted nothing stronger than coffee in the last nine years. Friday he petitioned Chief Benda to give orders that he be unmolested since his unstable condition was due to nervousness and coffee.
When questioned about his abnormal habit, he stated that he had been doing it for 50 years and didn't expect to quit now. He drinks the fluid without cream and with only a small amount of sugar. Occasionally he takes an order of ham and eggs or a few crackers with it, and invariably lights a cigaret.
Drinks Silently
Another peculiar thing about this addict, who takes his drinking as seriously as any toper, is his abhorence of the number 21. After drinking this number of cups, he immediately orders another to drive away the jinx.
He drinks silently, indicating his desire by motion rather than speech. A simple movement of the cup toward the waiter brings ready service, since he seldom diverges from coffee.
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The situation seems to have been resolved amicably, and Fred eventually returned home to Pilot Mound. But if you were expecting his devotion to coffee and cigarettes to result in an untimely end, you would have been mistaken.
His end was tragic when it came 26 years later, but it had nothing to do with either caffeine or nicotine. Instead, it was a plugged chimney that did him in.
Fred, then 82, and Minnie, 85, were found dead in their Pilot Mound home by friends on Tuesday, Dec. 11, 1956. The coroner ruled that death had occurred sometime between suppertime and bedtime the previous evening, caused by carbon monoxide poisoning. The chimney that vented their space heater was plugged by soot.
The pair's only immediate survivor was a younger brother, Burt, then living in California. He caused nice matching tombstones to be installed to mark their graves, as well as that of their mother, Frances, in the Pilot Mound Cemetery before his own death during 1964.
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