Walburga Oesterreich
American housewife (1880–1961)
Walburga Oesterreich (née Korschel; 1880 – April 8, 1961), nicknamed "Dolly" and "Queen of Los Angeles", was an American housewife who gained notoriety for the shooting death of her husband, textile manufacturer Fred William Oesterreich (December 8, 1877 – August 22, 1922), and the subsequent bizarre revelation that she had kept her lover, Otto Sanhuber, hidden in the attic of the home she shared with her husband for ten years.
Background
Oesterreich was born Walburga Korschel in 1880 to German immigrant parents. It is unclear if she was born in Imperial Germany or shortly after her parents arrived in the U.S.A. She grew up in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area among a community of fellow German immigrants. At age 12, Walburga worked at the textile mill of Fred William Oesterreich, another German immigrant who had become successful and frequently hired fellow immigrants in his factories. Walburga was by all accounts an attractive and charismatic girl, with many friends among the factory workers. She quickly attracted Fred's notice and the two married when she was 17. As Fred's wife, Walburga remained popular among her husband's workers, often peacefully resolving labor disputes by acting as intermediary to the more distant and unlikeable Fred.
From the beginning of the marriage, Walburga was rumored to have invited many lovers into her home during the day while Fred worked at the mills. In 1913, when she was 33, Walburga was introduced to Otto Sanhuber, a 17-year-old sewing-machine repairman who worked for her husband. She invited Sanhuber to her home to fix her sewing machine, beginning an intense affair.
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This entry incorporates text from “Walburga Oesterreich” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.