Local history: Grandson defends infamous ‘Akron Mary’
It isn’t a crime to fall for the wrong guy.
“Akron Mary” Outland was a notorious figure in the early 1930s. Authorities sought her for questioning in a high-profile slaying in Cleveland. Her picture was plastered across newspapers from coast to coast.
In recent times, she’s been labeled as wicked, catty, vicious and dark-hearted in true-crime books.
David R. Williams, 81, of Akron, thinks it’s time to set the record straight about his grandmother.
“She was the kindest, most generous person to everyone she met — be it prince or pauper,” he said.
He wants a chance to repair her image “while I am still able to speak for a maligned wonderful person.”
Yes, Outland did date reputed racketeer “Pittsburgh Hymie” Martin, but that was a brief chapter in her life.
“It was a blip,” Williams said.
He believes the true story of his “Mammaw” is one of empowerment: She overcame obstacles, straightened up her life and dedicated her career to helping others.
Mary Alice Chambers was born June 17, 1903, in Eudora, Arkansas, and moved with her family to Akron when she was young. Her mother, Pearl, took a factory job at Firestone to provide for three kids after her husband Ernest left them behind.
A tomboy in youth, Mary excelled in athletics and could play baseball as well as any kid in the neighborhood. She also was “smart in her books” and enjoyed going to school. As she grew older, boys began to take notice of the blue-eyed, brown-haired girl, and she noticed them back.
Akron girl married at 15
Mary left South High School in her sophomore year to marry Goodyear worker Eldon E. Worthman in 1919. He was 20 and she was 15.
“She was full of life and headstrong,” her mother later recalled. “I thought she would be safer married.”
The couple were together for only two months when police arrested Worthman on a forgery charge. After serving time in jail, he skipped town, so Mary filed for divorce and returned to her mother.
Then she met Akron butcher Orland “Jiggs” Outland. When Mary found out she was pregnant, her tough-as-nails mom ordered her to leave.
“So here she is, a young girl, and they threw her out of the house,” Williams said. “So what does she do? She gets in with the wrong crowd.”
His mother, Juanita, was born in 1921, Jiggs married Mary in 1922 and they had a second child, Orland, in 1923. Then she caught her husband in the meat locker with another woman, and they divorced in 1927. Jiggs got remarried and won custody of the kids while Mary worked as a beautician.
She next tied the knot with Akron musician Harry Woodfield in 1929, although they lived together for only three months. By age 27, she had been married three times.
Then “Pittsburgh Hymie” walked into her life.
Bootlegger meets a beautician
During Prohibition, Hyman E. Martin peddled beer from a keg in a car trunk at roadhouses outside Akron. He later operated The Barn, a speakeasy at Ghent Road and West Market Street in present-day Fairlawn.
Mary met him at a party in 1930. He was tall, suave and dressed to the nines. She didn’t know he was married — at least not yet. The Pittsburgh native was taking a sabbatical from his wife and 3-year-old daughter.
She fell hard for the guy. He took her to fancy restaurants and showered her with gifts.
“Hymie was good to me,” Outland later recalled. “Not full of poetry and all that bunk. But thoughtful and kind.”
When she did find out he was married, Outland said she sent him back to his wife, “but she didn’t keep him.”
“They just don’t get along and that isn’t my fault, is it?” she said.
Hymie and Mary dated for about a year.
In a letter to a friend, she wrote: “I honest to God love him. How in the hell long will it last, I say to myself. Gee, I hope forever, yet deep down in my heart I know differently.”
Former Cleveland official slain
The relationship was put to the test when a former Cleveland councilman turned up dead. William E. Potter was awaiting trial on a perjury charge in a real estate swindle when his body was found Feb. 8, 1931, in a Cleveland apartment. He had been shot in the head.
The Parkwood Drive complex’s residents included gangsters, prostitutes and other underworld denizens. A call girl reportedly identified Hymie Martin as the man who leased the apartment under an alias.
Police began a manhunt for “Pittsburgh Hymie,” and they expanded the search to include “Akron Mary,” a nickname they invented. Newspaper reporters painted Outland as the femme fatale of the case.
“Akron Mary” sightings were reported across Ohio. She had blond hair, red hair, auburn hair, brown hair. Reporters were chasing phantoms. They called Outland an “attractive divorcee,” “a chameleon-like sweetheart,” “a will-o’-the-wisp” and “the lady of scandal.”
Police captured Hymie Martin on Feb. 12 at a Pittsburgh apartment and drove him to Cleveland to face an aggravated murder charge. “Akron Mary” escaped detection for more than a month before authorities battered down the door of another Pittsburgh apartment and found her March 16.
Always an impeccable dresser, she wore a green silk dress, long black fur coat, green straw hat, beige stockings and shoes for the ride to Ohio. She insisted during the trip that her boyfriend had done nothing wrong.
“He is innocent!” she told officers. “He wouldn’t harm a flea. My Hymie isn’t a murderer.”
She was held in Cuyahoga County under a $10,000 bond. When reporters asked whether she would pay the bond, she scoffed: “What would I use for money? Buttons?”
Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Ray T. Miller grilled Outland for two hours, but she remained adamant: “My Hymie didn’t kill Potter. He wouldn’t harm anyone.”
When Martin learned in jail that “Akron Mary” had been arrested, he told newsmen “that’s an awful name you’ve hung on that poor girl.”
“She’ll never be able to live that down,” he said. “I don’t think you fellows have been fair with the girl.”
Authorities released Outland after questioning and she went home to her mother.
Convicted of first-degree murder
Awaiting trial, Martin claimed that police had framed him in Potter’s slaying.
“I expect to go before 12 good people next week, and if they find me guilty, they will be finding an innocent man guilty,” Martin said.
The trial opened March 24 and lasted more than a week.
“Extra! Hymie convicted! Gets life!” newsboys shouted April 4.
Outland bought a paper for 3 cents and cried. Martin was sentenced to the Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus.
A few weeks later, “Pittsburgh Hymie” reconciled with his wife, and “Akron Mary” backed off.
“I still admire and respect him and still am his loyal friend,” she told a reporter. “But I do not intend to interfere.”
Citing a lack of evidence, an appellate court reversed Martin’s murder conviction and ordered a new trial in 1932. Key witnesses recanted their previous testimony and Martin was acquitted. Potter’s murder remains unsolved.
“Pittsburgh Hymie” and “Akron Mary” went separate ways. He returned to Pennsylvania with his family and she operated the Black and Silver Beauty Shop in Akron.
There may have been another marriage or two for Outland, but they didn’t last and she reclaimed her maiden name: Mary Alice Chambers.
Williams remembers “Mammaw” as “very soft-spoken,” “very humble” and “very, very mannerly.” She used to babysit him as a kid.
“My grandmother took me with her up to Young’s Hotel,” he recalled. “They gave me a separate room and fed me whatever I wanted to eat, plus Grapette and Norka pop. And then she would play poker.”
A new life as a nurse in Miami
In the late 1940s, Chambers moved to Florida with her mother, Pearl. She put herself through practical nursing school in Tallahassee, worked at Mercy Hospital in Miami, supervised the EKG department at the Miami Heart Institute in the 1960s and served as founding secretary of the Miami Heart Association. The Miami Herald named her “Citizen of the Day” for her work, Williams said.
“She was a super nurse,” he said.
Pittsburgh Hymie also ended up in Florida. By the late 1960s, he had a new nickname, “Fat Hymie,” and allegedly ran a numbers racket in Florida. He died in 1987 at age 84.
Williams said his grandmother never talked about Martin. She retired from nursing, battled cancer and died at age 78 in 1981. Her ashes were scattered in a lake behind the Miami Heart Institute.
He’s made it a mission to defend her reputation because “I’m the last in line.”
Williams had a triple bypass in 2000 at the Cleveland Clinic and has six stents in his heart.
“I was supposed to be dead a long time ago,” he said.
Among the family heirlooms in his possession, Williams treasures a signed portrait of his grandmother.
“To David,” she wrote. “The grandest grandson in the world. Love, Mammaw.”
He wants people to know that “Akron Mary” wasn’t wicked, catty, vicious or dark-hearted.
“She was a wonderful person,” he said. “She never hurt anybody.”
Mark J. Price can be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com
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This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Grandson defends infamous ‘Akron Mary’ Outland
