The Quedlinburg Robbery
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One day a gentleman who I later learned was William H. Honan from New York City walked into the office and asked if we had a picture of a deceased man from Whitewright who was active in the orchid society. I checked our files and found at least two negatives of a picture of Joe Tom Meador working in his greenhouse with the orchids he grew.Honan later said he identified himself as a reporter for The New York Times, but I do not remember him making that statement. It seems that the conversation was about Meador and his orchids. Anyway, I could think of no reason we would need several negatives of the deceased man from Whitewright, so I gave Honan one of them.The next day or so, a picture (our picture) appeared in The New York Times along with a story by Honan about the Quedlinburg treasures believed to have been stolen by Meador and stored in Whitewright. To add to the story, those pictures of Meador had been taken several years before by the Herald’s State Editor John Clift, and he was livid that one appeared in the New York newspaper. He never let me forget that the Times should have paid for the negative.We did bill them, but I don’t recall if the bill was ever paid. As I remember, an article in the June 1990 Stern Magazine, a leading German publication, broke the story of funds being raised to offer a reward for the return of the artifacts taken from a cave in Quedlinburg, East Germany, during World War II. The article listed the value of the missing artifacts at $123.75 million dollars. The treasures were among Germany’s most famous artwork.The Lutheran church in Quedlinburg filed a lawsuit in Texas to try to recover the collection believed taken to Whitewright by the late Joe T. Meador, a former Army lieutenant who served in Quedlinburg in 1945. The items had been stored in a mine shaft to keep them safe during World War II bombings. According to the German magazine article, American troops were outside Quedlinburg in April 1945.Crates of the art objects had been moved from the church into the cave on Feb. 16. On April 19, according to the article, American troops moved into town and took over the cave. The American troops moved the crates to the courthouse nearby.A German who was present when the crates were moved told the magazine reporter that he inspected them in the cave and found everything okay. The next time he inspected the crates, some had been opened. Meador was in command of the cave.The lawsuit alleged that at least 14 objects were taken by Meador, including a silver, ivory and gold reliquary from the 9th or 10th century, a 10th century Byzantine rock-crystal flask with sides formed like birds, and a liturgical ivory comb inlaid with precious stones from King Henry. On March 21, 1990, a Paris art dealer wanted to sell to the Kulturstiftung Museum one of the ninth century pieces for $9 million. The Meador family had inherited the artifacts after Joe Meador died in 1980.The story is long and confusing, but at least part of the treasures managed to be moved in February 1990 to the First National Bank of Whitewright branch in Denison where they were stored in the bank vault. While negotiations between German authorities and the Meador family continued, word was received in early summer that the treasures were going to be moved to the Dallas Museum of Art, where they were to be stored until an agreement could be reached between both sides. Only thing was, the date for the move remained a secret.Since the bank was located just one block south of the Herald building, we had a clear view of any unusual activity. But we couldn’t just sit and wait and watch, so work went on as usual at both the Herald and at the bank.About noon on Wednesday, August 1, as I started to lunch, I noticed two men who looked like they might be plainclothes security guards on the avenue near the bank. One was leaning against a wall, and the other sitting in a white minivan parked near the bank. When they saw me watching them, they appeared to be nervous. The light went off in my head and I called to the five reporters in the building with cameras to head toward the bank.First they recorded the bank president John Farley and an East German lawyer Willi Korte carrying empty boxes out the front door. But the photographers waited and a few minutes later the real goods came out the rear door. Shutters snapped again when Jack Meador of Whitewright and his sister, Jane Meador Cook, of Mesquite who had eluded the press since mid-May, exited the back door.The transfer was going smoothly until the local reporters suddenly materialized, Farley told one of the reporters later. “We attempted a diversion, but it didn’t work.” The hush-hush transfer ran the next day in the Herald with three stories and six photos. Farley said they had been worried about the safety of the individuals and the artifacts because of their value. He said he was relieved to see the treasurers disappear down the road toward Dallas.One of the items, according to Korte, was reported to have been a lock of hair of the Virgin Mary, and another was a portion of Christ’s robe that was believed to have been gambled for by the guards at the crucifixion.Before the transfer, Allen Crenshaw, then a Denison photographer, was hired by the bank to take pictures for insurance purposes to show the condition of the objects before they were shipped. About 15 people representing the shipping company, the German representatives, the Meador family and bank officials, gathered in a 20-by-12-foot room upstairs while Crenshaw took the photos.Crenshaw told a reporter that Farley told him the things just looked like “stuff” to him. The rock reliquaries were something you might pass up at a garage sale, a bank official said. He added that while the treasures were at the bank, it was very stressful to banking officials who feared for their lives and the lives of their employees and families.The rest of the story took place out from under the noses of our Herald reporters, but the entire Quedlinburg story is told in a book, “Treasure Hunt” by William H. Honan.Several years later, Dr. Frances Neidhardt, now a retired professor of English at Austin College, assisted in the production of a 13-part series for Discovery/The Learning Channel about the Quedlinburg story. - See more at: heralddemocrat.com/…/here-rest-quedl…