This German lady, who came with her toothless philosopher partner Dr. Ritter, spent two lonely years busy with her garden. Dr. Ritter had eradicated all love and tenderness from his new life, so she found refuge in lavishing affection on her pets, a donkey and a cat, and her plants.
As I mentioned last week, a few other people arrived on Floreana by the end of 1932. The practical Wittmer family and the outrageous "family" of a so-called Baroness with three boyfriends: a good-looking one, a rich one and a Latino one.
The baroness preferred the rich boyfriend first, but after a while, the good-looking one became her favorite. The Latino lover left for the mainland, the rich one deserted them, and one day the Baroness and the handsome lover disappeared.
There are several versions to explain this event. Margaret Wittmer claims the Baroness left in a sailboat headed for Tahiti, but she was never seen there or anywhere else. Dora wrote that she heard a terrible woman's scream coming from the Baroness' home the night before she vanished.
Suspiciously, the rich lover decided immediately to go back to Germany. He asked the captain of a little 40-foot open boat to take him to the capital of Galapagos, on the island of San Cristóbal. The boat and its three occupants never reached their destination. This became a new mystery, until their bodies were found on a northern island. Their boat had been wrecked, and the men managed to escape the waves, only to die of thirst on Marchena Island.
On Floreana, Dr. Ritter died of food poisoning... who killed him? Dora seemingly had very good reasons for doing so, but she said the chickens were a present from the Wittmer family. Ritter was buried in a corner of Dora's garden and she soon returned to Germany, and wrote a book "Satan came to Eden." "Satan" is not necessarily the Baroness. Dora died in 1942.
By the time everyone else had disappeared from the mysterious island, Margaret Wittmer had had her baby, Rolf, and had built her house. They raised cattle, grew fruits and vegetables and received visitors in their home. Margaret passed away only two months ago, at the age of 96.
