Daisy Elizabeth Himm: Too Many Husbands

Daisy Elizabeth Himm was born in 1925 in Nez Perce County, Idaho to Thomas Anthony Himm (1873-1938) and Isadora Rickmann (1885-1955).

Her father was also married to Mary Dodd and they had a daughter Delilah Elizabeth Himm.

Her Mother was married several times, 1903 to George Emery Brown they had 3 children, to Mr. Johnson.


She was 11 years old when her father died of heart attack. 

Her mother fought to get this pardon for her.

Appeals for pardon began immediately. “I am only sixteen

years of age,” wrote Daisy, on March 25, 1943, “and by all rights

should be at home with my Mother.” Isadora Himm was 56

years old, alone, and in poor health, which, in part, motivated

her persistent campaign for her daughter’s release. 

She was married first at age 14 to Zeff Parsley (1908-1962)

Zeff,  “never gave her nothing,

not even a pair of stockings,” according Mrs. Himm, who

maintained guardianship of her daughter.

2nd she married at age 16 to Donald Hardt in Oct 1942 in Sandpoint, ID 5 days later  Daisy joined two young men in an armed robbery in Yakima, an act that sent her back to Centralia. Donald loved her very much and wanted to take care of her.

She began to show homosexual tendencies, her mother believed it was the cause of being incarcerated. 

 Under supervision of her mother

and the Nez Perce County sheriff, Daisy returned to Lewiston

on January 29, 1943.

Three day later she married Carl joseph Van Moulken (1890-1966) 1 Feb 1943 in Lewiston, ID he was also tried and received at the Idaho State Prison.

He had known Daisy all her life. Daisy mom called him a "good for nothing."

Despite her mother’s care and custody, Daisy ran

with a rough crowd. Criminal behavior resulted in her

first incarceration, in February 1942, at the Washington

State School for Girls in Centralia/Grand Mound. School

superintendent Florence Mohahan characterize Daisy’s

“crime” as an attempted act of extortion aimed at Daisy’s uncle,

Roy Rickman, who lived in Spokane. In a bizarre retelling

of how the 15-year-old staged a game of “vampire” to lure

the unsuspecting Rickman into a compromising situation,

Mohahan presented a vivid picture of an intentional juvenile

delinquent. 

Daisy Parsley returned to the Centralia girls school 4

months later, after committing a crime in California that 

incarcerated her at the Ventura Reformatory School for Girls,

a school that was known for its draconian punishments. So

said Mohahan, but a request from the Idaho pardon board to

the Ventura school superintendent for background on Daisy

provided no record of Daisy’s stay there under any of her

assumed names.

Noted: According to

the matron, “there are periods when Daisy manifests female

tendencies and shows an interest in sewing, embroidering, etc.,

and this is followed by a boy-like cycle.” The physician labeled

her “an hermaphrodite,” saying that although “externally she

is physically a female, internally she has both male and female

characteristics.” This vague language was later contested by

the state prison doctor, who determined her to be female,

specifically noting no evidence of hermaphroditism. This is

confirmed in her body report, which also detailed scars from

old wounds above the teenager’s right eye, on her right shin,

and just below her ring finger, on her left hand. On the outside

of her left forearm was a tattoo “Grand Mound,” whereas inside

a tattoo read “T. P. loves S. L.”

In her final letter to Warden Poarch, 4 months into Daisy’s

incarceration, Mrs. Himm’s despondency and need for her

daughter were acute. She included documentation from a

physician to add credibility to her claim that her deteriorating

health left her bedridden. She wrote of the victory gardens,

the chickens, and the property she could no longer tend to

on her own. “It is to her interest she look after it, as it is hers

when I am gone,” Himm wrote. Mrs. Himm vowed she would

look after Daisy, and in return Daisy would help her until the 

soldier-husband Paul Hardt came home. Isadora Himm sent $3

to the warden as a deposit for Daisy’s transportation, so that at

the moment of her release, she could travel home.

Mrs. Himm also orchestrated correspondence between

Paul Hardt and the warden, Hardt and Marcus Ware, as well as

with the governor, C. A. Bottolfsen. By emphasizing Paul’s role

in providing for Daisy, the broader message was that marriage,

not prison, was the most appropriate institution to handle the

wayward youth. In Mrs. Himm’s mind, her daughter had only

one husband—a soldier who willingly offered her a hopeful future and happy life. 

He was deeply in love with daisy and would call her "Tommy".

Mrs. Himm enclosed a copy of Hardt’s letter in her own

letter to Governor Bottolfsen. She pointed out that Hardt “is a

very good boy” who was coming home on a summer furlough

from the military to manage his 160-acre Washington farm.

“She would be of great help to him,” wrote Mrs. Himm. “As a

Broken Hearted mother,” she implored the governor to exercise

his authority to pardon Daisy, reminding him of her young age

and the threat she faced from Van Moulken.

She was Paroled and left the prison with Donald by her side. Unfortunately as adulthood approached and she violated her parole and was arrested for Vagarency in Washington, her life of crime continued and threat of being locked away continued throughout her life. 

Daisy died 13 Sep 1953 in Spokane, WA and her grave stone has Daisy E Hardt on it.

Photo added by ReconnectNow on FAG

She is buried Fairmont Memorial Park Cemetery in Spokane, WA

Her FAG Memorial #133855282

Carl left Idaho and went to California dying in Fresno and being buried there at the Calvary Cemetery in 1966.

They both have a tree on Ancestry now, Even though the love of her life was Donald and he is her spouse on her tree with the others.

She had such a sad broken soul.