The White Tiger: How an Iowa Mother Became America’s Most Wanted Female Fugitive

Eleanor Jerman, born Ella Marie Brandt on April 22, 1901, in Sioux City, Iowa, was the daughter of German immigrant parents Julius and Amelia Brandt and one of 12 children. Raised in poverty, she left school early and went to work at 12. In 1920 she married Michael Roy Jerman, and they had two sons, Leroy and Laverne. After the family moved to Chicago in 1923, Michael, an alcoholic, abandoned them, leaving Eleanor to support the children alone through waitressing, laundry work, government relief, and, during Prohibition, allegedly running a beer flat.