I can't find any reference to a Baron Schlep having ever existed, leading me to suspect (along with the fact that he only had twelve dollars, and what sounds like a suspiciously made-up sort of name) that he may have been a fake Baron all along.
If you compare the letter to both the 'l' and the 'i' in 'Ellis' on the line above, it looks like it might be an 'i'. The article can't decide whether it goes before or after the 'e' though, which means that if I'm right, it's either 'Schiep' or 'Scheip'. However, I can't find any info on anyone with those names either.
> Commissioner Williams said it was not because the man had only $12 in his possession, but because he was an undesirable alien. He was not a Baron, the Commissioner added.
To further complicate matters: other newspapers covering the story back in the day spelled the man's name as "Adolph Schopf", "Adolph Schuep" and "Adolph Schüp".
He's described as "a real German baron, a graduate of three German universities, one of which is the famous Heidelberg, the hero of five duels and the suitor of a beautiful young widow who has been making her home in Meriden during the past three months. His full name is Adolph Schopf, baron of Bottleburg, New Weissensee, province of Kieden Barden, Prussia."[1]
"Adolph Schuep" and "Adolph Schüp" are the same name, Schuep just has Schüp re-spelled without the umlaut.
Schopf, Schiep, and Scheip are likely just phonetic respellings/typos.
Not only were people back in the day not that particular about exactly how a foreigner's name was spelled, often times people wouldn't be sure or would change how their own name is spelled.
If she did, it was a short marriage. She married Henry A. Bergman, a manufacturer of Parkersburg, IA on March 14, 1912[1].
However, I highly doubt it, because Mrs. Stadia's local newspaper, the Meriden Morning Record, had quite a different take on the story than the Times did:
"WIDOW RETURNS WITHOUT TITLE OF "BARONESS" Saw Baron on ship's deck but turned on her heel and walked away–she thinks it's a good joke–he's deported today
The young widow, Mrs. Olga Stadia, whose fond letters had brought a German nobleman across the seas to court and wed her, returned to her modest basement home on Willow Street Friday evening from New York city without a husband and without the much desired title of Baroness. She saw her mail order fiance at Ellis Island but did not think it worth while paying the immigration officials the necessary amount to allow his setting foot on American soil. The poor fellow who had made the long voyage expressly to marry her must return today to his native land on the steamship "Abraham Lincoln" a sorrowful but wiser man. The young woman was under severe nervous strain when seen by a Record reporter Friday evening but said she could pass the matter off as a joke now because she had changed her mind about barons, titles, etc.
Mrs. Stadia went New York on the 12.57 train Friday afternoon accompanied by her mother, Mrs. Henry Ebert. They carried enough money to pay Baron Schuep's admission into this country to which he came without friends or kindred. The meeting was not very romantic. A policeman and a reporter for one of the New York dailies escorted the hopeful widow to the ship's side. There on the deck stood the baron expectantly waiting for the writer of ardent love epistles and promises to marry. She said he was quite distinguished looking but could not pay his way. His financial status began to assume greater and greater importance to the little widow who has been earning her own living since she arrived. The more she thought about her predicament the she became convinced that she was not acting wisely. It was one thing to pay $35 to secure her life partner and quite another thing to find him a job, which is quite necessary even in a free country. Without asking his advice or even exchanging a word with the ardent suitor from Bottlenburg she turned on her heel and walked away.
The two women returned on the 1.54 train. Mrs. Stadia was all smiles when interviewed at her home, she said she was glad she had turned down her German lover because he had represented in her letters that she was the heiress of a great fortune, but claimed that she had told her distant wooer only the truth. She said she had made up her mind to laugh the whole thing off. Being an accomplished woman she was not at all ignorant of the fact that her little plans had interested the reading public of not only Meriden but the whole state and New York city as well. The widow shows individuality in dress and the gown she wore to please the baron's eye was black with red satin trimmings, Mrs. Stadia is employed as dressmaker bu B. Danle's, the ladies' tailor. Her associates say she's a very talented young woman, plays the piano, sings and talks fluently in the best German.
