Here Comes the Judge-The Strange Saga of Sage-

Yes, the Sages had the world at their fingertips and their futures together as husband and wife, attorneys at law, was the thing Hallmark is made for. They settled in Detroit, and somewhere between Robert's 25th birthday and his 41st birthday, he became a Common Pleas Judge.But, also in that same time frame, something was happening inside the good judge's mind. Maybe it was because of the blows that he had endured in the ring. Maybe it was the pressure of years of study and the practice of law. Maybe it was the pressure of the duties of being a judge, or maybe, maybe there was something else at work here.Let's see what the Lewiston Evening Journal had to say.

dateline-Detroit-
A state wide police search for Common Pleas Judge Robert E Sage was underway today as a result of a shooting which left one man dead and two others wounded in the judge's office in the county buiding.
Inspector Paul O, Whitman of the homicide squad quoted the two wounded men as saying that the 41- year od judge " seemed to go suddenly haywire" during an argument last night with three business partners in a business enterprise,drew a pistol from his desk and began firing.
Ralph Nadell,48, of suburban Birmingham, fell with a bullet through his head. Al Nadell,39, his brother and Maurice D Smilay, a 56 year old Detroit attorney, suffred shouder wounds,
By the time poice arrived Judge Sage, a veteran politician, a former lumberjack, and professioanll prize fighter had fled hatless and coatless from the building
Smilay said the four men had  gathered in the judge's office to duscuss a court decision which threatened the existence of Sports Park here. All were directors of the Park, hee said, and Judge Sage had invested heavily in it.
During the argument which deveoped, Whitman quoted Smilay as sayig the judge suddenly produced the pistol and cried "this will pacify everybody" and opened fire.

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1913&dat=19401002&id=5Zc0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=52kFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2220,119573&hl=en

There was no fairytale ending the saga of Robert E Sage. The strange saga of Sage ended when the former boxer, lawyer, judge, and Burke product, shot himself. He was dead at the ripe old age of 41

Yes, Wallace and Burke produced some very colorful characters, and all of us Wallace and Burke natives are their lineage.

Sage-From Boxer To Lawyer To Judge-The Dream

Robert E Sage of Burke,Idaho was a good enough pugilist to make enough money to attend law school, but not quite good enough to win it all. His record stood at 22 wins,12 losses, and 2 draws. He recorded  9 wins by knockout, and in return was knocked out 2 times. It must have been a tough way to pay for school, but young Robert had a dream, a dream that later turned into a nightmare that would have made a great movie.

No doubt young Robert was bright, and he must have understood that his destiny was not to be found in the burgeoning, dirty, raucous, suffocating ,canyon walls that birthed the mining camp of Burke, Idaho. No, his destiny was to be found somewhere else, where his fighting talents could be modified to a new type of ring, the courtroom.

Detroit University was Sage's choice to study law, and while he was studying torts contracts,and other matters of  law, he continued to box  to pay the bills. Perhaps, though, money may not have been the only reason he continued to hit and be hit for a living. Maybe he enjoyed the punishment that he would dole out on a weaker opponent. Maybe, he loved the game of trying to out maneuver a worthy adversary, ducking, weaving, bobbing , and then moving in to deliver a knockout blow.Maybe, he enjoyed the test of the mettle of getting up off of the canvas after being knocked off his feet, trying to rise up while the cuckoo birds were still popping in and out in the clock of his mind.

It was while doing double duty of young advocate by day and  ring warrior by night that Sage decided to merge his life and the life of Miss Catherine McIntosh, a fellow former classmate at Detroit University and a practicing attorney. The bride to be had this to say about Robert's night job.

Bob is going to continue to box for a year after we are married. After that, he will probably retire from the ring and we will practice law together.

The Spokane Daily Chronicle article went on to say that  Miss McIntosh did not see her fiance fight Greb for the middleweight title, not that she did not want to, but he would not let her. Sage trained in Spokane that summer and fought in Wallace against a boxer by the name of Billy Conly. Both Catherin and Robert were a whopping 24 years old. Thier futures looked unlimited with nothing but bright sunshine ahead.

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1338&dat=19250113&id=w81XAAAAIBAJ&sjid=e_QDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6550,2125334&hl=en


Next- Here comes the judge and the strange saga of Sage.