September 26, 1908
WROTE LOVING LINES
THEN SHOT HERSELF.
MRS. MARY HULSE SEEKS DEATH
AS RELEASE FROM ILLNESS.
Powder From First Bullet Sets Fire
to Her Clothes and After Extin-
guishing Blaze Shoots a
Second Time.
"I wanted to kiss you all at the table good-by, and I knew I couldn't, for you would mistrust something," wrote Mrs. Mary Hulse of 3839 Dickson street to her husband and children yesterday afternoon just before she shot herself twice in the left breast with a revolver, barely two hours after dinner time, when all the members of the family ate what was probably their last meal together. Despondency over continued ill health led to the act, and the doctors hold out no hope for her recovery. Both bullets penetrated the left lung.
Edna, the 15-year-old daughter of the woman, was in the back yard when she heard the first shot fired. She thought it was a door slamming in one of the upstairs bedrooms, but when she went in to ascertain she heard her mother groaning in her room, and as she ran up the stairway the woman cried out: "I am dying; send to the store for Annie!"
SHOT HERSELF SECOND TIME.
As she spoke she lay on the bed with the revolver beside her, trying to put out the fire which the front part of her dress had caught from the flashing powder. The terror-stricken girl did not think to snatch the smoking revolver from the bed, but ran to the store of I. E. Early, a block or so away on East Fifteenth street, where her eldest sister, who is 17 years of age, is employed. Before the two girls got back neighbors heard a second shot, and when the daughters reached their mother's room she lay bleeding and in a dying condition on the bed. The husband, who works in a brickyard at Askew and Seventeenth streets, and Drs. A. R. Greelee and W. L. Campbell were summoned and everything possible was done, but there is little doubt but that the wounds will prove fatal.
LETTERS OF FAREWELL.
In an envelope sealed and addressed to her husband she wrote her farewell to him and her children. Even after she had sealed it she wrote expressions of affectionate leave taking. On the outside she wrote:
"My Dear Jim and My Dear Children: -- I have to leave you. I can not stand my suffering any longer. Hope you can keep the children together. I know you will if it is so you can, and I do hope you can get steady work for our dear children's sake. My sickness is too much; I can't stand it any longer. See about the insurance.
"Jim, my darling, you have done all that any one could do for me, and I thank Dr. Lowery and Dr. Doyle for their kindness. I wanted to kiss you all at the table good-by, but I knew you would mistrust something. I want you all to forgive me. Annie and Edna, be good girls and be good to little Ruth and Albert. Mind your father. Good-by to all.
"YOUR LOVING WIFE AND MOTHER."
Mrs. Hulse is 32 years old, and her husband said yesterday that she had been in ill health for ten years. There are two other smaller children, Albert and Ruth, aged 12 and 9. The family moved to Kansas City from Ottawa, Kas., three years ago.
Labels: Askew avenue, children, Dickson street, doctors, Fifteenth street, retailers, Seventeenth street, Suicide
