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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

August 24, 1908

RARE INSECT STINGS WOMAN.

But She Captured the Saddle-Back

Caterpillar, a Stranger Here.

As Mrs. L. M. Dunlap, 509 Askew avenue, brushed against an amphilopsio vine in the garden of her home Saturday she suddenly noticed a stinging sensation on her right arm. So severe was the pain that Mrs. Dunlap looked for the insect which had attacked her, but instead she discovered a small but very aggressive and exceedingly rare specimen of the caterpillar family on one of the leaves of the vine.

Breaking off the leaf, the caterpillar was put in a glass jar, where it was examined with curiosity by many persons while Mrs. Dunlap nursed a badly swollen and discolored arm.

This particular specimen of caterpillar family, called the saddleback caterpillar, measures about half an inch in length. His body is green, while in the center of his back is a round spot made up of two colors, maroon and white. At either end there project a series of fuzzy horns against which Mrs. Dunlap is thought to have brushed as she passed the vine.

On one other occasion a caterpillar of this kind is said to have been seen in Kansas City, but this is the first discovered for many years.

Labels: Askew avenue, insects

December 19, 1907

ROBBERS ATTACK A WOMAN.

Take Her Money and Leave Her Ly-

ing Unconscious in the Snow.

Alma Day, the 16-year-old daughter of W. L. Day, a barber who lives at Thirtieth street and Cleveland avenue, was assaulted and robbed last night at Thirtieth street and Askew avenue by two men who had followed her from Kansas City, Kas.

Miss Day is employed in the buttering department of Swift's packing house and receives a salary of $6.25 per week. Yesterday was her pay day and she thinks that the two men who assaulted her were aware of the fact. The men took her week's pay, less the 5 cents she had paid in car fair going home.

She says that they got on an Indiana avenue car at the same time she did when she was returning home from work. They sat across the aisle two seats behind her. They followed her from the car at Thirtieth street and Indiana avenue. She walked on down Thirtieth street to Askew, within one block of her home, when the two men grabbed her. She was strangled until she almost lost consciousness. One of the men struck her on the back of her head and in the face. She fell unconscious and lay in the roadside for almost an hour.

Her older sister, Effie, went out to the grocery store, and in doing so had to pass her sister lying in the snow. She did not know that the body was that of a person, but being somewhat frightened at it, walked to the other side of the road. She returned from the store and walked around her sister again in the same manner.

About fifteen minutes later one of the neighbor's boys made the same trip as did Effie Day. He did not notice the body until on his way back home. He immediately ran to the Day home and told Mrs. Day of her daughter's condition, and Alma was carried into her father's house, a block away.

From the tracks in the snow it was thought that the two men ran up Askew for about a quarter of a mile and then they crossed a field and went directly towards Jackson avenue.

The police were notified immediately, but were unable to trace the robbers further than Jackson avenue.

Miss Day's injuries, while not serious, are painful, and she will be unable to leave her bed for some time.

Labels: Askew avenue, barbers, crime, Indiana avenue, Jackson avenue, Kansas City Kas, streetcar, Thirtieth street, women

March 18, 1907

GIRL KILLS HERSELF.

Miss Ella Zorn Takes Fatal Dose

of Carbolic Acid.

Despondency over ill health it is believed caused Miss Ella Zorn, a former telephone operator, 20 years old, to commit suicide by taking carbolic acid at the home of her sister, Mrs. Theodore Fromell, with whom she and her mother were visiting, 409 Colorado avenue, about 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon. The young woman was a niece of Dr. Louis A. Zorn, under indictment for the murder of Albert Secrest at Ninth and Prospect avenue some time ago. She with her mother made their home with a brother of Dr. Zorn, Charles Zorn, 3125 Vine street.

The mother had left the room where the girl lay on a couch, only for a few moments, and when she returned Miss Zorn was writhing in agony from the effects of the acid she had just taken. The mother, at first, thought the girl was suffering from an attack of her heart trouble, to which she was subject, but on drawing closer to the couch detected the fumes of the poison. She ran to the home of a neighbor, who sent for Dr. W. H. Crowder, 5000 Independence avenue. When the physician arrived the girl was still alive, and medical attention was promptly given her, but she died a half-hour later.

Mr. and Mrs. Fromell were out when the girl took the acid, but they returned home just before she died.

Miss Zorn and her mother had spent the night before with Mrs. Fromell and their intention was to return to their home last evening.

"I can see no other reason than despondency over ill health for the girl taking her own life," said Mr. Fromell last night. "She seemed in good spirits all of the day."

The fatal draught was sipped from a little china cup aand it is supposed the poison was found by the girl on one of the pantry shelves. Joseph Zorn, a brother, lives at 1326 Askew avenue.

Labels: Askew avenue, Colorado avenue, doctors, Independence avenue, Ninth street, Prospect avenue, Suicide, telephone, Vine street