December 23, 2025
FOR 27 YEARS A HOTEL MAID.
Death Ends Margaret Sullivan's
Long Service at Coates House.
Margaret Sullivan, 65 years old, maid in charge of the parlor floor of the Coates house for twenty-seven years, died at St. Joseph's hospital yesterday morning of pneumonia.
Among her effects in the room at the Coates house which she occupied almost continuously while employed there, were found some papers indicating that she left a considerable estate. It is known about the hotel that she lost a large sum of money in a bank failure ten or twelve years ago. At that time sh e told the housekeeper that she would not deposit another cent in a bank, but this resolve was forgotten, for it developed yesterday that she had a certificate of deposit in the National Bank of Commerce for several hundred dollars. Just what her estate amounts to will not be known until the arrival of her two sisters, Mrs. C. R. Helbing of Grand Crossing, near Chicago, and Miss M. Sullivan of Ogdensburg, N. Y. Mrs. Helbing wired the hotel people yesterday afternoon that she would arrive this morning.
Quiet and unassuming, Miss Sullivan worked steadily day after day, never allowing herself a vacation and making herself a veritable fixture in the first big hotel of Kansas City. She would not allow an y of the other maids to assist her and was on duty regularly.
"It is supposed that Miss Sullivan had some money when she came here," said Manager Firey of the Coates house yesterday afternoon. "She received $25 a month and her board, room and laundry. She was of simple tastes and I suppose saved much fore than her salary, for the parlor floor is supposed to be worth something in the shape of gratuities to the maids, as well as to the bellboys. Her death is regretted by everyone attached to the hotel who knew her."
Labels: banking, Coates house, death, hospitals, probate
