Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 August 1914 — Thinks Girl Took Overdose of Morphine by Mistake. [ARTICLE]

Thinks Girl Took Overdose of Morphine by Mistake.

Mrs. Stella Gray of Ft. Dodge, la., who was called here by the death of her daughter. Miss Pearl Gray of Fair Oaks, whose death from morphine poisoning was mentioned in Wednesday’s Democrat, was in Rensselaer Thursday and asked The Democrat to correct some statements made in another paper here regarding her daughter's death. In tiie first place, she says, there was no recent love affair. There was something of the kind some time ago, at least a young fellow paid her some attention, but she did not reciprocate and had frequently stated that she cared nothing for him. He has been gone for some time and neither the girl or the family know where he is. No letters to the girl have passed through the Fair Oaks postoffice nor had she heard anything from him. The girl was kindly treated by her grandparents, she states, and was not overworked. She had written her mother the day before her death and there was no intimation that she contemplated suicide. In fact the letter, which Mrs. Gray received Monday morning before she left Ft. Dodge, was very cheerful and the girl had asked ’her mother to send her money that she might come and visit her, Mrs. Gray states.

Mrs. Gray does not think for a moment that there was any intention of suicide, but that the girl, who was rather frail and had complained of a headache all day and eaten little breakfast and no dinner, knowing that her grandfather'took morphine to alleviate pain in his limb—in which he has white swelling—went to the place where it was kept and took what she no doubt considered a very light dose to deaden the pain of her headache.

All the family were away at the time except the grandmother, w'ho is blind, and who heard the girl go to the box on the sewing machine where the drug was kept and then go up stairs, as she frequently did. and lie down on one of the boy's beds because it was cooler there. The grandmother thought nothing of this and it was not until the men folks returned and the girl was called from the foot of the stairs to close the windows on account of the rain which had come up, that her plight was discovered.

Mrs. Gray states that her daughter was very fond of her and she of the girl, and sh§" knows that had she contemplated suicide she would have left some note or have written to her something of her intention. The grandparents also thought a great deal of her and, with the mother, are much pained at the erroneous statements published as to their treatment of her, she says.