To day if ye will hear his voice,
harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.
Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow.
For what is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
Hebrews 3:15/James 4:14
"A Year of Violent Deaths Eighty-Four Lives Snuffed out Suddenly
during 1917 Fifteen Suicides and Two Murders Mark Year- both Murders
Escape Law
The 1917, according to the complete, report of Dr. J. E. McArdle
was a productive one for violent deaths. Eighty four lives were
snuffed out by violent means, there being sixty six accidental deaths
fifteen suicides two murder and one due to alcoholism.
In the list of accidental deaths the railroads have a big lead
having caused twenty deaths. Falls come next claiming eight victims, and
automobiles and motorcycles together claimed nine.
During the Year the water claimed five victims, electricity and
shotguns each claimed two and two men died from accidents in local
shops.
Four children were suffocated in bed and one choked to death,
while still another lad was crushed beneath the wheels of a farm
machine.
Hot water, steam and hot grease claimed four victims, while fire
took toll of one life. One man was killed by ammonia fumes, one by
lightning one in a sewer cave-in and one in an explosion, One man as
killed while inhaling chloroform to ease pain. A woman was killed in a
street car riot.
Small accidents claimed one life when a case of tetanus developed
from a slight injury caused by a splinter piercing a man's finger.
Alcohol took only one victim directly, one man going to his death from acute alcoholism.
Two Murders
The first case investigated by the coroner in 1917 was that of Joe
Parrant shot to death in the Catty grocery on January 31. The man who
fired the shot has not yet been apprehended although a number of
suspects were held and later released.
Dorothy Quann, negress was shot to death in a house on the jail
flats by George Cooper, negro, who then turned the gun on himself and
ended his life being the second murder of the year to escape the action
of the law
Date: Tuesday, January 15, 1918 Paper: Fort Wayne News Sentinel (Fort Wayne, Indiana) Page: 13
Transcribed and submitted by Friends for Free Genealogy."
