Category: Murder

Black Sheep Sunday: Mysterious Deaths of George and Hazel Lowry

Posted on by spuddled

Almost two years ago, as I’m sure you will recall, I published a blog post regarding the death of Marguerite Lowry and noted then that the story of her brother George would fill a post of its own one day. That day has come, just in time for our fifth theme, “Black Sheep Sunday.” Though whether he can really be called a black sheep is unproven.

George W. Lowry, my sixth cousin 3 times removed, was born in December 1891 in Illinois1; or on 29 December 1892 in Spring Lake, Tazewell County, Illinois2; or on 28 December 1893 in Spring Lake3; or on 29 December 1893…somewhere4. He was the son of John Clayton and Josephine West (Golden) Lowry.

In 1900 the family was living in Isabel, Edgar County, Illinois. John was working as a farm laborer; rounding out the household were Josephine (who was listed variously in different records by her full first name, Jossie, or Josie); Bessie, 12; Jessie, 10; George, 8; Walter, 5; Marie, 3; Addie, 11 months; and a boarder named Trent Wallace.5

By 1910 George was working as a hired man for the family of Gurdin Woodruff in Sand Prairie Township, Tazewell County, Illinois.6 During World War I, George was a private in Company H, 121st Infantry. U.S. Army Transport Service documents record his departure on 18 September 1918 from Hoboken, New Jersey, listing his residence as Manito, Illinois.7 By 1920 George was living back home with his parents in Spring Lake. His father was now working as an electrical engineer at a pumping station. Both George and his brother Walter were listed as general farm laborers. New children added to the household since George was last a part of it were Margaret, 17; and Blakesly, 12. Mable Dwyer, 5, daughter of George’s now-deceased sister Bessie, was also part of the household.8

What happened to George over the next 18 months remains something of a mystery, and the sources I’ve found can only piece together so much. What is known for sure is that in Peoria on 31 October 1921, George was found dead in his bed, asphyxiated by gas from two open jets. He was 28 (maybe). With him was a woman who was either his current or former wife. I’ll run down the variations on this story as they appeared in different newspapers at the time. The Decatur (Illinois) Herald and Review of 1 November stated that George was 29 and Hazel was 27 but referred to the later as “Hazel Burhans.” The article noted that police believed the couple had “been married and divorced.” George was described as a grain sampler at the local board of trade and noted that John Bailey, a railroad switchman who had been living with the couple, discovered their bodies when he came home at the end of his workday. The article, titled “Double Suicide in Peoria,” stated that a double suicide was indicated because all windows were closed but two gas jets were turned on.9

The Chicago Tribune of 1 November 1921 stated many of the same details,10 and a similar article appeared in the Dallas City [Illinois] Review of 22 November 1921, explicitly stating that the couple were believed to have been married and divorced and to have made a suicide pact.11

A much different spin is given by a 1 November 1921 article in the Freeport (Illinois) Journal-Standard. In this article, what appear to be more correct ages for the couple are given (29 for George and 32 for Hazel), and Hazel is described as George’s wife. No mention of them having divorced is provided, though the author states that Hazel had been divorced “last August” from “a man named Renz,” and that George and Hazel had had many arguments in recent days. The biggest divergence, however, is that the author of this article noted that the coroner’s investigation had led him to believe that, rather than being a double suicide, Hazel had turned on the gas while George was sleeping.12

So what really happened that Halloween night? It’s no clearer now than it was in 1921. Death certificates for George and Hazel, signed by the aforementioned Coroner William Elliott, confirm some details. Both have 304 Warner Avenue in Peoria listed as their place of residence, and they are listed as married to each other. Hazel’s certificate lists her birth as taking place on 2 November 1887 in Braidwood, Illinois. Her parents were Peter and Ellen (Ryan) McLaughlin, both born in New York City. Her full name was listed as “Hazel Frenz Lowry,” so the account of the prior divorce appears to be correct, though the spelling of her first husband’s name is not. Her burial took place 3 November in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. George, however, was buried in the Springlake Township Cemetery in Tazewell County.

Could Hazel’s burial far from her husband suggest that her family (or his?) thought this was not just a tragic incident but a criminal one? The cause of death provided by Coroner Elliott does not offer much clarification; both death certificates state the cause of death as “Asphyxiation from illuminating gas – found dead in bed,” with a contributory cause detailed rather helplessly as “gas turned on in some unknown manner.”13

  1. 1900 Census. ↩︎
  2. FamilySearch Historical Records, Illinois Deaths and Stillbirths, 1916-1947. ↩︎
  3. www.ancestry.com, World War I Draft Registration Cards. ↩︎
  4. www.findagrave.com, www.findagrave.com. ↩︎
  5. 1900 Census. ↩︎
  6. Year: 1910; Census Place: Sand Prairie, Tazewell, Illinois; Roll: T624_328; Page: 12a; Enumeration District: 0153; FHL microfilm: 1374341 ↩︎
  7. The National Archives at College Park; College Park, Maryland; Record Group Title: Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, 1774-1985; Record Group Number: 92; Roll or Box Number: 520 ↩︎
  8. Year: 1920; Census Place: Spring Lake, Tazewell, Illinois; Roll: T625_410; Page: 4A; Enumeration District: 183 ↩︎
  9. Decatur [Illinois] Herald and Review. 1 November 1921, pg. 9 ↩︎
  10. Chicago Tribune, 1 November 1921, pg. 6. ↩︎
  11. The Dallas City [Illinois] Review, 22 November 1921, pg. 5. ↩︎
  12. Freeport [Illinois] Journal-Standard, 1 November 1921, pg. 11. ↩︎
  13. “Illinois, United States records,” images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L9KB-6GSM?view=explore : Feb 1, 2026), images 120-121 of 522; Illinois. Public Board of Health. Archives.
    Image Group Number: 004008167 ↩︎
V Is for…Victim

V Is for…Victim

Posted on by spuddled

Herbert Linden Moody, my eighth cousin twice removed, was born in Baltimore, 50 years to the day before my birth. For those not in the know, that means he was born 4 April 1924. He was the son of Elmer Jean and Beatrice P. (Bell) Moody. I stumbled across Herbert’s story when continuing my work on my shared ancestry with my sister-in-law Cheryl; Herbert was her fourth cousin once removed.1

In 1930 he appeared with his parents, an older sister Jean and a younger brother Elmer. His father was a mechanic in an auto shop.2 By 1940 the family was in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, and youngest child Betty Ann had joined the household. Elmer was now listed as an automobile mechanic for a truck factory. Herbert then served in the military during World War II.3

About 1947 Herbert married Grace Evelyn Depew. He was 23, and she was 19. In August 1948 Grace gave birth to a son, Herbert Linden Moody, Jr., in Texas. Sadly, Herbert, Jr., lived only 5 months, dying in Maryland on 1 March 1949. By the 1950 census, Herbert, Sr,’s parents, Elmer and Beatrice, had divorced. In that year’s enumeration, Beatrice is listed as a Spooler Inspector for a plastic company. Living with Beatrice are Betty Ann, Herbert (now himself an auto mechanic at a garage), and Grace. Grace’s occupation is as a spooler for a plastic company. Was her mother-in-law her supervisor? Seems plausible. Two other children would be born to Herbert and Grace: Larry Herbert Moody and Gary Dennis Moody.

National Archives at Washington, DC; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Year: 1950; Census Place: Odenton, Anne Arundel, Maryland; Roll: 1607; Page: 9; Enumeration District: 2-57

From Herbert’s Find a Grave memorial, I learned he had died at age 28, on 5 August 1952 and was buried at Baltimore National Cemetery. His widow’s obituary on her Find a Grave memorial, however, was what sent me down a rabbit hole: “Grace and Herbert were separated….In August of 1952, she learned that her estranged husband Herbert Moody had been murdered in Brooklyn, NY.” (!!) So off I went to Newspapers.com to investigate.

Contemporary accounts of the incident appeared in several newspapers. According to these accounts, a Mrs. Lucille Parsons, 28 years old, had left her husband and started a relationship with Herbert, who was then estranged from Grace. Mrs. Parsons was also from Baltimore, and the pair moved to Brooklyn. For some three weeks before Herbert’s death, he and Mrs. Parsons were sharing a basement apartment at 29 Louisiana Avenue with another couple. According to statements given by Mrs. Parsons, on 5 August 1952, she and Herbert spent much of the day “drinking and quarreling.” The other couple who lived there went out for the evening, after which things escalated.

Mrs. Parsons stated that she was cutting up liver in the kitchen when Herbert “turned off the lights and struck her.” According to the Brooklyn Eagle, Mrs. Parsons claimed to have lunged at Herbert with the knife and stabbed him in the chest.4 The [New York, New York] Daily News, however, has Mrs. Parsons claim that after Herbert turned out the lights, she “accidentally ran the knife into his body.” Herbert then collapsed on the front stoop of the apartment and was taken to Beth-El Hospital but died soon after.5 Mrs. Parsons was charged with homicide, but I haven’t been able to determine yet whether or not the case went to trial.

The Brooklyn Eagle, 7 August 1952, pg. 3

Either way, it appears Grace’s story had a much happier ending. The year after Herbert’s death, she married Eugene Prowant, and she had Eugene had three children of their own. Eugene died in 1992, and Grace in 2004.6 Interestingly, the house at 29 Louisiana Avenue still stands. It appears on various real estate websites which provide photos and specifications about the property: built in 1901; list price $871,500; 3000 square feet. But nary a word about the victim who collapsed on the front stoop in 1952.

  1. Find a Grave, Herbert Linden Moody, Memorial ID 1006305 ↩︎
  2. Year: 1930; Census Place: Election District 1, Baltimore, Maryland; Page: 9B; Enumeration District: 0001; FHL microfilm: 2340580 ↩︎
  3. Year: 1940; Census Place: Anne Arundel, Maryland; Roll: m-t0627-01501; Page: 5B; Enumeration District: 2-18 ↩︎
  4. The Brooklyn Eagle, 7 August 1952, pg. 1-3 ↩︎
  5. [New York, New York] Daily News, 7 August 1952, pg. 231 ↩︎
  6. Find a Grave, Grace Evelyn Depew Prowant, Memorial ID 89055408 ↩︎
Life and Death: Marguérithe Kurtz…and Lizzie

Life and Death: Marguérithe Kurtz…and Lizzie

Posted on by spuddled

Today’s main anniversary is the birthdate of my 3G-grandmother, Marguérithe Kurtz. She was born on 4 August 1820 in Butten, Alsace, the daughter of André and Marguérithe (Bauer) Kurtz. She had younger siblings named Caroline and André. She appears with her birth family in the 1836 Butten census.

Marguérithe Kurtz Birth Record
France, Bas-Rhin, Parish and Civil Registration, 1525-1912

On 18 July 1845 Marguérithe married Philippe Schmidt, also from Butten. The couple appears in Butten census records from both 1851 and 1856. They had at least four children: Christian, born 1847; Christine, born 1851; Philipp, born 1858; and Andreas, born 1863. Christine would marry Jacob Hoffmann in 1875; they were my 2G-grandparents who would emigrate to the U.S. in 1883.

By that time Christine’s father was no longer living; he died in Butten in 1864 at age 46. Marguérithe, however, was still living. She would die on 18 December 1895, still in Butten. Christine’s three siblings also remained in France, dying in 1907, 1933, and 1898.

To me, though, August 4 will always be “Lizzie Day.” It was on this day in 1892 that Andrew and Abby (Gray) Borden were killed with an axe in Fall River, Massachusetts. I’ve found the story of Lizzie Borden fascinating since I was very small (see my earlier post), so imagine my excitement when I discovered that she was my half sixth cousin 5 times removed. My mom and I shared this true crime/mystery addiction (Lizzie, the Michigan Murders, Trixie Belden and Ginny Gordon), and even though my connection to Lizzie is on my dad’s side, Mom and I spent a night at the Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast and even “celebrated” Lizzie Day once by preparing a replica August 4 meal (minus the mutton broth). So tomorrow I’ll remember Mom, her great-great-grandmother Marguérithe, and our Lizzie Day celebrations.

Pekin Girl Dead: The Sad Death of Margaret Lowry

Pekin Girl Dead: The Sad Death of Margaret Lowry

Posted on by spuddled
1 April 1925 Pantagraph

Next year I’ll try to intersperse some more cheerful events in with all the dark ones. This one is about as grim as they come (and on Easter Sunday, no less). Margaret Lowry (or Marguerite Lowrey, or Margaret Lowery; sources differ), my sixth cousin three times removed, was born 11 January 1903 in Manito, Illinois, and died 99 years ago today in Spring Lake, Illinois. She is one of my paternal Illinois relatives, for the record; I have them on both sides. She was the daughter of John Clayton and Josephine West (Golden) Lowry. One of at least 8 children, Margaret’s was only one of several tragedies that befell the Lowry family. Her eldest sister Bessie died in 1919 at age 31; I haven’t been able to determine her cause of death. Then her brother George W. died in 1921 at age 29; his story would make its own blog post, as he and his wife (or possibly not his wife) died in a double suicide (or possibly a murder-suicide) when the house was filled with gas as one or both of them slept.

Margaret herself first appears in the 1910 census in Manito. Her father’s occupation is listed as cranesman on a dredge boat. He is 43 years old. Her mother appears as “Josie,” 38, married for 22 years and with 8 children, all of whom at that time were still living. Several of the older children had left home already; the remainder of the household consisted of Addie, 11; Marguerite, 7; and Blakesley, 2.

By 1920 the family had moved to Spring Lake, Illinois, and the household occupants had shifted again. John is now an electrical engineer at a pumping station; his wife is listed by her full name of Josephine; and living with them are sons George W., 27; Walter J., 24; Margaret H., 17; Blakesley G., 12; and a granddaughter, Mable J. Dwyer, 5.

Within a couple of years of this census enumeration, it appears that Margaret’s health took a turn for the worse. The newspaper articles telling of her death note that she had been in ill health “for several years” prior to 1925, and that she had been a patient at the Oak Knoll sanatorium near Mackinaw for a year. Interestingly, this is the same institution where William Jay Claton’s widow Magdalena would later find employment as a cook.

A few months before her death Margaret came home from the sanatorium but was still unwell; I wish I had more specific details about her illness. Whatever it was, it must have been too much for Margaret, as her ill health was determined to be the cause of what came next, according to an article that appeared in the Bloomington, Illinois Pantagraph on 1 April 1925. The day before, Margaret’s mother, along with three of her sisters and a brother all left home to travel to the Pekin Hospital to visit a sick grandchild there. Margaret’s father John also left home at 1:00 for his responsibilities at the pumping station where he was still employed. When he came home at 5:00 he found Margaret dead in the bedroom from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A coroner’s inquest was held, which is, presumably, where the official cause of Margaret’s despondency was determined to be her ill health. Two days later Margaret was buried in the Spring Lake Township Cemetery; she was 22.

Find a Grave Memorial #153436613

I am, as always, struck by the thought of how hard it must have been for Margaret’s parents to go on after losing a third child. Josephine would die in 1932 and John in 1934; their daughter Addie outlived them but herself died at age 48. Most of the remaining Lowry children lived relatively long lives, mercifully: Jesse died at 81, Walter at 79, and “Blakesley,” or Blake Golden Lowry, at least made it to 62, though his wife died at 39 when the car in which she was riding crashed into a gasoline truck.

That is a lot of sorrow for one family. I have no words of my own to make any of it make sense. But it is Easter Sunday, and while that does not take away the pain the Lowry family endured, it can at least give consolation and hope in the face of tragedy.

Image by Ray Shrewsberry • from Pixabay

The Murder of Blanche Hendricks

Posted on by agnette

Usually genealogy research is pretty tame – people are born, get married, have kids, and die in peaceful old age. Every once in a while, though, you stumble across events in family history that are dramatic by anyone’s definition.  I was examining records for a fifth cousin twice removed, Blanche (Phillips) Hendricks, a descendant of our Sweeney line and a fifth cousin of Grandma Blanche (Wilson) Montgomery when I made one such discovery.  Blanche Phillips was born 26 October 1903 in Anderson County, Kentucky, the daughter of William Henry and Amer Belle (Carter) Phillips.  She appears with her parents in the 1910 census and now in the recently-released 1940 census.  I also noticed that Ancestry.com had a copy of her death certificate, so naturally I took a look.

I started reviewing the data on the death certificate – died Lexington, Kentucky (462 Angliana Avenue) on 23 November, 1950, aged 47.  She was a practical nurse by occupation.  Then I noticed the cause of death:  “Pistol shot wound in left temple immerging [sic] from right side and about 2″ above right ear. (Homicide).”

 

This was definitely something new!  I attempted to find more information online about the incident but wasn’t having any luck, so the next time we headed from Virginia to Illinois to visit family, we stopped in Lexington and headed to the library.  There it was easy to locate the newspaper records on microfilm as well as the story of what happened to poor Cousin Blanche.

It seems that Blanche, in spite of expecting her fiance to arrive in town the following day, had been seeing another man and was sitting in a car with him at 462 Angliana Street on Thanksgiving morning 1950.  The article didn’t elaborate, but one wonders if Blanche was attempting to prepare for her fiance’s arrival by breaking things off with the other man.  Whatever the cause, gunfire erupted and Blanche was killed.  She is now buried at Lexington’s Hillcrest Memorial Park beside her husband, William Elmer, who had died three years before her murder.

I’d like to find out more about what happened to the murderer.  Was he convicted?  What punishment did he receive?  And what happened to Blanche’s poor fiance when he arrived to find Blanche had been killed?  Maybe we’ll have to make another visit to the Lexington library….