newspaper article Suicide Esther Altenbach, Dec. 10, 1939
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newspaper article Suicide Esther Altenbach, Dec. 10, 1939
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Posted: 10 Jun 2006 7:49PM GMT |
Classification: Query
Surnames: Altenbach
The Charleston Gazette
Charleston, West Virginia
Monday, December 11, 1939
EASTON, PA., Dec. 10 - A 25 year old girl committed suicide today because of a broken romance, Deputy Coroner Dr. Theodore Rechbaum said, and inwittingly caused the deaths of her mother and father.
Police Capt. H.L. Menikheim said Esther Altenbaach left a note saying she was taking her life because "my boyfriend walked out on me."
Menikheim gave this version of the tragedy.
Miss Altenbach came home shortly after midnight. After writing the note to her father, Fred, 55, she attended her invalid mother, Minnie, who was sleeping in the front room.
Then she went to the kitchen and stuffed the cracks and keyhole with paper so that gas fumes would not affect her mother in the adjoining room.
When Fred Altenbach came home he found the doors locked. He called police. They broke in and found the girl dead on the kitchen floor, a gas oven still turned on. Her mother was dead in the other room. The fumes had seeped through.
The couple's three married children were at the Altenbach home this morning when the father walked upstairs. They heard him fall. Physicians said he died of a heart attack induced by the shock of his daughter's and wife's death.
Charleston, West Virginia
Monday, December 11, 1939
EASTON, PA., Dec. 10 - A 25 year old girl committed suicide today because of a broken romance, Deputy Coroner Dr. Theodore Rechbaum said, and inwittingly caused the deaths of her mother and father.
Police Capt. H.L. Menikheim said Esther Altenbaach left a note saying she was taking her life because "my boyfriend walked out on me."
Menikheim gave this version of the tragedy.
Miss Altenbach came home shortly after midnight. After writing the note to her father, Fred, 55, she attended her invalid mother, Minnie, who was sleeping in the front room.
Then she went to the kitchen and stuffed the cracks and keyhole with paper so that gas fumes would not affect her mother in the adjoining room.
When Fred Altenbach came home he found the doors locked. He called police. They broke in and found the girl dead on the kitchen floor, a gas oven still turned on. Her mother was dead in the other room. The fumes had seeped through.
The couple's three married children were at the Altenbach home this morning when the father walked upstairs. They heard him fall. Physicians said he died of a heart attack induced by the shock of his daughter's and wife's death.