25 September 2012

Tribune Tuesdays: Dashed from Window to Death!

From: The Oakland Tribune, 09 March 1912, Page 1, Column 7

DASHED FROM WINDOW TO DEATH
Instantly Killed in Fall
Passers-Bay on Street See Fatal Drop From Third Story
Aged Man's Skull Crushed When Body Hits Cement Pavement

Patrick Higgins, a porter, aged 7? years, fell fifty feet to the cement sidewalk from a third-story window of the Clarendon House, Seventh and Washington streets, at 11:45 o'clock this morning while washing the window, and died instantly of a crushed skull.

He is believed to have been killed accidentally, although there were no witnesses who noticed how he happened to fall. Several persons who were passing on Seventh street when he struck the pavement saw his body hurtling through the air. A few minutes before the fatal accident, Mrs. Mary Marshall, the housekeeper, instructed Higgins to attend to some work other than washing the windows which, she says, is usually done by a regular window washer.

The back of Higgins' head was crushed like and eggshell and a curious crowd instantly surrounded his body. Policeman C. G. Gargadenee notified the police and coroner's office.

Higgins was a former saloonkeeper of Memphis, Tenn., and had been employed as a porter at the Clarendon House, of which C. A. Cammas is proprietor, for two years. He resided at the National House and had no known relatives in this state.

04 September 2012

Tribune Tuesdays: Woman, Dog-Lover

From: The Oakland Tribune, 06 March 1912, Page 2, Column 1

Hold Funeral of Woman, Dog-Lover

ALAMEDA, March 6--Mrs. Mary Dillman, known as "the dog woman," was buried today from an Alameda undertaking parlor, after her body had been kept by an Oakland undertaker pending the expected arrival of the woman's husband from the East.

Dillman has not appeared or sent word and the responsibility for the burial was assumed by Mrs. J. Kreft of this city, with whom Mrs. Dillman formerly lived. Mrs. Dillman died in the East Bay Sanatorium from the effect of injuries received when she was run down in Oakland about three weeks ago by W. G. Davis of Alameda, an automobile dealer. She was a great dog-lover, and had twenty canine pets at the time of her death. The dogs have since been chloroformed by the humane society as there was no one to look after them.

Mrs. Dillman was living in Fruitvale at the time of her death, having left Alameda after the court ordered her to get rid of her dogs as a sanitary measure, the board of health causing the woman's arrest.