Albert L. Bryan (1855-1911)

BRYAN, SLAUSON

Posted By: CHERYL MOONEN (email)
Date: 5/18/2021 at 17:36:24

Albert L. Bryan
August 29, 1855 - February 9, 1911*

February 10, 1911 - Storm Lake Buena Vista Vidette - Soon after noon on Monday last the community was shocked beyond expression at hearing that A.L. Bryan had attempted his own life. As was natural there was unbelief, an unwillingness to give credence to the fact, and those who knew the man best were the last to be convinced that the sad news was true.

Briefly stated the facts are as follows, for we do not believe that any good purpose is to be served by going into unnecessary details. To all appearances Mr. Bryan was, up to the very time of the happening, in his normal state of mind and body. He was in town up to almost the noon hour, attending to business and other matters. At least to the casual observer there was nothing to indicate that he was other than his own genial self. Nor was anything in his manner noticeable at his home.

Going to the cellar on some routine household errand Mr. Bryan fired three shots into his own body, the bullets ranging through breast and stomach, and inflicting necessarily fatal wounds. His wife heard the sound of the shots, and was at his side while yet he held the smoking weapon in his hands. Medical and other aid was summoned at once, and every effort made to relieve and it possible save the unfortunate man. Indeed for a time the surgeons had a slight hope for recovery, but this proved groundless, and in the early evening he succumbed to the self-inflicted injuries.

The cause of this deed will never be known. It is not subject for gossip nor guesses; it rests, as must all human actions in the last analysis, between the soul and its Maker. We weigh and balance and estimate the psychological elements, but after all we gain to no real knowledge of the unknown self. The dividing line, on the one side of which is sane action, as mortals reason, is undefined. Some trivial shock, the delicate mechanism is jarred, and there ensues aberration not accounted for by our incomplete knowledge. And when ignorance and morbidity and the love of mere talk would prate, where wisdom stands silent and sorrowful, there should come condemnation, swift and sharp.

Who among you all is so sure of mental poise and balance that he may condemn or criticize or seek for motives in such case as this. Let us the rather trust that He who constructed and adjusted these various minds of ours can after and other where remedy the imperfections developed and repair the harm that shock along life's rough ways may have entailed. Surely the Infinite Father is mindful of his children, and can understand alike their abnormalities and their saner deeds. For the rest of us there remains but to give expression to regret, to learn humility of spirit, and in all things to cultivate charity to men living, and for the actions of those who have passed beyond our judgment and our criticisms.

A.L. Bryan was born August 27, 1855, at Rockwell, Iowa. After passing through the public schools he attended college at Hopkinton. He married Miss Ella Slauson at Sand Springs, Iowa, June 26, 1884. In the same year he moved on to a farm one mile east of Early, where he resided until removing to Storm Lake in the spring of 1900. He has since resided in this town, and has gained the respect and regard of all with whom he has had social, fraternal or business relations.

In the Masonic organization Mr. Bryan has been especially active, just entering upon his second term as Master of Jewel Lodge No. 809. To his brethren of this great fraternity Mr. Bryan has endeared himself, and these men who have been taught the great lessons of brotherhood and of that charity which is love, will be long before they can minimize the loss sustained.

As we go to press (Thursday afternoon) the funeral services are being held in the Methodist church, Rev. Macdonald officiating. As is meet and right these services are being conducted under the auspices of the Masonic lodge, over which he presided, and the solemn and beautiful ritual of the fraternity will mark the laying away of this our friend, our brother, and our fellow citizen. Somewhere in God's great universe of thought and being he lives today. In the plan of the All-Father even aberrations and actions strange to men will have their place. Let us, who know not, breathe the prayer of the older church, "May his soul have eternal peace."

*Iowa, Deaths and Burials, 1850-1990. Ancestry.com.