Catherine Noring 1888-1909

NORING, GAUL, PAGEL

Posted By: Sharon Elijah (email)
Date: 6/2/2018 at 07:50:50

14 October 1909 - West Branch Times

Lying face downward on a rubber blanket, with her coat which had been saturated with chloroform, wrapped about her head, the lifeless body of Miss Catherine Noring, aged 21, was found at six o'clock Saturday evening in a cornfield about a mile from her home, where it had lain for more than forty-eight hours.

The girl is believed to have taken her own life, because she feared she was about to lose her mind.

Last Thursday morning Miss Noring left the home of her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Noring, who reside 3 miles north of West Liberty, telling her mother she was going to the home of her uncles, John and Frank Gaul 3 miles away. She said if she did not return that day not to worry as she was going to help her uncles make kraut.

When she did not return Thursday or Friday, therefore, her family thought nothing of it, but when Saturday afternoon came and she had not yet returned her parents became alarmed and sent their daughter, Ella, to the Gaul home to investigate.

Reaching the Gaul place, Miss Noring found that her sister had not been there at all. She hurriedly returned home with this alarming news and at once the neighbors were informed and the searching party began the quest of the missing girl.

Amos Kimberly, junior, was the first to find the body of the girl which he discovered in a cornfield about a mile from the Noring home. She had placed a rubber blanket on the ground. In the blanket she placed her coat and breaking a bottle of chloroform, she had saturated her coat with the drug and burying her face in the coat, had wrapped it tightly around her head. Without doubt it took but a few minutes to end her life.

Two notes were found, one pinned to her coat, addressed to her parents, and another to friends in her pocketbook. The note to her parents said she was in fear of going insane, that at times she had her insane moments and rather than lose her mind she wanted to die.

An inquest was held late Saturday night by the coroner of Cedar county. The verdict declared she had ended her life by her own hands.

Miss Noring was born in Cedar county March 25, 1888, having lived her entire life at the home place. She graduated from the West Liberty high school in 1907. The surviving members of the family are her parents, two brothers and two sisters, Harry, Carlton and Ella at home and Mrs. Wm. Pagel on a farm north of West Liberty. Mrs. Pagel was at Blairstown, Ia., visiting at the time of her sister's rash deed and it was a great shock to her. She arrived home on the 8:20 train Sunday.

The funeral services were held from the family home at 1:30 o'clock this afternoon. The services were conducted by Rev. George Furniss, pastor of the Presbyterian church. Interment was made in the Oakridge cemetery.--Muscatine Journal