Geraghty, Louisa Dorothy (Hagensick) 1880 - 1918

GERAGHTY, HAGENSICK, PATOW, WAGNER, SAMP, DOTY, MOSER, LOOBY

Posted By: Reid R. Johnson (email)
Date: 11/24/2021 at 11:18:36

Elkader Register & Argus, Thur., 22 Aug. 1918.

This community was shocked yesterday to learn of the death of Mrs. John Geraghty of Read township as the result of a gunshot wound. At about eleven o'clock yesterday morning Mrs. Geraghty's little son Lawrence, returning from the field where his father was working, found her lying on the floor of the dining room in a pool of blood and her clothes on fire about a wound in her side below the heart. With rare presence of mind for a six year old, he got water and put out the fire and then ran for his father. Neighbors were called and Dr. G. G. White summoned from Elkader, but death came in a little while, and although apparently conscious for a time she was unable to speak.

A shotgun belonging in the house lay beside her and various things seem to indicate that she had attempted to take a shell out of the barrel, and in so doing the gun had been accidentally discharged. The sad details will never be known. A baking of bread was in the kitchen, still warm from the oven and the partially prepared dinner showed that she had been busy with her household work almost up to the moment of the accident.

Louisa Dorothy Hagensick was born June 17th, 1880, in Read township, the daughter of John and Wilhelmina Hagensick. She grew to womanhood in this vicinity and on May 29, 1906, was married to John L. Geraghty at St. Joseph's church in Elkader. Since then they have lived on the farm where she died. Two children were born to them, a daughter who died in infancy, and a son Lawrence aged six years.

Beside the stricken husband and son, she is survived by her mother and an uncle, Wm. Patow of Elkader; three brothers, Wm. Hagensick, of Nunda, S.D., John Hagensick and Glenn Hagensick living in Wisconsin; five sisters, Mrs. Anna Wagner of Elkader, Mrs. Con. Samp of Strawberry Point; Mrs. Bert Doty of Crookston, Minn., Miss Pierce Moser of Nunda, S.D., and Mrs. W. E. Looby of Decorah, with other relatives and friends.

The funeral services will be held at St. Joseph's church Saturday morning at ten o'clock, Rev. Father Taken officiating.

Only God alone knows the mysteries of such sudden calls of death, and only faith in Him can soften the blow when the loving wife and mother is taken from the family circle, and left the shadow from their sorrowing hearts. The sympathy of all goes out to the bereaved ones.