Ives, Sarah Augusta 'Gustie' died 1874

IVES, HURD, HARRIMAN, CLEMMER, RAYMOND, SMITH, REEVE

Posted By: S. Ferrall - IAGenWeb volunteer
Date: 4/13/2015 at 17:51:42

Technically not a true obituary, the following is an accounting of Sarah's very tragic death.

The Latest Iowa Horror - A Terrible Case of Malpractice

Hampton, Iowa, Dec. 21, 1874 - We have a first class sensation of a most horrible nature. On Wednesday the 16th, about noon, the wife of M.A. Ives, Clerk-elect of the District and Circuit Courts, for Franklin county, died suddenly - so suddenly in fact, that the nearest neighbors scarcely knew that she was in ill health. Wednesday afternoon however, rumors that all was not right prevailed extensively on the street, and the coroner, Dr. O.B. Harriman, went to the house and saw enough to warrant him in making an investigation into the cause of Mrs. Ives' death. Accordingly, a coroner's jury, consisting of G.G. Clemmer, L.B. Raymond and Wm. P. Smith, was summoned to make a postmortem examination; and the investigation commenced.

Ere this, however, rumors of a most horrible nature were afloat in the town, and every one supposed and hoped that the testimony would not bear them out; but the worst had not been told. The testimony taken showed that on Tuesday evening, the 15th, M.A. Ives the husband of the deceased, found Dr. J.S. Hurd, a practicing physician residing at Chapin, in Franklin County, in Hampton and much the worse for liquor - in short, so drunk that he could hardly stand, and that he had been drunk nearly all day Tuesday; that about eleven o'clock at night he took him to his house, returning at the instance of Dr. Hurd, to the hotel where the Dr. was stopping to procure a surgical instrument of some kind, and that some time early the next morning, Mrs. Ives was delivered of a foetus, and that she was about five months advanced in pregnancy.

Between ten and eleven o'clock Wednesday forenoon, the wife of Col. A.G. Reeve, who resided directly across the street from Ives', and who was an intimate friend of Mrs. Ives, heard from some of the children that Mrs. I. was dying. She crossed the street, entered the house, and found no one there except the woman, her husband and the Doctor. Ives told Mrs. Reeve that his wife "had had a miscarriage." Mrs. Reeve's attention was called to the doctor who was sitting by the bedside of the dying woman, and to the contents of a slop-bucket into which he had just put something which did not appear to her to be all right. She sent for one or two of the neighbors, but by the time they arrived Mrs. Ives was dead.

An examination of the contents of this slop-bucket disclosed the horrible fact that over twenty eight feet of the woman's intestines had actually been taken out, and the child was scalped, its ribs broken in, one arm torn off and in a terribly lacerated condition generally. The physicians above named made a post mortem examination upon the body of the woman and found her intestines literally torn out and other injuries inflicted, showing that an abortion had been committed.

Ives was all ready to start for the East with the body of his wife on Thursday, the day following her death, but was detained until the Coroner finished his investigaton. Thursday afternoon the Coroner's jury rendered a verdict that the "deceased came to her death from the effects of a provoked abortion at the hands of Dr. Hurd, her husband, M.A. Ives, being present and having full knowledge," &c. Upon this the Dr. and Ives were both arrested and held to bail to appear at the next term of the District Court, in bonds of $5,000 each, and on Saturday last, the 19th, neither of them had given the required security, although it was supposed that they would.

Dr. Hurd has been a well-known resident of Franklin county for nearly twenty years, and is well known as a physician of much more than average ability, but with an unfortunate appetite for whiskey that has brought him into this terrible condition. Ives and his wife have resided in the vicinity of Hampton for five or six years, both being members of the Baptist church in good standing, and have stood well in the community. Taken altogether it is a terrible case and one with a serious lesson in it for any community.

~Ottumwa Democrat, Thursday, December 31, 1874

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The Grand Jury of Franklin Co. have found bills of indictment against M.A. Ives and Dr. J.S. Hurd, the parties implicated in the death of Mrs. Ives, in an attempt to produce abortion some time since. They are placed under bonds of $8,000 each, to appear for trial in October.

~The Cedar Falls Gazette, Cedar Falls, Iowa, Friday, May 7, 1875

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The case of the State against Dr. M.A. Ives [sic], of Hampton, Franklin county, for abortion, has been dismissed for want of sufficient evidence to prosecute.

~The Weekly Journal, Sioux City, Iowa, Thursday, May 10, 1877
~Unknown if this should be Dr. Hurd or just M.A. Ives - either way it appears that justice was not served

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~Notes:
-WPA records show that Gustie Ives, age 27 years, died Dec. 16, 1874 and is buried in the Hampton cemetery.
-Sarah A. Ives, born NY, is enumerated on the 1870 census, Clinton twp. (postoffice Hampton) living with her husband M.A. Ives and 2 y/o son Charles.
-M.A. Ives is Martin A. Ives. By the 1880 census he has remarried.
-Dr. Hurd is John S. Hurd, who has a brief biography in the 1883 History of Franklin co. (see full text of bio on the Franklin co. IAGenWeb site) and a brief obit on this board. He died in 1901 and is buried in the Old Chapin cemetery
-The contributor of this article did not find additional information, but more might be found in the records at the Franklin co. courthouse in Hampton or in the local Hampton newspaper of the time.