Conrad Suicide - 1915

CONRAD

Posted By: A.M.W. (email)
Date: 6/8/2004 at 19:17:57

Mt. Pleasant Weekly News Journal 10-20-1915

A Wayland Suicide

Jake Conrad, Wealthy Farmer, Takes Own Life

Locks Gun in Vise and Pushes Trigger With Broom Handle – Side of Head Blown Off – Had Been Despondent

Wayland – October 16 (Special) – Jake Conrad, a well to do farmer living about four miles southeast of here, committed suicide about ten o’clock this forenoon, by shooting himself with a shot gun. Death was instant.

Mr. Conrad was a man of about forty years of age. He was single and lived with his mother. He wa swell to do, owning a fine farm and had ample cash resources. He was a man whom neighbors had always look upon as “queer” but never supposed to have suicidal tendencies. For the last ten days he had been worrying over the hard times which he felt sur would involve the United States after the European war closed.

This morning he went to a workshop near the house and locked a short gun in a vise, then taking a broom handle fired the gun. The load tore off the side of the man’s face and fe fell to the floor, dead. The coroner was called from Mount Pleasant, although there is no doubt the case was one of suicide.