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Monroe teens death

AMMER, BARR

Posted By: Donna Sloan Rempp (email)
Date: 6/13/2016 at 20:21:35

Ammer, Caroline and Barr, Vern
Our little city was terribly stricken when the news went flying from house to house and lip to lip of the tragic death by their own hands, of Miss Caroline Ammer and Vern Barr last Thursday morning. There has been so much written and printed in regard to the terrible ending of the young people, some true, others not so true, that only those who were eye witness to the finding of their bodies can tell the true facts. The writer has tried to get as correct a version of the facts but the stories are conflicting. The cause for the ending of their lives is beyond comprehension. They grew up from childhood together. With the kindest and best of parents, with plenty of this world’s goods, young with the world, and all it implies, before them, it see4ms impossible to fathom the motive for the act. An empty bottle marked, “Strychnine,” a tin cup with water in it, two notes pinned to each ones breasts, with faces distorted from the agony of suffering was all that was left to tell the awful story. Lina was sixteen years, six months and nine days old. Vern was something over seventeen years. An older sister of the girl and an older brother of the boy were married about two years ago. When they started to come to Monroe to the dance at the hall that evening the mother said, Be a good girl Lina, she kissed her mother goodbye and said, “goodbye papa” as usual. They left the dance hall about 2:00 o’clock in the morning and instead of driving north to the girl’s home two miles from town they drove to the home of the boy four miles west where he put away the team and fed them, then, ran the buggy in the barn and took the fatal dose. The father, Alphis Barr, found them at about seven o’clock in the morning, everything pointed to suicide, and when the coroner of Knoxville arrived he deemed it unnecessary to hold an inquest. Undertaker Troup took charge of the bodies. Miss Ammer’s as placed in a bob sled and accompanied by the broken hearted father and other friends was taken to her home now so deeply stricken. The mother was so overcome that her life for a time was departed of. The double funeral took place from the Monroe M. E. church Saturday afternoon at 1 o’clock. It was certainly a sad sight to see those beautiful caskets wheeled into the church one after the other, covered with flowers. As we looked upon the face of each we thought them too beautiful to place in the earth. The funeral services was conducted by Rev. Altman of the German Lutheran church of Kellogg, assisted by Rev. C. P. Johnson and Rev. Price of the U. P. church, Monroe. After the impressive service it took almost one hour for the people to pass the casket for a final look on the faces of the ones so late full of life, now cold and like pure was in death. It was estimated that 700 people were in the church and 300 out side. The bodies were laid side by side in one grave, as requested by the girl, in the Monroe cemetery. It seems to the writer if the dead could have realized the terrible grief of their heart broken parents, especially the father of the boy and mother of the girl, they could not have rested so peaceful. But those who were witnesses, though a sad one, may it prove a lesson to the hundreds of young men and women present at the funeral. The pall bearers for Miss Ammer were: Misses Maggie and Lillian Berkenholtz, Rose Keihl, Hattie Love, Gertrude Keihl and Margaret Geddes of Newton. Pallbearers for the boy were his young friends. After the bodies were placed in the grave and lids covered with white crepe placed over the box of each one, carnations were strewed over them and so with sadden hearts and tear wet faces they turned away and left them to sleep.
Source: Newspaper Unknown; __ February 1910


 

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