Ammer, Lina d. 1910

AMMER, BARR

Posted By: Barb Hoover (email)
Date: 7/29/2006 at 19:50:39

Newton Daily News, no date given

Verne Barr, aged 17, and Lina Ammer, aged 16, children of prominent families living near Monroe, were found dead sitting in a buggy at the Barr home 4 miles south of Monroe at 7 o’clock last Thursday morning January 27th. A bottle of strychnine found nearby indicated that the children had taken the poison and died as the result of a suicidal compact. They had attended a dancing party in Monroe the evening before, where they were apparently among the gayest and happiest of the merry throng. They danced merrily in the last cotillion at 2 o’clock in the morning and then bidding there friends good-by drove straight to the boy’s home, where they deliberately ended their lives.

The young people were found clasped in each other’s arms, and with the buggy robes carefully drawn up around them. The bodies were stiff and cold. Before taking the fatal draught, the young man had put the team away and drawn the buggy inside the barn.

The boy and girl had been lovers for several years. There were no objections to their keeping company. The only cause that so far can abe assigned for the tragic ending of their lives was the refusal of the parents to permit of (line missing).

Miss Ammer was a beautiful girl, and very popular, daughter of Mrs. And Mrs. Albert Ammer, who live three miles north of Monroe. Both families are well known and prosperous farmers, and are prostrated over the terrible tragedy which has brought sorrow into their homes.

The double funeral services over the bodies were held in the M. E. Church of Monroe last Sunday. The two funeral trains, the one coming from the south, the home of the lad’s parents, and the other from the north, where the Ammer farm lies, met at the church. In the presence of the great throng the bodies were carried side by side into the church. The building was packed. Hundreds stood outside.

Rev. Oltman of Kellogg preached an appropriate sermon from the text, “Children Obey your parents,” after which the bodies of Verne and Lina were laid side by side in the Monroe cemetery.
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Monroe Lovers Dead result Death Pact Made in ball Room

Vern Barr, 16, and Lina Ammer, His Childish Sweetheart, Drink Strychnine Poison.

Bodies Found in Buggy

“Home, Sweet Home” young couple’s Death Waltz---Parents find Bodies Sitting Upright.

Refusal of the girl’s father to permit her marriage to young Barr is reported as the cause for the double suicide. Ammer said today Barr had asked for his daughter’s hand in marriage.

Iowa Evening Press.

Monroe, Ia., Jan. 27 – A double tragedy in which the lives of two children, son and daughter of two of the most prominent families in this vicinity were sacrificed, was revealed with the first rays of the morning light today, when the bodies of Vern Barr, 16 years of age, and Lina Ammer, his childish sweetheart, were discovered cold in death in a buggy in the barnyard of the boy’s father, Alfred Barr. A drinking cup partially filled with strychnine solution, discovered in the bottom of the buggy, gave mute testimony of the means of death. No reason could be ascribed of the tragedy. The young couple had been to a dance near their home. Throughout the evening and were apparently in the best of spirits, giving no hint of the tragedy which even then must have been in the minds of one or both.

Death Dance Waltz

Throughout the evening and into the early hours of the morning they danced with the usual careless abandon of the children that they were.

Usually together, but occasionally with another partner they danced through the evening down to the “Home, Sweet Home” waltz, when Barr sought out the girl and together they floated through the measures of what was to them the death waltz.

Leaving the house at 2 o’clock in the morning they are believed to have driven directly to the Barr homestead, arriving at about 4 o’clock. None of the family was awakened or heard them as the buggy was driven into the yard.

The tragedy had evidently been carefully planned and they set about carrying it into execution with careful deliberation, without apparent fear of being disturbed. The horse was unhitched and placed in the barn where it was unharnessed and fed.

With all else attended to naught was left save the bare details of the tragedy which, whether planned jointly or singly can only be ascertained in eternity itself, was complete in its every detail. The cup which served as s family drinking vessel at the well was the receptacle chosen for the death potion.

Death Potions Taken

Emptying into it the contents of a package of strychnine, secured from some source for the occasion, they evidently drank equal portions of its contents, and climbing into the vehicle which had so lately drawn them from the gay measures of the dance, seated themselves, calmly awaiting the death which they sought.

Not even in the horrible pain of the death-dealing potion when it gnawed into the vitals and the brain swayed from its powerful effects, or in the throes of the death struggle, was an outcry made which might arouse the family and thwart their plans.

Clasped tightly in each other’s arms in a last embrace, the childish faces just touching each other as though in the final throes of the death struggle they had attempted to whisper words of farewell encouragement the bodies were found this morning. The slender arms were rigid and the muscles gnarled with the terrible pain of the poison.

The bodies were discovered at 7 o’clock this morning after the parents or Miss Ammer had become frightened over her continued absence from home and instituted a search. When the Barr home was reached the two families together went to the barnyard to learn if the horse had been returned and discovered the buggy.

In the early morning light the features of the young couple were half obsucred and it was first believed that they had fallen asleep from –fatigue from the dance. Closer observation, however, revealed the gruesome pres__________(rest of the line cut off).

When the young boy drove out of the gate of the farm after supper on his way to Miss Ammer’s, he refused a proffered gift of money from the mother, saying he had asked for none.

Every precaution had been taken by the boy not to implicate the druggist who sold him the poison that was used.

The druggist’s label had been scratched from the two-ounce bottle, leaving but the word “strychnine” staring in ghastly letters across the top.

A revolver loaded with three cartridges was stuck in the whip socket of the buggy Thursday morning. It is not known where the gun was secured. The boy had never owned one.

Clasped in each other’s arms, with the boy’s head leaning on the girl’s shoulder, the girl’s head thrown-back slightly, the father found them, a note pinned to the lapel of each coat.

Both Leave Notes.

“We’ve decided to die together, as we could not live together. Bury us in the same grave-Caroline Ammer.” Was the note, penciled on plain white paper, pinned to the coat of the girl.

“We’ve decided to die together. Don’t worry. Good-bye-Verne Barr,” Was the note pinned to the boy’s lapel. Both signed their names in full.

A. L. Barr, father of the boy, said he knew nothing of his boy’s desire to marry the Ammer girl.

Albert Ammer, father of the girl, said that some weeks ago the boy had asked the hand of the girl in marriage, but it had been refused, as both were thought too young to marry.

The notes with the empty bottle were sent to the coroner at Knoxville Thursday night. No inquest will be held.
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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 write 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 seems 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 2:00o’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 corner of Knoxville arrived he deemed it unnecessary to hold an inquest. Undertaker Troup took charge of the bodies. Miss Ammer’s was placed in a bob sled and accompanied by the broken hearted father and other friends was taken to her home now do 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 service 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 800 outside. 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 t the funeral. The pall bearers for Miss Ammer were: Misses Maggie and Lillia Berkenholtz, Rose Beihls, Hattie Love, Gertrude Keihl and Margaret Geddes of Newton. Pall bearers for the boy were his young friends. After the bodies were placed in the grave and lids covered with white crape placed over the box of each one carnations were strewed over them and so with sadden harts and tear wet faces they turned away and left them to sleep. ~ Newspaper name and date unknown.