HILE, E. L., Mr. (d: 1904)

HILE

Posted By: County Coordinator
Date: 2/8/2010 at 11:55:07

OBITUARY: Mr. E. L. Hile, -1904

Mr. E. L. Hile
Prominent Farmer Suicides.

Some time last Tuesday morning between the hours of two and three o'clock, Mr. E. L. Hile attempted suicide by shooting himself in the head with a pistol. The bullet penetrated the right temple and lodged in the brain, inflicting a fatal wound from which he died the following noon without regaining consciousness.

Mr. Hiles was, apparently in every day life, a man of contented experience, and one whom his friends would least suspect to commit self destruction. As usual, following such cases, there were several wild and weird rumors current as to what might have been his motive, but in all probability the rash act was committed while the victim was laboring under some temporary hallucination resulting from business worry.

The afternoon before he had driven a car load of stock to this city for the purpose of shipping them to Chicago on Tuesday. Business men who conversed with him at that time say that he gave no indication of despondency or contemplation of the rash act that has since caused great sorrow in the home.

He was heard to arise from bed about two o'clock Tuesday morning and go out doors, the wife thinking presumably to do the chores preparatory to his coming to town to accompany his shipment of stock to market. A pistol shot indicated something unusual, and the hired man was called. Search was made at the barn but Mr. Hile was not found there, although shortly after his unconscious form was found in one of the hog lots adjacent.

Neighbors in the immediate vicinity of the Hile home were notified and a doctor telephoned for from Osage.

Mr. Hile came here three or four years ago from near Madison, Wisconsin, and moved onto the farm bought from Mr. Longergan, about a year since he sold that farm and bought the Frank Austin place nearer town.

The bereaved and stricken family composed of the wife and four children are deserving of the deepest sympathy of their comparatively new made friends in this county. Two brothers of the deceased arrived here yesterday. Funeral this forenoon at 10:30 ; interment in Osage.

[ Osage News-Dec. 8, 1904 ]