Mrs. Frieda Dau

BRANDT, DAU

Posted By: Rebecca Foster (email)
Date: 12/16/2014 at 16:31:55

Mrs. Frieda Dau, Worried Over Condition of Sons' Health, Takes Own Life.

Weary of life which had held for her so much sorrow and disappointment, and brooding over financial affairs and illness of members of her family, Mrs. Frieda Dau, 56, 1411 West Fifteenth street, turned wide open the gas jets on a range in her home Wednesday afternoon after first locking the doors and fastening the windows. Then she sat down on a chair in the kitchen, threw a coat over her head and awaited death.

She had been dead for several hours when Policeman Leo Ceurvorst broke down a door of the house, found her body on the floor of the kitchen and the house filled with gas.

Mrs. Jacob Keller, 1407 West Fifteenth street, told police she saw Mrs. Dau Wednesday morning when she came to the Keller home. She acted strangely. Mrs. Keller said, but gave no hint by word or deed that she intended to end her life.

When Mrs. Keller went to the Dau home at 4:45 Wednesday afternoon, she found all the doors locked so she called police.

Coroner J.D. Cantwell was called. He investigated, pronounced the case one of suicide and said no inquest will be held.

Mrs. Dau's husband died six years ago, police were told. Two of her sons became ill and are now in a sanitarium, officers learned, and their mother brooded constantly over the state of their health and their enforced absence from the home.

Life Resident.

Mrs. Dau was born in Davenport, Oct. 15, 1872 and was a life resident. She was married to Edward O. Dau on Dec. 25, 1895. She was a member of the Pioneer Settler's Association and the Northwest Davenport Liedertafel.

Surviving are three sons, Edwin, Herbert, and Raymond, all of Davenport; one sister, Mrs. Anna Harold of St. Louis; a step-sister, Mrs. Floyd Davies of Davenport, and her stepmother, Mrs. Wilhelmina Brandt of Davenport.

Funeral services will be held at 2 o'clock Saturday afternoon at the Runge chapel with burial in Fairmount cemetery.

Source:The Davenport Democrat and Leader, Davenport, Ia., 02 May 1929, p.19.