Ernest Lacore (1872-1894)

LACORE, LECORE, WOOLLEY, WOOLEY, FULLER, TAYLOR, OLSON

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 5/29/2016 at 20:11:50

From Nevada Representative January 24, 1894

Hanged and Buried.

The death sentence pronounced on Ernest Lacore was duly executed Friday at Joliet, Illinois. An associated press dispatch gives the following report:

JOLIET, ILL., JAN. 19.--Ernest Lacore, a farm hand, was hanged here to-day for the urder of 12 year-old Mary Ellen Byron, whom he way-laid in the woods and attempted to seduce. He narrowly escaped lynching at the time! Lacore this morning was baptised and received sacrament, professing conversion. Later his mother was admitted to see him and she remained for an hour during which time the condemned man wept continually. On the gallows Lacore expressed the hope that he was going to be saved. His neck was broken and no movement of muscles was manifested. The body will be shipped to Iowa his former home. The behavior of Lacore was a wonderful exhibition of nerve. Not once did he flinch and only when the noose was being placed over his head did he change color.

Lacore's mother, Mrs. Taylor, and his brother, Delos, and the latter's wife, brought the body to Nevada, arriving on the Saturday forenoon train; and it was buried Sunday afternoon in a lot belonging to Delos in the Nevada cemetery. Brief funeral services were conducted by Rev. Horswell and Briggs & Hammond's furniture and undertaking rooms, consideration for the living securing what respect for dead might not have commanded, a respectable attendance. Little need be said of the dead. He was a bad boy, developed into a worse man, and undoubtedly deserved his fate. If his end shall be a warning to others of what may follow the unbridling of evil passions it may not have been in vain. It is unnecessary to present earthly indictments in the court to which he has been summoned. He has paid a fearful penalty for his wrong doing, and is his grave let him rest in peace.

SUBMITTER'S NOTE: Ernest Lacore was the son of George Waldo Lacore/Lecore and Orpha Amelia "Amelia" Wooley/Woolley.

In this article, his mother is referred to as Mrs. Taylor. This submitter has found her marriage to George Lacore as well as Orin Fuller and Mr. Taylor.

This family seems to be deeply connected to Wilmington, Will County, Illinois where many family members are apparently buried. However, the parents of Amelia/Orpha Wooley, Eleazer Wooley/Woolley and Alma Nicholson, resided in Nevada, Iowa for many years.

Given the circumstances of the death, perhaps the family felt Ernest Lacore's burial could be more private in Nevada away from the family of his victim.

As a side note, Ernest's brother, Delos Lacore aka Herbert Delos Lacore/Lecore, married Anna C. Olson in Story City, Story County, Iowa in 1892.