PHILLIPS, Earl E.

PHILLIPS

Posted By: Volunteer: Sherri
Date: 7/28/2013 at 05:37:59

FEARED CONSUMPTION AND TOOK HIS LIFE
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EARL E. PHILLIPS COMMITS SUICIDE WITH CHLOROFORM
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Body Found in a Spring-street Lodging-house Several Hours After Death, Aspired to a Position in the Navy, but Was Rejected.

Despondent, because he feared he was a victim of consumption, Earl E. Phillips, an electrician in the employ of the Los Angeles-Pacific Railway, ended his life in a Spring-street lodging-house yesterday. The deceased was 23 years old and the son of Deputy County Assessor T.E. Phillips of No. 1400 Carrol avenue. He ended his life by inhaling the fumes of chloroform. His body is now at the undertaking rooms of Robert Garret on North Main street, where an inquest will be held today.

The dead body of young Phillips was found in a room in the lodging-house kept by J.B. McKenna, at No. 145 North Spring street, yesterday afternoon, just before 3 o'clock. A physician said the man had been dead for several hours. The body was lying face downward on the bed, and under the man's nose there were two towels which had been saturated with chloroform. On a table in the room there was an empty bottle, which had contained chloroform and another bottle filled with the same fluid.

Sewed to the lining of the man's coat there was a paper bearing his name. In one of his pockets was found a motorman's badge, belonging to the company for which he worked. From these articles his identity was learned.

Before inhaling the fumes that put him forever to sleep, young Phillips wrote two notes. They were inscribed on a piece of paper which had evidently been wrapped around the bottle of poison, and the writing was done with the burned end of a match. The notes read as follows: "My watch is at Joe and Billy's" and "Dear mother, have me cremated." Joe and Billy is the name under which a North Main-street pawn-broking establishment survives.

Phillips has for some time been employed as an electrician at the powerhouse of the railway company at Sherman. Recently he came to this city to work for the railway company. he went to the lodging-house Thursday morning, remained all that day and renewed his rent in the evening, when called on to pay an additional 50 cents if he intended to remain over night.

From the note relative to his watch, it was at first thought that he had ended his life on account of financial troubles. This is, however, denied by his mother. She says that he wanted to enlist in the United States navy, made application, but was rejected on account of the weakened condition of his throat and lungs. This disappointed the young man, and it preyed on his mind until he became imbued with the idea that he was a consumptive.

Source: Van Buren Co. Genealogical Society Obituary Book C, Page 165, Keosauqua Public Library, Keosauqua, IA