Iowa Old Press

Mills County Tribune
Glenwood, Mills County, Iowa
February 25, 1915

HERE AND THERE

John Gerking, living eight miles east of Sloan, Iowa, in a sudden fit of insanity last week attempted to murder his wife with an ax. She escaped from the house, and fled to the neighbor’s. When she and her two sons returned later to the home, they found Mr. Gerking dead, lying by a straw stack near the barn. He had committed the act with a .22 caliber revolver by shooting himself in the mouth.

Wm. Vorthman of Treynor butchered hogs last week, and while “sticking” one of the animals, it grabbed his hand and severely bit him.

Jeannette S. Priest, one of the well known Priest Sisters of Shenandoah, died Friday, February 13, at Citronelle, Alabama, where she and her sister, Alice Priest, had gone to spend the winter months. She had been sick only a short time. The Priest family and estate was a noted one of Page County. The father died last June. The Priest home in Shenandoah has been for years a landmark. The father and two daughters, Alice and Jeannette, occupied the home and made it a social center. The son of the family lives in New York City. The father, D.S. Priest, gave liberally of his holdings for the beautifying of Shenandoah. The Priest sisters were noted for their ardent advocacy of the equal suffrage rights for women.

David Fountain, known as “Jack, the Sticker,” has been sentenced to death at Sacramento, California, for the murder of Margurite Milligan, a ten year old girl, whose body was found in the church of which Fountain was janitor. Fountain at one time lived in Shenandoah, and has served time in the penitentiaries and insane asylums of Iowa.

Iowa
Mills County