| Notes |
- ENDS LIFE WITH DRAUGHT OF POISON
Mrs. Mattie McKeehan, Living on Elizabethton Pike, Drinks Acid; Dies in Hospital Here
Mrs. Mattie McKeehan, 27, wife of Lee McKeehan, farmer, is dead from drinking carbolic acid about noon Monday, at her home on the Elizabethton highway near the Carter county line.
Members of her family discovered her in great pain from the effects of the acid in the barn back of the dwelling. Dr. R.C. Blevins was summoned. He brought her to the Appalachian hospital where she died about one o'clock, or two hours after drinking the fatal poison.
She left this note addressed to her husband:
"Dear Lee: Do not blame anyone but me. You have done all you can do. I can't live in this condition. God will help you with the little ones. Wire Mary.
Good bye
MATTIE"
Mattie Victoria (Smith) McKeehan was the daughter of William Madison Smith and Ellen Loudy, of Carter County TN. She lost her father at an early age; her mother Ellen re-married on 24 January 1915 to J.D. Bennett. Mattie's sister is Mary E. Smith (Mrs. Bill Lewis), Charles O. Smith, Arthur Tilman Smith, and James Henry Smith, all of Carter County TN. Mattie's brothers served in WWI.
Mattie Smith married Lee F. McKeehan on 25 March 1916. Their three children were: Mildred Pauline "Toots" b. 22 June 1918, Roy Lee b. 18 Feb 1921, and Wilma B. b. 15 July 1923.
The compound used in her possible suicide, carbolic acid, was a common– but very poisonous- household medicinal disinfectant used, in those days, for topical use; often for cleaning skin wounds and scrapes.
|
1899 - 1926 (27 years)
