Mrs. Ervin Allen

08-04-1901

© Wichita Daily Eagle

Submitted by: Mark Gove

©Glenn

Alva, Aug. 3. – The Daily Pioneer has the following about a shot gun accident near that place:

"Last night about nine o'clock a lad came to town for a physician, and stated that Mrs. Allen, wife of Irvin Allen, four miles north of town had been seriously injured by the firing of a gun in the hands of her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Alice Allen.

"A. C. Grimes, who lives neighbor to the Allens, was the first to learn of the tragedy, and went out home forthwith. This morning he gave us the following particulars:

"Mrs. Susie Allen, daughter of the deceased, was out yesterday morning with a single-barrel shotgun, shooting rabbits, and when she came back she complained to her mother that the gun kicked so hard that it made her shoulder sore. And just after noon she went down east of town to visit friends a few days. Frank Allen, a son of the deceased, lives half a mile north of the old folks, and his wife, Alice, came down to the home of the old folks and took the gun and went shooting at rabbits (and it is said that she was an excellent marksman) and returned to the house about eight o'clock; then the old lady told her about the gun kicking Susie. Alice was perhaps six feet away and took the gun, put it to her shoulder, pointed it in the opposite direction from her mother and said: ‘If she had held it this way it wouldn't have kicked her, ‘and as she turned around to go into the house the gun was discharged somehow and the whole load of number four shot went into Mrs. Allen's neck, a little to the right of the chin, literally tearing away the jugular vein and almost severing the head from the body. Within five minutes she was cold in death. Of course, all the family is almost paralyzed with grief; but Alice, the one who had the gun, is in a dangerous condition mentally at the present time.

"The Allens have lived at their present home since the spring of 1894 and are quiet, good citizens, who attend to their own affairs and dwell peacefully with one another. They belong to the Friends Church, and Mrs. Allen will be buried tomorrow in Liberty cemetery, 10 miles northeast of Alva.

"The bereaved relatives have the sympathy of hundreds of friends in this great and sudden bereavement.

Mrs. Allen was the mother of Mrs. Laura Gove, who lives at 831 Wabash avenue, this city.

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