Beyond Fiction

In doing my research on my elusive Martin Isaic Spangler, I discovered that the death date for Stella (Ferguson) Hicks and her husband, George Hicks were both the same. I was intrigued and thought it would be worth investigating. Was it a fire, an act of nature such as a tornado or flood, or what exactly was it that would cause both of them to die on the same day? Unfortunately, it was nothing like that! In the end, it is a very sad story and will be detailed in the 2 newspaper articles that will follow this obituary.

The following obituary was found using the Historical Newspaper Collection at Ancestry. I’ve once again chosen to transcribe this information instead of posting the image to avoid any conflicts. It is taken from The Brownsville Herald, December 19, 1950 edition.

Joint funeral services for George Hicks, 44, and his wife, Mrs. Stella May Hicks, 37, will be held at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Kreidler-Ashcraft Funeral Home.

Services will be conducted by the Salvation Army, and burial will be in the Combes Cemetery.

Bodies of Mr. And Mrs. Hicks were found in their bedroom Monday morning. A verdict of murder and suicide was returned by Justice of the Peace A. H. Markowsky.

The last paragraph was very stunning to me. Murder and suicide. What?

This obituary was just very basic information. The one thing I was able to do was find the burial information from this posting. I was also able to see which funeral home handled the burial and when the services were performed. There will be more discovered in the 2 articles that will follow.

Have any of my readers ever experienced this? How sad when you are discovering your family history and then run across something such as this. I know it happens very often but it is just such a sad story when you discover it!