Payette County ID Archives Obituaries.....Driscoll, Donald Joseph 1922
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Cheryl Hanson ihansonb@fmtc.com December 15, 2005, 4:08 pm

Payette Enterprise 10-19-1922
Payette Enterprise
Payette, Idaho
Thursday, October 19, 1922
 
SAD TRAGEDY SOUTHWEST OF FRUITLAND
 
One of the saddest tragedies that has ever taken place in this community 
occured last Tuesday evening, two miles southwest of Fruitland, when Mrs. John 
Driscoll, evidently in a fit of despondency and temporary mental derangement 
took the life of her three weeks old baby and little three year old son, by 
drowning them in the irrigation canal, and then attempted to end her own life 
in the same manner, with apparently no cause for the rash act.
 
Mrs. Driscoll had not been will for some time, and since the birth of her baby 
three weeks ago, she had been extremely nervous and could not sleep nights.
 
When Mr. Driscoll came from the orchard that evening he found her walking 
about the yard carrying the two children in her arms, he told her she should 
not do it as she was not able, but she said they wanted to be carried.  Mr. 
Driscoll went to the barn to attend to the chores, returning to the house and 
found a note on the table written by Mrs. Driscoll, which stated in words to 
the effect that he would be better off without her, that she had done the best 
she could, but gave no intimation of the act that followed.  Mr. Driscoll 
became alarmed and at once notified the neighbors and started with a lantern 
in search of his wife and babies and soon found tracks leading toward the 
irrigation canal which is but a few rods away from the house, but only a ditch 
about four feet wide and the water two feet deep.  After following the ditch 
to where a screen had been built, he returned and found the mother lying in 
the ditch unconscious with her head out of the water on the bank at a point 
near the house.  With the assistance of neighbors she was taken to the house, 
and a further search in the dark for the missing children, the lifeless body 
of the infant was found some two hundred feet below where the mother was found 
and the body of the boy at the screen a half mile below.
 
The bodies were taken to the Undertaking parlor at Ontario and the funeral 
held from the Catholic church this (Thursday) morning.
 
The mother is in a very critical condition both mentally and physically but 
the attending physician has hopes of her recovery.
 
The sad coincident has brought grief to the entire community, as Mrs. Driscoll 
has always been a very devoted wife and mother, and the family highly 
respected by many neighbors and friends and the sad affair can only be tribute 
to ill health which undoubtedly brought on temporary derangement.  The 
sympathy of a wide circle of friends goes out to the bereaved husband and two 
older children who were at the time with their grand-parents in Boise.

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