Ionia County MI Archives Obituaries.....Guernsey, Harriett November 1930
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Marilyn Ransom mlnransom@chartermi.net July 9, 2010, 6:03 pm

The Ionia Sentinel-Standard, Saturday, November 29, 1930
While viewing without question the death of Mrs. Harriett Guernsey, 83-year-
old widow as accidental asphyxiation, Ionia county authorities Saturday left 
noting undone in making a complete check of all circumstances surrounding the 
aged woman’s strange demise.

Mrs. Guernsey was found dead about 7:30 Friday evening, sitting in her 
customary rocking chair near a front widow in her small apartment in the 
Wright block, over the Humphrey grocery.  She apparently had been dead an hour 
and a half, Coroner B. J. Boynton, who examined the remains, declared.  In one 
hand she gripped a small phial containing camphor.

Gas had been escaping for some time from a jet on the wall, which was open, 
when the authorities arrived at the scene after being summoned by Mrs. Jessie 
Kennedy, who lives in rooms adjoining those of Mrs. Guernsey.  Mrs. Kennedy’s 
suspicions were aroused when she arrived home from work about 7:30 and 
discovered her own quarters filled with illuminating gas fumes.   
Investigating, she traced its source to Mrs. Guernsey’s rooms.

It is believed the aged woman, who had lived alone for many years since the 
death of her husband, Marvin Guernsey, had been using a gas reflector to heat 
her rooms and had turned off the heater and disconnected the hose from a jet 
on the sidewall, but had neglected to close the latter jet through oversight.  
She had told neighbors while in the main hall that she believed the reflector 
was making the rooms “too warm” and would turn it off .  When her body was 
found a small kerosene heater was burning.  How an explosion of the escaping 
gas had not been caused by the heater was a problem astounding the authorities.

Harry Kennedy, of Grand Rapids, first noticed gas odors about 5:45 when he 
visited the rooms of Mrs. Kennedy, his mother, but considered it nothing 
serious and made no further investigation, although he reminded Mrs. Kennedy 
of its persistence when she had returned.

Mrs. Guernsey, a well-known and universally respected woman, had bane a 
resident of Ionia county for about 70 years, coming here from DeKalb county, 
Indiana where she was born September 18, 1847 to Marvin Guernsey, a Civil war 
veteran, whose death occurred 17 years ago.  Mrs. Guernsey had often expressed 
the hope that she would never become a burden to anyone and had lived upon her 
pension as a Civil war widow and rental from a house on East Lafayette street 
quietly and happily in fairly good health despite her years.  She had been a 
member of the Methodist church for many years.

One daughter, Mrs. Earl Alexander, of Battle Creek, survives.  Mr. and Mrs. 
Alexander and son Gerald reached Ionia Saturday morning to complete 
arrangement for the funeral.  Funeral services for Mrs. Guernsey will be 
conducted by the Boynton funeral chapel Tuesday afternoon at 2 o’clock with 
Rev. W. F. Kendrick in charge.  Interment will be made in Highland Park 
cemetery.


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