Ionia County MI Archives Obituaries.....Olds, Robert R. 1939
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/mi/mifiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Sandy Heintzelman sheintz@iserv.net September 13, 2014, 12:19 pm

Belding Banner-News, 5 Oct 1939

Wife, Mentally Ill, Fatally Beats Husband

Uses Exercising Club While Spouse Sits At Breakfast Table

The comfortable, pleasant home of Mr. and Mrs. Robert R. Olds, at 611 S.
Pleasant street, was turned into a scene of deep tragedy early Saturday morning
when Mrs. Olds, who has been for some time seriously mentally ill, made a
murderous attack on her husband while he was seated at the breakfast table and
using an Indian club, such as is used in gymnastic exercises, knocked him to the
floor and then, apparently beat his head so badly that it was thought by Dr.
A.E. Hollard, attending physician, that the man could not live but a very short
time.

Some years ago Mrs. Olds became mentally ill and was for a time a patient at the
state hospital at Traverse City, but her condition had improved to such an
extent that a year ago last June it was thought she could return home and Mr.
Olds and the daughter, Carmen, were overjoyed at having their wife and mother
once more at home with them.

Recently Mrs. Olds’ condition had taken a turn for the worse and although the
family hoped that she would improve soon, Mr. Olds realized that there was
danger in having her at home, for he had but recently confided to a number of
his friends, in conversing with them relative to his wife’s condition, that he
was fearful that she might attack either him or their daughter.

The attack came Saturday morning as Mr. Olds sat at the breakfast table and
after she had beaten her husband into insensibility, she went to the telephone
and called Dr. A. E. Hollard and notified him of the tragedy.  Mrs. Olds then
went upstairs and notified her daughter, Carmen, and Mrs. Olds’ brother,
Clarence Currie, who had been living at the Olds residence for the past year. 
Bruce G.Fales was then called by Dr. Hollard and the injured man was taken to
the local hospital where his chances for recovery were given out as almost
hopeless from the first.  Mrs. Olds was taken into custody and is being held in
detention by Sheriff Leslie Murphy at Ionia.

Mr. Olds never regained consciousness and passed away Tuesday evening at about
7:30.

There is no basis, apparently, for the belief that a quarrel preceded the
attack.  Neither Miss Olds nor her uncle, Clarence Currie, who were in rooms on
the second floor of the home, heard any noise before the attack nor were they
aware that anything wrong was going on, and their first knowledge was when Mrs.
Olds came up and told them.  Had there been an argument or quarrel, it is
believed, preceding the attack, Mr. Olds would have been on his guard and would
not have been sitting, quietly at the breakfast table.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Olds have been longtime and highly respected residents of this
community and their great legion of friends sympathize deeply with them in the
sad mental condition which has visited the wife and mother and brought about the
terrible tragedy and the daughter, Carmen, can rest assured that the good
friends of her parents, together with her own younger friends, extend their deep
and heartfelt sympathy in her sorrow.

Funeral rites will be held on Friday afternoon at 2 o’clock at the
Congregational church with the pastor, Rev. Edwyn Evans, officiating.  The body
will repose at the Hall & Cichy funeral home until 12 o’clock on Friday.  Burial
will be made at Otisco.


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/mi/ionia/obits/o/olds28567nob.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/mifiles/

File size: 3.9 Kb