OBIT: Cameron CONN, 1930, Draketown, Somerset County, PA

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Meyersdale Library.
Transcribed and proofread by: Richard Boyer.

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CAMERON CONN

Crippled Youth Shoots Himself
Cameron Conn, Aged 15, Takes His Own Life Soon After Entering High School

  Last Thursday morning a very pathetic tragedy took place at Draketown, when 
Cameron Conn, aged 15 years, ended his life by suicide.
  The unfortunate lad was a victim of infantile paralysis, and had been a 
cripple for a number of years.  He had been attending the township school and 
enrolled in the Confluence High School.
  There does not appear to have been any cause for the rash act.  He used a 
shotgun, the charge striking him in the side, causing instantaneous death.
  Dr. H. S. Kimmel, the coroner, came down from Somerset, but did not deem an 
inquest necessary.
  The unfortunate youth was the son of Harvey Conn, who survives him. His mother 
died in February, 1920.  He is also survived by two brothers and two sisters.
  The funeral took place on Saturday afternoon at the Jersey Church, Rev. H. W. 
Jamison officiating.  Interment was made in the Jersey Cemetery.  Undertaker C. 
B. Humbert had charge of the funeral arrangements.
  Principal Shaffer of the Confluence schools made the following statement 
concerning the sad death of one of the freshmen:
  In all the mass of reports concerning the death of Cameron Conn, a pupil in 
the Confluence High School, the following facts emerge:
  1.  He was stricken by infantile paralysis in childhood which left him badly 
crippled in one leg.
  2.  He was always overly quiet and sensitive.
  3.  He lost his mother when he was three years of age (during the "flu" 
epidemic).
  4.  He entered Confluence High School on the morning of Sept. 1.
  5.  He had the difficulties in finding his way about, common to Freshmen 
coming from a one-room to a dozen-room building.
  6.  He gave promise of being a very good student and appeared happy and 
contented.
  7.  He studied his lessons for the next day on Wednesday evening.
  8.  On the morning of Sept. 4, he shot himself, leaving the following note:
  "Mary, you tell Lew that he will not need to wait for me any more; that I have 
quit school.  You have some one take my books back to the school.  Goodby."
  (Mary is his sister who keeps house for the family, and Lew is the driver of 
the school bus).
  The many rumors, ranging all the way from his having received a severe 
scolding by his principal, to his reported threat weeks ago to shoot himself if 
forced to go to school, should convince one that nobody knows the cause.  One 
rumor is as likely to have just as little truth in it as the next one.

Meyersdale Republican, September 11, 1930