Norfolk City Virginia USGenWeb Archives Obituaries.....McDermin, John P. April 3, 1889
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Robert Woolfitt http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00034.html#0008401 August 9, 2023, 3:20 pm

Virginian-Pilot  April 4 & 6, 1889
A Sad Drowning Accident.
While Willie Hope and John McDermin were out rowing in an old boat in Tanner’s 
Creek yesterday afternoon, it commenced to leak badly, and the water poured in 
faster than the boys could bail it out. Recognizing their peril, they commenced 
to pull for the shore, but before they could make a landing the boat capsized 
and threw both of them in the water. The boys’ cries for help attracted the 
attention of a colored man at work in a field nearby, and quickly running to the 
scene, he threw a long pole to them from the shore. Willie Hope grabbed it and 
was hauled to land, but the McDermin boy could not get hold of it and was 
drowned. As soon as the accident occurred, Mr. McDermin was acquainted with the 
news of his son’s death and left the city at once for his farm, near which the 
accident took place. The boy’s body was recovered and brought to the city by 
Undertaker H. D. Oliver, after Justice Hawks had given a certificate of death 
from natural causes. John McDermin was 16 years old and a very popular boy, and 
Willie Hope 15 and a son of ex-Councilman Hope.

The funeral of John P. McDermin, whose sad death from drowning Wednesday 
afternoon was lamented by a large circle of friends, took place from St. Mary’s 
Church yesterday morning at 9 o’clock and was attended by a vast concourse of 
friends. The funeral ceremonies were conducted by Rev. W. Easton Payne, 
assistant pastor of the church, after which a requiem mass was held, conducted 
by Fathers Doherty and Payne. The floral tributes were very beautiful and 
conspicuous. Among them was a large floral design of the “Gates Ajar” from the 
schoolmates of the deceased at St. John’s Academy. The pallbearers were Messrs. 
James Grogan, Thomas Fitzgibbons, M. Friary, Peter Hoban, Steven Henley, Thomas 
Cashin, John Hatton, P. J. Murray, Chas. Consolvo, John Reilly. The interment 
was in the Catholic cemetery.


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