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Submitted: 8/29/21 • Approved: 8/29/21 • Last Updated: 9/1/21 • R452314-G452313-S3
1904-1947
Photo/information, courtesy of Edith Guynes Stanley
*Obituary
Death drew its dark curtain over the holiday plans of Mrs. O.B. Smith, 43, of 776 Perkins street, Phillips, Friday afternoon.
Mrs. Smith, who only a short time before had been making plans for a gay Christmas, was found hanging by the neck from a rafter in the garage at the Smith home at approximately 3 p.m. Friday. The body was discovered by Mrs. Smith's nine-year-old son upon his return home from school.
The terrified youngster called his father, an employee of the Phillips Petroleum company, who was on the job at the time. Smith summoned a physician, and the county sheriff's department was notified.
The woman was pronounced dead when the doctor arrived. A coroner's verdict of suicide by strangulation was returned by Justice of the Peace C.C. McClelland at approximately 3:30 o'clock.
McClelland said that he found no suicide note to indicate a motive. Smith told the coroner that his wife had been planning for Christmas. He said, according to officers, that she had been in ill health, but that she had fully recovered.
McClelland declared that Mrs. Smith was reported to have fed her infant son and placed him in bed at approximately one o'clock thus fixing the time of the tragedy between the hours of one and two o'clock.
Officers said that a step ladder had apparently been used in the hanging. From all indications, they stated, Mrs. Smith climbed onto the step ladder, adjusted the manila rope, and stepped off into space after removing her shoes and placing them neatly on a nearby table.
Survivors besides the husband include a daughter, Naomi Smith of Phillips; Owen and Howard Smith of Phillips and Robert, Per, Okla.; four brothers, A.W., C.J., and R.D. Sweeny, all of Phillips, and Charles Sweeny of Haynesville, La.; and three sisters, Mrs. Anna Ruth Hargis and Mrs. Dorothy Hughes of Phillips and Mrs. Rachel Young of Dallas.
Funeral services were to be held in the Phillips Baptist church at 3 p.m. today with Rev. E.W. Milner, pastor, officiating. Interment was to be in Highland Park cemetery under the direction of the Blackburn-Shaw-Brown funeral home of Borger.
(Published in Borger Daily Herald, Sunday, December 14, 1947, p1, c5 and p5, c4&5)
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Texas Death Index, 1903-2000
Name: Gertrude Smith
Death Date: 12 Dec 1947
Death County: Hutchinson
Certificate: 51701
Texas, Death Certificates, 1903-1982
Name: Gertrude Smith
[Gertrude Sweeney]
Birth Date: 8 Oct 1904
Birth Place: Texas
Gender: Female
Race: White
Residence: Phillips, Hutchinson, Texas
Father: F M Sweeney
Mother: Myrtle Lloyd
Age at Death: 43
Death Date: 12 Dec 1947
Death Place: Phillips, Hutchinson, Texas, USA
Contributed on 8/29/21
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Record #: 452314