The Mysterious Death of Miss Laura F. Judd

Laura Judd was the sister of Phoebe Judd Nower, my great great grandmother.  Laura was born in Mason County, Kentucky on the sixth day of September 1865.  She never married and remained close to her sisters all her life.  It has been said that Phoebe's daughter, Myrtle, loved visiting her Aunt Laura. 

Another sister, Joella Judd Coulter and her husband, John, had moved from Mason County to Missouri.  Around 1890, Laura must have decided to join them in the area.  According to Maysville, Kentucky newspapers during that time, Laura returned to Mason County often for visits with Phoebe.  One item in the June 3, 1895 Evening Bulletin stated that Laura was returning to Leavenworth, Kansas after visiting with Phoebe's family.  Her nephew, Ernest Nower, was accompanying her.  By 1900, she was living in Buchanan County, Missouri in the household of her sister and brother - in -law, Joella and John Coulter.  

It was in her sister's home that Laura met her mysterious death.  According to one newspaper source, Laura, during the night of July 4, 1909, accidentally drank carbolic acid which killed her.  Her body was taken to Dover, Kentucky for burial in the Locust Grove Cemetery.  On July 13, it was reported in the Daily Public Ledger that there was talk of the possibility of Laura being forced to drink the poison, however I could not find any other newspaper article mentioning this.  I imagine her friends and family could not understand her untimely death and were looking for an answer.   I think they had a difficult time believing her death at age forty-three.

Ella Myrtle Nower

Described by her daughter as "little, but mighty", Ella Myrtle Nower was born May 7, 1884 into a very, for the time, affluent family. Her father, Samuel J., was a respected banker in Dover, a small town on the Ohio River in Mason County, Kentucky.

The third child and only daughter, Myrtle, as she was known, had four brothers. Earnest and Clarence were born in 1877 and 1880, respectively. Baby Samuel Judd, born February 28, 1888, lived for only four months. Myrtle's youngest brother, Paul, was born in 1890. Their mother, Phoebe Jane Judd Nower, hired a nanny to help in the raising of her young children.

In 1907, Myrtle married Frank Bernard Clark and soon started their family which would consist of six children, four girls and two boys. Her daughter, Frances, remembers her mother as a hardworking woman, "pumping water from a cistern or well, scrubbing clothes on a washboard, canning all our food, sewing clothes". While life was not as comfortable as her childhood had been, Myrtle was known to give parties where as many as seventy-five chickens were fried and served along with the commercial bought ice cream for dessert. Her younger children, Evelyn, Frances, and Irma, dressed alike for these occasions, would serve "goodies" to their guests. Other times would see Myrtle managing her family on very little. No matter the circumstances, however, her determination and strong will earned her the respect of her children and grandchildren.

Frank and Myrtle spent most of their married life in the towns of Dayton, Fort Thomas, Covington, and Dover in northern Kentucky. Toward the end of their lives, they lived on Second Street in Ripley, Ohio. It was at this residence that Myrtle became a widow on September 20, 1960. In June of the following year, with her health rapidly failing, Myrtle was moved to the Georgetown Nursing Home (Georgetown, Ohio) where she died of liver cancer on December 7, 1962. She is buried in Locust Grove Cemetery in Dover, Kentucky.