The Tragedy at the Indian Training School
A fatal picnic leaves two students dead after accidental poisoning.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
On Monday, a sudden and alarming sickness took possession of five of the boys of the Indian training school. Dr. W. G. Coe was summoned and found two of the children in convulsions. An investigation showed that they had been out on a picnic and had eaten wild parsnips, which are very poisonous. Three of the boys had barely tasted the vegetable and they were not seriously affected, but the other two were past aid. Dr. Coe gave them hypodermic injections of apomorphia, which would relieve a strong man’s stomach in less than two minutes, but it had no effect, and they died that night.
“Three of the boys had barely tasted the vegetable and they were not seriously affected, but the other two were past aid.”
The Indian boarding school system was an instrument of forced assimilation. This tragedy reflects both the physical dangers to children within that system and the tragic, often fatal, lack of care provided by the institutions meant to serve them.
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