Tragic Household Accident Claims a Young Life
A seven-year-old boy has passed away at St. Joseph's Hospital after a freak accident involving a window sash at his family's home.
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.
The 7-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Stephen H. Smith, 1203 South M street, who has been lying unconscious at St. Joseph's hospital for the past seven days, died at 1 o'clock this morning. In attempting to crawl through an open window the little fellow was caught by the sash and his mother found him a few minutes later, hanging by his neck. He was taken to the hospital in an unconscious condition, and, save for a few minutes on the second day, never seemed at all conscious of his surroundings. The funeral services will be held at Mellinger's chapel.
“In attempting to crawl through an open window the little fellow was caught by the sash.”
Domestic accidents were a grimly common category of local news in this era, reflecting the hazards of home design before modern safety standards. This story captures the immense grief of a family and the somber, matter-of-fact reporting style of the early 20th-century press.
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