A Runaway Horse, Two Fence Splinters, and a Hotelkeeper’s Fearless Daughter
Mary Eirby is gravely hurt near Fort Steilacoom—the same woman who once held a robber at gunpoint in her father’s hotel.
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.
TACOMA, July 15.—[Special.]—While horseback riding today, Miss Mary Eirby, aged 30, was thrown from a frisky runaway horse violently against a fence near Fort Steilacoom. Her nose was smashed and two splinters from the fence entered her head under the left eye. One splinter was the size of a lead pencil, the other about half that size. Both entered her head three and a half inches. One passed through the cheek bone and had to be chiseled out; the other entered the brain. The eye may be destroyed, if she recovers. Miss Eirby is the daughter of a hotel proprietor, and two years ago held up a robber with a revolver when she caught him stealing a pair of trousers containing money from her father’s hotel.
““One passed through the cheek bone and had to be chiseled out; the other entered the brain.””
Mary Eirby’s injuries are a reminder of how fragile life was before helmets, safety glass and modern trauma care—and how newspapers leavened a gruesome accident with her earlier heroism. The detail of chiseling a splinter from her cheek is the kind of blunt clinical reporting that still makes readers flinch.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.