A Suicide Attempt at the Columbia House—and a Landlord's Cold Comfort
Flora Sullivan, separated from her husband, took morphine in her room at Third and Columbia. She survived, but the paper made her despair a public story.
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.
Flora Sullivan, a fairly good-looking woman, not more than 30 years old, to judge from her appearance, tried to end her life last night in her room at the Columbia House at the corner of Third and Columbia streets, by taking a dose of morphine. She was found before the deadly drug had done its work, and after several hours of hard work she was so far toward recovery that people in the house felt sure she would survive. It is thought that family troubles, coupled with a rather eccentric nature, caused the attempt.
About three months ago Flora Sullivan and her husband took rooms at the Columbia House and for a month their domestic life was all that the most exacting could desire. About that time, however, a jar commenced, and within a few days Mr. Sullivan “took himself hence.” Mr. Sullivan is spoken of as a quiet, peaceable man, and some people in the house think that Mrs. Sullivan was to blame for the trouble. After the break-up in the family Mrs. Sullivan continued to live at the same place, though on several occasions the proprietor wished she had gone also. There was considerable noise in her room at different times and requests to remedy the evil did not meet with proper respect.
Last night Mrs. Sullivan was not in a happy mood and this caused her to take poison. The matter would never have been known but that immediately after one of her friends discovered her condition. There was great excitement and noise in the house and a man was running around the neighborhood for hot water. One person asked him what he wanted it for and he replied that a woman had taken poison. Dr. F. S. Palmer was called but would give no information about the case. At the house the landlady said she did not know that Mrs. Sullivan had taken poison, but wondered what caused so much noise in her room. The landlord also said he did not know that anyone had tried to kill herself, but he was sure Mrs. Sullivan would get out of the house today. He seemed to think it might be whisky as much as morphine. “One thing is sure,” he said, “she will live.”
““One thing is sure,” he said, “she will live.””
In 1894 there was no crisis line and little privacy; a suicide attempt in a boarding house became a public spectacle in the next day's paper. The item still resonates in how we talk about domestic isolation, landlords, and who steps in when a neighbor is in trouble.
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