Well, What Happened to Mollie?

As I mentioned in my last post, I haven't been able to get as much done this year as I'm up against a couple of blocks that require access to records that aren't available on-line. I had, however, finally found death notices for three of my great grandfather Marshall Murray's siblings that I have been trying to find for the better part of the last two and a half years. Several records helped me confirm that Marshall's older sister Mollie (Mary) had married and was named Mollie Johnson when she died in 1917. I sent off for her death certificate as well as those of her two brothers, Joseph and John Henry, to see what more I could learn.

Mollie's death certificate arrived a few days ago and I was stunned to see her cause of death. When I saw the date of 1917, I thought she had possibly been one of the many victims of the flu pandemic of 1917-18. That was not the case. Mollie was hit by a Key Route train and died from a fractured skull! That meant that all three of my Murray great grandaunts died tragically. Lizzie Murray was the first to die of typhoid at age 3 in 1875, Nellie (Ella) Murray Nelson died in childbirth in 1909, now Mollie was hit by a train in 1917!

Clipping from San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, February 26, 1917
newspapers.com

I figured a train fatality would be newsworthy, so I went to check out the available on line newspaper sites to see what I could turn up. The Oakland Tribune isn't available on line for the year 1917, but the San Francisco Chronicle is and I was able to find a small note at the bottom of page 1. When I get my next off-line opportunity, I'll have to add checking out the Oakland Tribune microfilm to see if there is more to the story than what was printed in the Chronicle.

The thing I found most interesting is the note that "the dead woman appeared to be about 45 years old." Mollie was 46 when she died, but when she married Charles Johnson Mollie subtracted 14 years from her age. Her death notice and death certificate show her as 37 years old, or 9 years younger than she actually was. So either she looked her age or the doctors estimated her age before she was identified.

I did a quick look at Google Maps to identify the intersection of the accident and cross checked it against the address I had for Mollie when she died. It looks like she was killed crossing the street on her way home as the intersection of Lowell Street and Stanford Avenue in Oakland is just a few hundred feet from where Mollie and Charles lived at 986 Stanford Avenue (assuming, of course, that house numbering hasn't changed in the intervening century.)

I'm still waiting on the death certificates for Joseph and John Henry.  Hopefully they're not quite as dramatic!