Notes for Chattie Marie FLOWERS

Notes for Chattie Marie FLOWERS Doug & Nancy Russell's Homepage

Notes for Chattie Marie FLOWERS

Info from Bob ( synd9770@@bellsouth.net )

6
Notes for CHATTIE MARIE FLOWERS:
OBITUARY:
The following is from a newspaper clipping from, presumably, a Louisiana, Missouri, newspaper, dated in the
last week of October or the first week of November, 1935, and obtained by Barbara (Lowe) Garcia from
Slaughter family members during a visit to Kansas City, Missouri, in May 2002:
((Headline reads: WOMAN BURNED TO DEATH HERE TUESDAY NIGHT - DEATH BY BURNING OF
MRS. EUGENE SLAUGHTER WHO LIVED ON DOUGHERTY PIKE PRONOUNCED ACT OF
SUICIDE BY COUNTY CORONER))
Dr. T. M. Mathews of Bowling Green, coroner of Pike county, who was called here Wednesday ((October 30,
1935)) morning to inquire into the circumstances connected with the death of Mrs. Eugene Slaughter
((Chattie Marie (Flowers) Slaughter)), who was burned to death at her home at No. 1112 Dougherty pike in
the northwestern part of the city ((Louisiana, Missouri)), after hearing the testimony of Mrs. Kate Myers, who
lives near the Slaughter home, and who was the first neighbor to arrive after the family called for assistance
about midnight Tuesday night ((October 29, 1935)), issued a burial certificate stating that her death was an act
of suicide.
Mrs. Myers told Dr. Mathews that Mrs. Slaughter sometime ago had suffered a nervous breakdown and had
been under care of doctors. The family had been instructed by the doctor to be very careful and to watch her.
She had made attempts to go away from home during the nighttime. One of the daughters came to her home
and told her to come quickly. The members of the family were excited. She got water from a stand in the
house and threw it on Mrs. Slaughter, who was lying down on a cistern outside. Mrs. Slaughter tried to speak
but was unable to do so. Mrs. Myers said that there was a two-gallon coal oil can in the kitchen and that there
was coal oil on the floor. She believed that Mrs. Slaughter had poured coal oil on her clothing in the kitchen
and went out in the yard and set fire to her clothing. She said matches, some of which had been lighted, were
found scattered all around the house.
Mr. Slaughter ((Albert Eugene Slaughter)) told the reporter that he was awakened about midnight and saw a
light in the back yard through a window in the kitchen. He thought he had been awakened by screams of Mrs.
Slaughter. He ran out the kitchen door on the East Side of the building and saw his wife near the corner of the
building enveloped in flames, the blaze extending several feet above her head. She fell face downward on the
top of the cistern, walled with stone extending about one foot above the ground, covered with sheet iron, and
died on the cistern top. He brought a quilt and wrapped it around her body. Several matches were found on
the ground near where Mrs. Slaughter was standing when he saw her with her clothing in flames after he came
out of the kitchen door. Mr. Slaughter said that his wife had been in poor health two years and at times her
mind was not right.
The body of Mrs. Slaughter was removed to the Haley mortuary. All the clothing had been burned away
excepting her stockings. Burns extended from her ankles to the top of her head. Flesh on her face was literally
roasted.
The family consisted of the parents and seven children ranging in ages from 16 to two years, the oldest being
a daughter, Hazel.
Mrs. Slaughter was a daughter of Mrs. Lou Flowers ((Louisa (Satterwhite) Flowers)), widow of Charles
((Lee)) Flowers, who lives on a farm near Frankford ((Pike County, Missouri)). She was born there on Jan. 9,
1901.
Services were conducted in the chapel of the Haley mortuary at 2:30 o'clock Thursday ((October 31, 1935))
afternoon and interment was had in the Billy Joe Wright cemetery near McCune station today.
More About CHATTIE MARIE FLOWERS:
Burial: Wright Cemetery, Frankfort, Missouri
Census: 1910, Peno Township, Pike Co., MO age 9
Death Certificate: Missouri #33654

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