While working on my paternal side a while back, I noticed a bunch of wiggling leaves when I was adding a few items to the profile of my 2nd Great Grandmother, Elizabeth (Epperson) Hodson. I was pleasantly surprised that a fellow Hodson family researcher had uploaded a copy of her obituary on the front page of the Joplin Daily Globe, which was published 4 Sep 1910.
Elizabeth was born 5 Apr 1858 to James Hamilton and Nancy Jane (Pyle) Epperson in Cedar County, Missouri. Elizabeth married John Benjamin Franklin Hodson on 15 Aug 1886 in Joplin, Jasper, Missouri. She was divorced from her first husband, James Cobb, with whom she had four children with. John and Elizabeth would add another four children to their family during their marriage of 24 years.
Since it was a bit hard to read, I have transcribed the obituary the best I could. I believe a word or two had been omitted in the 7th paragraph when it was printed. My Great Grandmother, Arulia Hodson (who I refer to as my doppleganger) is listed as “Ruhler” in the article.
DEATH OVERTAKES WOMAN WHILE SHE SINGS AT WORK
MRS. ELIZABETH HODSON, OF SMELTER HILL, DIES FROM PULMONARY APOPLEXY
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HAD NO WARNING
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Gaily singing a popular song while doing the family washing in the kitchen of her home on Smelter Hill yesterday morning at 8:30 o’ clock, Mrs. Elizabeth Hodson was suddenly attacked by a deadly hemorrhage of the lungs and bled to death in less than five minutes. She had not been sick since childhood and had never before had hemorrhages. At the coroner’s inquest held yesterday afternoon at 3 o’clock a verdict of death from pulmonary apoplexy was rendered.
Had Never Been Ill
Mrs. Hodson, who was 52 years old, weighed almost 200 pounds and has al-
ways been exceptionally healthy for a woman of her age. Yesterday morning at about 7:20 O’clock she arose and after cooking the breakfast began doing the family washing in a large tub in the little kitchen of their home on Smelter Hill, just west of the Ino Mine. Her little children were playing in the backyard and no one was in the room with her. Suddenly she was seized with a violent fit of coughing
and before many second elapsed she began to cough up blood. Frightened by this, she called to her children in the back yard and ran out on the back porch screaming that she had a hemorrhage. The children were frightened at the sight of the blood, which was now gushing in a large stream from their mother’s mouth, and ran to tell the neighbors. Mrs. Hodson finally became exhausted from the lost of blood and ran into the sat down on the floor and slowly bled to death.
Help Is Too Late
Three or four minutes before her death Mrs. N. Pickett and Mrs. Simpson
arrived at the house, having been told of their mother’s injury by the children. The dying woman, who was unable to talk, motioned in Mrs. Pickett to come around behind her and hold her head up to stop the flow of blood. This she did and propped up in the woman’s arms Mrs. Hodson died. Her husband, who was working in the mines, was notified of his wife’s death and hurried to the house.
The body was removed to the morgue of the Huribut Undertaking Company.
Mrs. Hodson was born in Jasper county and had lived here practically all her
life, being the oldest settled of Smelter Hill. She is survived by her hus-
band, Frank Hodson, three daughters, Mrs. Effie Crowapian, No 202 Virginia
Avenue, Ruhler, aged 10 years and Hazel, 9 years old, and one boy, Hodson,
who is 13 years old. The funeral services will be held Monday afternoon at 2:30 o’clock from the residence on Smelter Hill. Interment will be in Fairview cemetery.