Charles Elsken, son of Gerhard Elsken (Ilskens) and second wife Theodora, is the subject of another tragic story in the Elsken family history. Charles' tombstone lists his birth in 1870. The church records in Illinois give the birth year as 1869.
This article from the Arkansas Echo article, 1903, was translated from the German by Al Clausen.
Three deaths to report
On the first of September, Catherine Schenider died suddenly
of a heart attack. Healthy, happy and cheerful in the evening, she was found
dead in bed the next morning. Under these circumstances, the grief was all the
greater because her husband, E. Schneider, was absent, being in St. Louis to
make purchases for his business. Mrs. Schneider was a good, hardworking lady
and the family will feel her loss very keenly.
On the same day that Mrs. Schneider was buried, Adolf
Schmalz, still a comparatively young farmer, took sick and within three days,
he was a corpse. He died of intestinal inflammation.
On the 20th of September, we had the third death in the
person of Charles Elsken, a brother of Conrad and Henry Elsken. The deceased
was a robust man of 35 years age. His sickness originally was only a sore leg,
which however, became worse from day to day until finally the pain became very
great and a high fever ensued.
Fully two weeks passed before the exact character of the
sickness was known. Finally it was determined that a substantial quantity of
material had accumulated which doctors tried to remove in two operations. But
it was too late because blood poisoning set in before the operations. As a
result, his condition became worse day by day. Cardiac activity became weak and
the end was not to be avoided. The deceased was a frank, good citizen and he
died as he had lived.
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