# The New York Times/1909/12/09/Mrs. Snead's Family Full Of Fatalities

Ocey Snead (1885-1909) in the New York Times on December 9, 1909.
Poison Mother Gave Killed Ocey Snead.
Family Apparently Pursued by a Strange Fatality for Many Years. Bathtub Victim Buried. Carried to the Grave Almost Un-mourned, with Her Mother Still in Hiding.
The family of Col. Robert M. Martin, whose only daughter, Mrs. Ocey W. M. Snead, the victim of the East Orange bathtub tragedy, who was buried yesterday in Mount Hope Cemetery, Westchester County, seems to have been followed by a strange fatality. It was learned yesterday that Mrs. Snead was not the only child of this family to meet a tragic death. There was a boy, the first child of Col. Martin, who, like the daughter, was born at 37 East Thirty-ninth Street this city. When he had reached the age of about 7 the boy had a fall down a long flight of steps, receiving severe injuries. Before many days brain fever set in, terminating in his death in two or three days. Some doubt has been expressed in reports from the South that Mrs. Snead was the daughter of Mrs. Martin because through all the recent trouble into which her mother and sister have been plunged, and even yesterday, when the young woman was buried practically unmourned, Mrs. Martin has remained under cover. A reporter for The Times, however, found positive evidence that she was Mrs. Martin's daughter, and that she was born in the East Thirty-ninth Street house, a few doors from Fifth Avenue. There was also found yesterday in West Eighty-third street, this city, a young woman who was at one time a pupil at the Nashville Female College, at Nashville, Tennessee, familiarly known as Dr. Price's school, in which Miss Virginia Wardlaw, the prisoner, was then teaching literature, and Mrs. Snead had charge of the gymnasium classes. This old-time pupil declared that the woman charged with murder was regarded by all the pupils as being queer. Two Letters Given Out. In the hope of offsetting such views Lawyer Fort, her counsel, gave out two letters yesterday from his client to her nephew, Fletcher Snead, husband of the dead girl. Miss Wardlaw and Mrs. Snead in April, 1908, were in Christiansburg, Virginia, where the latter was recovering from illness and the grief occasioned by the death of her first born. Mr. Fort's stand is that no woman who could write such letters would commit murder. In the first letter, dated April 28, 1908, she said:
   My Darling: I seed this line of deepest sympathy In Alberta grief over the loss of dear little Mary Alberta [the dead baby.] Al,. precious child: you have had a full cup of sorrow — but your brave heart bears up under It all. I would gladly comfort you for the little one's death, but brief like that Is healed only by the dear bather of all. But be assured Your tante ponders much over your life, your responsibilities and all the changes which have come to you. Stand fast. dear heart. Be true and faithful to your dear Mother. your devoted grand-mother, all the links of family life. I hope your next change will be to come to me and bring with you the others, and stop expense, live simply, and give our souls a chance to look upward.
This is the second letter:
   My Darling: What a flood tide of loving sympathy flows to you this beautiful Sabbath afternoon, which is radiant with sun-shine and cheerful with songbirds, butterflies and blossoming trees. I wish you could sit by me in the perfect quiet and enjoy the restful stillness, the nerve-soothing beauty and calmness. Precious darling! My heart aches to comfort you and help you. I would love to hold your dear head on my lap and run my fingers through your hair and so charm away brain worry Or heartache or tired spirit. May this little word of tenderness help you to understand that your mother's sister Is your own loving tante, true to you, dear heart, and longing to put some joy and sweetness into your life. May fortune or fate — or better still, the Providence before us — give us the satisfaction of being together and proving In a daily companionship the fidelity and loyalty of our hearts to each Other. Keep my place In your love ever open and warm, and love me always.
Under the searchlight turned on the Snead and Wardlaw families ever since the body of the girl was found. it became known yesterday that Fletcher Snead and the dead girl were secretly married in Louisville, Kentucky, about eighteen months before the public marriage on January 13, 1908, In Jersey City, just a month before the birth of their first child. According to authoritative Information, the first ceremony was performed by the Rev. Dr. Hodge of Louisville, and it is understood that the family has already taken steps to have a duplicate certificate of this marriage sent here for use at the trial. Following the funeral of young Mrs. Snead yesterday, her mother-in-law ex-pressed sorrow and resentment at the attitude of the public, as she conceived it, toward her family in this case. 'We have been cruelly treated,' she said. 'Our private affairs have been inquired Into. It is all terrible.' Dr. G. M. O'Malley of 289 Carrington Road, Brooklyn, added his testimony yesterday to the light already thrown on the Wardlaws while in that boroughs, saying that he was called to 262 East Twenty-eighth Street, Flatbush, on September 29 and 30 and October 1 and 2, 1908, to attend young Mrs. Snead, then ill with tonsillitis. Otherwise she was in good health. He said he ordered the blinds closed, because Mrs. Wardlaw had cataracts on her eyes. He though., this explained the closed blinds and drawn curtains, which caused the next house they lived in to be called 'The House of Mystery.' The funeral of Mrs. Snead consisted of a brief service in East Orange 'and the Lord's Prayer,' said by the East Orange Morgue keeper, Gustav Kunz, at the grave in Mount Hope Cemetery. Mrs. Snead, the mother-in-law, was the only mourner.