The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-12-12
SAN FRANCISCO SHOCKED
TRAGIC DEATH OF TWO WOMEN
 WE'LL KNOWN IN SOCIETY. ,

Her Mothers Death-The Latter Well Known Throughout the Country and
 Relative of Colonel IngersolI-Thousands
 View the Bodies.
 San Francisco, Dec. 11,-Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper and her daughter Hattie were found dead in bed at their home this morning, having been asphyxiated by gas. For over a year Miss Cooper had been known to her friends to be insane. Her insanity was melanchola, with suicidal tendencies. The excite ment of the Brown trial had a great deal to do with making her condition worse. Within the last three months she had begged her mother time and again to let her turn on the gas and Let us go away together"
 In the opinion of the doctor who was summoned after the bodies were dis covered, Miss Cooper arose quietly dur ing the night and closed all the doors, turned on the gas and then returned to her bed to die. Her body lay per fectly arranged when found The body of Mrs. Cooper, however, was half out of bed and showed that she had awak- ened and sought to save herself, but had been too far overcome by the gas.
 Mrs Cooper was president of the Kindergarten association, and her daughter was deputy superintendent. Mrs. Cooper was widely known as an educator phlanthropist and writer. She was president of the Women's Press association, president of the Wo- mems Suffrage association, and promi- nent as an officer of the Women's Christian Temperance union.
 For many years she taught the lar gest Bible class in the city in the First Congregational church, her class num- bering several hundred adults. She was also assistant pastor of the church under the pastorate of Rev. C. c. Brown When the scandal concerning Dr. Brown was first talked about, Mrs. Cooper stood by her pastor. Later she and her daughter became his most prominent opponents and accusers af- ter Mrs. Davidson.
 The news of the tragedy caused great sensation here.
 Mrs. Cooper and her daughter had been prominently connected with all charitable movements, not only in this city, but the country at large, and the distressing circumstances surrounding their sudden taking off have caused the most profound grief among all classes of society
 .Dr. Sidney Worth, the Cooper family physician this evening stated that on two occasions within the past few months Miss Cooper attempted to take her own life and that of her mother by turning on the gas On both occasions Mrs. Cooper restrained her only after struggle. Knowing the danger to which she was constantly subjected, the heroic woman refused to be separ ated from her daughter, remaining by her side every hour for days and weeks at a time. Last evening Miss Cooper seemed unusually depressed. Within the hearing of the Chinese servant she remarked to her mother: 'I am tired of life; I want to join father, and l want you to go with me"
 Mrs. Cooper had been accustomed to hearing such words from the invalid, and paid little attention to them, dis missing the subject with g. brief reproof to her daughter on the wickedness of self-destruction The two women retir- ed at the usual hour. This morning the Chinese servant knocked at their door and announced that breakfast was ready. Getting no response, he opened the door and was almost overpowered by the smell of gas. He went to the bedside and shook Mrs Cooper, and was mortified to find her body cold and rigid. He then hurried out of the house and alarmed the neighbors. The house rapidly filled with horror stricken friends Thousands of San Franciscos S most prominent and respected citizens have passed through the doors of the Vallejo street residence, and with tear dimmed eyes gazed upon the faces of the dead.
 It Is said that insanity is hereditary in the fathers family, several members of which have succumbed to suicidal mania. From that hour the young wo- nan believed herself doomed and con- stantly brooded on self-destruction. In vain her mother reasoned with her Finding her efforts in vain, Mrs. Coop CT wrote her will, and she awaited the inevitable The will bequeaths all the property of the testator to her two sis ters, Mrs J. A. Skilton of Brooklyn N Y. and Mrs R. M. Rawlings of East Lake, Tenn.
 Mrs. Sarah B. Cooper was born at Cazenovia, N. T., siXty-one years ago. The Ingersoll family, of which she was a member and which includes Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll, Mrs. Cooper's cousin, is well known and highly re- spected in New York state, and Mrs. Cooper in 1852 went to Chattanooga, Tenn, where she married Halsey Fen nimore Cooper, who was then publish ing the Chattanooga Advertiser.
 In 1869 MT. and Mrs. Cooper, with their daughter Hattie, removed to San Francisco. After time MT Cooper became broken in health, and on De cember 6, eleven years ago, he died by his own hand.
 In 1894 Mrs. Cooper was elected treas 11rer of the Worlds Federation of Wo- mems Clubs.
 Perhaps no more fitting obituary of Mrs. Cooper could be written than that penned by Colonel Ingersoll, who in presenting Mrs. Cooper with copy of his books attacking the religion of the churches, inscribed on a fiy-leaf the following:
 "If all Christians were like my cousin Sarah this book would never have been written