Los Angeles herald., 1908-11-01
ENDS Her LIFE
WITH REVOLVER
WELL KNOWN ARTIST FOUND
DEAD IN BED
Mrs. Douglas, Aged Only Twenty-four,
Previously Had Offered Her
Remains for Purposes
of Dissection.

The victim of her own extremely
nervous temperament, Mrs. Helen
Southerland Douglas, aged "a years,
an artist of no little note, was found
dead in her bed, with a revolver by
her side, at her temporary apartments
in the Acacia hotel 70S West Sixth
street, early yesterday morning.
That she had intended to kill herself
is evident from the fact that she wished
her body to be given to local med
ical college.
The bullet entered the throat. just
beneath the chin, and penetrated the
brain. The reason for the taking OF
her own life is not positively known,
| but friends of the deceased say that
she had been in low spirits ever since
she received news from her admirer,
Bob Weston, a business man of Tuc-
son, Ariz., that on account of financial
troubles he would be compelled to
postpone their wedding plans indeft-
nitely Her married life with her hus-
| band, Jack Douglas, who is employed
by a grocery house in San Francisco,
| is said to have been most unhappy,
and she was expecting to obtain
divorce
The dead woman was found lying
| on her back with the bed clothes bound
around her. as if she had endeavored
when she fired the fatal shot.
! Friday night she had gone to ball
at the home of her friend, Miss Nettie
| Glazebrook, at the Beresford hotel on
Eleventh and Hope streets, and ap-
peared to be one of the gayest of the
dancers.
| A sheet of paper was found on the
| dresser in her room which gave the
address of her mother, Mrs. j. M.
| nTnainn cfr
| Pasadena. Beside this slip of paper
was a sealed envelope addressed to
DIR, George Kress, 731 Buena Vista
street, in which it is believed she Of
fered her body to the medical college.
Mrs. Douglas was a trained nurse,
having been graduated from the Cali
fornia hospital, but in Los Angeles she
had been unable to secure employment.
| Wednesday she went to the office of
DIR. Kress and offered her body to the
u. S. c. institute if DR. Kress would
relieve her from present financial en-
| barrassment which offer the physician
| refused. However, she told him that
when she died she wanted the college
| to take her body and use it for dis
secting purposes for the advancement
! of science.
Mrs. Douglas grandparents in, Pasa-
| dena are we'll to do and had invited
her to live with them, but she pre-
ferred her independence.
my daughter was often unhappy,
| said Mrs. Browning, "and was subject
to hysteria, or extreme nervousness.
AT times she seemed happy almost to
madness, and at other times she was
| in the depths of despair. Some time
ago she read an article in a paper ex-
tolllng as public benefactors those who
bequeath their remains to medical
/ students, and she said she would re-
member it."
Besides being q trained nurse Mrs.
Douglas was an artist. being, in par
ticular, an adept at painting desert
scenes. She was a beautiful woman,
was possessed of many accomplish
ments and was in apparent good
| health.
Mrs. Douglas came to Los Angeles
last Wednesday, bent on securing en-
ployment, but in this she was unsuc-
ceSSful.