Mabel Moore stared out the window of her St. Louis hotel room, watching the people pass by on the street below.
There were so many of them that looked so happy. Every time she saw someone smile, it hurt her a little. Mabel wasn’t sure if she would ever be happy again.
Standing, she turned and began to pace the room. How had she gotten herself in this mess?
She had met Arthur Moore when she was younger in Billings, Missouri, but hadn’t seen him in years. Then, six months ago, she had run into him again at her new home in Springfield in early 1912.
He had started courting her then, trying to be charming and sweet. Mabel honestly hadn’t ever really liked him, but for reasons that she had never quite understood had kept seeing him. She never expected anything serious to come from it, and she couldn’t really see the harm from a little playful courting.
When it was time for her to come home, Mabel had left and the two had happily gone their separate ways.
Then, three months later, she was visiting a friend in nearby St. Louis. Much to Mabel’s surprise, Arthur had shown up wanting to see her. They resumed their playful courtship, and he began teasing her about getting married.
She was old enough to get married; she was twenty-one after all. But she didn’t really want to marry him. But Arthur persisted.
He told her that it would be fun; it wouldn’t really be for real, it would just be a joke. Finally, after a few days of his constant badgering, Mabel agreed.
They had a small ceremony with a local minster. Just like three months prior, Mabel returned to her parent’s home in Springfield like nothing had ever happened. Arthur didn’t come back with her and went his own separate way.
Still, it nagged at her for weeks. It seemed almost like a dream. Somedays she questioned if it had even happened at all.
When Arthur showed up at her house in Springfield the previous Tuesday, she knew that it had been real. Reluctantly, Mabel agreed to see him.
Arthur told her that he wanted her to go to St. Louis with him. She told him that she didn’t want to go, but he kept insisting. He told Mabel that he had been doing well for himself.
Arthur explained that he had been working as a car salesman and was making about $200 a month, roughly equivalent to just under $6400 in today’s currency. He said that he had a nice car and had already put a good amount of his earnings in a growing bank account. It would be more than enough to sustain the two of them in a comfortable lifestyle.
It all sounded good enough, Mabel had thought. And they were married, at least she thought that they were. With a sigh, she agreed to go with him.
The next day, she boarded a train and made the trip to St. Louis. The couple stayed at the Moser Hotel in the downtown part of the city. It didn’t take long for Mabel to find out that everything that Arthur had told her had been a lie.
Chris wasn’t a salesman; he was a mechanic bringing in half of what he said he did. There was no fancy car or big bank account. All the dreams that Mabel had built up in her head to talk herself into coming to St. Louis in the first place were shattered.
On Friday morning, Arthur told her that he wanted the two of them to go to Chicago. But this time Mabel defied him. She was tired of his lies. She didn’t care if he was her husband or not, she wasn’t going to follow him blindly around the country as he fed her one lie after another.
Mabel told Arthur that she wasn’t going, and that she just wanted to go home. He got angry, and the two had a huge argument. He tried his best to get her to concede to his demands again, but Mabel wouldn’t give in.
Finally, Arthur packed up his suitcase and left. Mabel was stranded there. She had no money, no food; he had even taken most of her clothes in the suitcase.
Mabel didn’t know what to do. She had spent the rest of the day in her room, trying to figure a way out of her situation. By noon she was hungry, so she begged one of the hotel maids for 30 cents. The maid felt sorry for her and gave it to her. In 1912, it was enough to buy her a meal, but little else.
By that night, Mabel had concluded that there was only one way out of her predicament: she would have to take her own life.
Approaching one of the hotel bellboys, she asked to borrow a dime. They readily gave it to her.
Leaving the hotel, Mabel went to a nearby drugstore and asked for a bottle of chloroform.
Chloroform was a commonly used form of anesthesia in the early part of the 20th century. The usual method for administering it was to pour some of it onto a either a cloth or a sponge, then hold it over the patient’s mouth and nose so that they inhaled the vapors from the chemical.
The drug would render the patient unconscious, allowing the doctor to perform whatever procedure was needed. However, if the cloth was left in place for too long, the chloroform could very easily paralyze the patient’s respiratory system and cause them to suffocate.
It took a great degree of training and skill to learn how to give just the right dose, and several patients had died this way. Deaths from chloroform poisoning received a lot of publicity, which allowed the side effects of the drug to be widely known.
Mabel might not have known the particulars of how the drug killed, but she did know that it would.
Walking back to the hotel, she went up to her room and began to write a letter to her mother, explaining everything. When Mabel was finished, she put it in an envelope and took it to the front desk, asking the clerk to send it out the next morning. Thanking him, Mabel left.
The clerk, Charles Swinney, felt that something was off about her request. He wasn’t sure exactly what, but he knew that it wasn’t anything good. As soon as she was out of sight, Swinney called the local police.
A short time later two patrolmen arrived and went to Mabel’s room. They knocked but received no answer. There was a strong chemical smell coming from inside. They tried the door, but it was locked.
Stopping a bellboy, the officers told him to go through one of the adjoining rooms, climb onto the fire escape, and get inside Mabel’s room through the window. He immediately did as he was told.
There, on the bed, was Mabel, a chloroform-soaked rag still over her mouth. The bellboy let the police inside, and they took her to St. Louis City Hospital. After two hours, doctors were finally able to revive her.
The hospital contacted Mabel’s parents, Willis and Eva Piersoll, in Springfield. They left on the next available train.
Once they confirmed that their daughter was okay, Willis talked to police about what had happened.
He explained that Mabel was his oldest daughter, and that her health could be fragile at times. She also had a very nervous disposition, which meant that her mental health could also be delicate.
When asked about Moore, Willis explained that they had first met Moore several years before when they were living in Billings, Missouri. Moore had showed a keen interest in seeing Mabel then, but Willis made it very clear to him that he didn’t approve. At the time, Moore had been twenty-four and Mabel had just turned fourteen.
Eventually, Moore went his own way and Willis considered the issue resolved.
He had no idea that Moore had been talking with Mabel in Kansas City, let alone that they had gotten married.
Willis hadn’t seen him until the previous Tuesday when Arthur had stopped by the house. He said that he was on his way to Chicago and wanted to see Mabel. While talking to Willis, Arthur said that he would regret treating him so badly. He was going to marry Mabel no matter what Willis or Eva said, and he would find a way to get back at them for their mistreatment.
Willis told them that he had no idea that Mabel had gone to St. Louis to meet Arthur. He and Eva knew that she had left town but had assumed that she had gone to visit her aunt and uncle in Kansas City. They had invited Mabel to go with them on a trip to California, but she had never said if she was going or not.
When she had left, it seemed like she had made up her mind and left. Mabel was of age and was more than capable of making her own decisions.
Willis believed that everything that had transpired in St. Louis was Arthur’s way of getting revenge. Police seemed to agree and began to look to him.
Unfortunately, they were never able to find him.
However, Mabel was able to make a full recovery. She came away healthy and a little wiser. A few years later she re-married and lived a long and full life.
Sources
Girl, Deserted by Chicagoan, Tries Suicide in St. Louis. Chicago Tribune, 8/31/1912 p. 5
Deserted By Man, Mabel Piersoll Attempts Life. The Springfield News-Leader, 8/31/1912
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/205813279/willis-roy-piersol
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/39184157/mabel-vasca-metcalfe
Dr. Willis R. Piersol. Springfield Leader and Press,1/29/1951
Editors, History.com. Ether and Chloroform. History.com.