Person:Matilda Langen (2)

Dated March 17, 1883 Frozen to Death

A sad case of destitution says the Woodstock Free Press has been revealed through the exposure and death of Mrs. W. Downey, of Brighton. It appears that the family of W. Downey, consisting of a wife and four (or 5?) children, live about three miles back from the River St. John. Mr. Downey is working in the lumber woods on the Aroostook River. During the heavy storm of last Saturday Mrs. Downey came to Mr. Tedlie’s who lives beside the river, to procure some meal for her family. She started for home with the meal, and Mr. Tedlie’s folk supposed she had arrived there all right, and know nothing to the contrary until Monday afternoon, when one of the children came to Mr. Tedlie’s inquiring for the mother. Search was immediately made, and the poor unfortunate women was found lying across a fence and frozen to death with 100 rods of her home. She was very thinly clad, having no drawers on, while her underclothing was very scant and her dress only a thin calico one. The poor woman had evidently been too much exhausted to climb the fence, and had leaned over it and died. The case suggests grave reflections upon our present style of caring for the poor.