Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Georgian

Tuesday, April 29^th, 1913

The little town of Marietta, Ga., where her baby eyes first opened upon the light of day scarcely fourteen years ago, will to-day witness the sorrowful funeral of Mary Phagan, the sweet young girl who was mysteriously murdered in the National Pencil Factory Saturday night and whose body was later found in the basement where it had been dragged by unknown hands.

The casket, accompanied by the girl’s stricken family—her mother and stepfather, her sister Ollie, 18 years old, and her three brothers, Ben, Charley and Josh, all young boys, left the Union Depot at 8:15 o’clock this morning. Reaching Marietta, it was met by throngs of Mary’s former playmates and friends bearing flowers to lay upon the young girl’s grave after they have looked for the last time upon her face.

Simple Service.

She will be laid to rest in a little old-fashioned cemetery where numerous relatives have preceded her, and her body lowered into the earth after a simple funeral service. It will be preached in the Second Baptist Church, which stands on the cemetery grounds, the officiating minister being Rev. Dr. Lincus, pastor of the East Point Christian Church, of which the dead girl’s mother is a member. Dr. Lincus will go direct from East Point to hold the service.

Besides the family, there were probably a dozen or more relatives and friends from Atlanta who will also go up to the funeral. In Marietta they were to meet relatives, gathered from several counties, where the news of the child’s tragic death has been wired.

The body will be taken to the station in a hearse by the undertakers in whose shop it has lain for the past two days, while thousands of people came to look upon it. The coffin will be of pure white, befitting the innocent of the young girl lying within it, and only a simple plate with the child’s name will appear on the top.

Throughout the day at the dead girl’s home callers have gone to express their sorrow over the tragedy and their willingness to be of whatever service they might to the family. The same word met them:

“There is nothing that anybody can do—we must only bear it!”

Mrs. Coleman Ill.

From the moment she received the news of her child’s death, Mrs. Coleman has been unable to leave the house. She has not even visited the undertaking pariors to see the body. It was not considered best for her in her weakened and nervous condition, caused by the shock of the murder. As it is, it is feared that she will break down at the funeral, and every care will be taken with her on the way to Marietta that she may be strong to face the ordeal. Although Mr. Coleman, the child’s stepfather, had only known Mary since his marriage to her mother a year ago, he seemed stricken with sorrow over her death, and in speaking of her to a Georgian reporter almost broke down in telling the simple arrangements that had been made for her burial.

Great bouquets of beautiful flowers have been sent to the home by friends all over Atlanta, and the dead girl’s bier at the undertaking shop was fragrant with masses of carnations and roses throughout Sunday and Monday. Hundreds of her boy and girl associates at the factory and friends of her neighborhood have gone to see her body. For, although she was such a young girl, she had made many acquaintances, and was widely loved.

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Atlanta Georgian, April 29th 1913, “Former Playmates Meet Girl’s Body at Marietta,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Georgian

Tuesday, April 29^th, 1913

Mother and Aunt of Mary Phagan Swoon at Burial in Marietta This Morning.

A thousand persons saw a minister of God raise his hands to heaven to-day and heard him call for divine justice.

Before his closed eyes was a little casket, its pure whiteness hid by the banks and banks of beautiful flowers.

Within the casket lay the bruised and mutilated body of Mary Phagan, the innocent young victim of one of Atlanta’s blackest and most bestial crimes.

The spirit of the terrible tragedy filled the air. An aunt of the strangled girl suddenly screamed, fell over in her seat and was carried from the church in a swoon from which she did not fully recover for hours.

The stricken mother collapsed and it was feared that her condition might become critical.

The scene was in the Second Baptist Church at Marietta, where Mary Phagan had lived when she was a child of only three or four years. An immense crowd was at the station when the funeral train arrived at 10 o’clock. Many of them were young people who had played about with the strangled victim when she had lived there years before.

Mother Collapses at Station.

Just as Mrs. W. J. Coleman, mother of Mary, was being helped into a cab, the pure white coffin was lifted from the car. Mrs. Coleman saw it and the single glance was sufficient to awake afresh the torrent of fearful memories.

She screamed and fell into the arms of her husband. It was some time before she could be taken to the church to witness the rites over her daughter whose life had been sacrificed to the brutality of some man.

“Nearer, My God, to Thee,” sang the choir when the little casket was borne into the church and carried forward, where it was covered with flowers.

Rev. T. T. Linkus, of the Christian Church at East Point, whose Sunday school Mary had attended in the earlier years of her laughing, happy childhood, was the minister.

“May God bring the man guilty of this terrible crime to justice,” was the supplication of the minister as he raised his hands above him.

“May God aid the officers of the law in detecting and bringing behind the bars such a man,” he continued.

Aunt Screams and Faints.

His words were interrupted first by the sobs of one member of the family and then by another. Miss Lissie Phagan, an aunt of the strangled girl, uttered a piercing scream. She was unconscious when those by her picked her up. She was taken home in a carriage and Dr. W. M. Kemp was called. He had great difficulty in reviving the grief-stricken woman.

W. J. Phagan, the girl’s aged grandfather, sat with his white head bowed in sorrow. The tears, ran down his furrowed cheeks unheeded. He was utterly broken and crushed by the calamity which had visited him and his family in his last years.

All the way from New York, where he was on board one of the United States battleships, came Benjamin Phagan to witness the tragic funeral of his innocent young sister. With him were his brothers, Joshua and Charles, and his sister, Ollie Phagan.

A sad procession moved to the little cemtery [sic] where the coffin was lowered into the grave that had been prepared. Mrs. Coleman collapsed again at the grave and it is greatly feared that she will be seriously affected by the ordeal through which she has passed.

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Atlanta Georgian, April 29th 1913, “Pastor Prays for Justice at Girl’s Funeral,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Georgian

Tuesday, April 29^th, 1913

Among all the hearts that are bowed down in sorrow over the murder of Mary Phagan, the 14-year-old factory child found dead in the National Pencil factory Saturday, there is none who feels the suffering and the anguish of the separation so keenly as her sister, Ollie, 18 years old, her companion since childhood.

For with her it is the suffering of youth, when the rose-veil of life has been lifted to show its tragic and terrible side in all its fullness for the first time. And it is all the more pitiful for her because it is the kind of suffering that brings to one that sense of despair and a later sadness that makes the whole world seem never quite the same again, no matter what happens. Something of its sweetness and joy has gone out to stay.

“Oh, I am so lonely without her,” the young girl told a Georgian reporter as the tears fell down her face unheeded. She was at her little home on Lindsay Street. “Mary and I were always together and we always told each other everything. We slept in the same bed at night; we had ever since we were little bit o’ kids; and we always talked after the lights went out. There wasn’t a thing that Mary wouldn’t tell me, and I would always advise her and tell her what I thought was right if little questions would come up between us. She was always such a good little thing, nobody could help loving her!”

She clasped and unclasped her hands in front of her as though she did not know what to do, and leaned upon the bureau as if she were tired.

“I Never Had But One Sister.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do—I haven’t got anybody now,” she said. “I never had but one sister, and she’s gone.”

Her voice choked and she could not go on for a time. When she did it was to speak of how she was in Marietta when the tragedy happened and how the news came home to her mother on Sunday morning. She had not been home to go to the poor little body in the undertakers’ parlors shortly after it was taken there.

“The first mother knew of it all was a little before 5 o’clock Sunday morning,” she said, her lips quivering. “A girl named Helen Ferguson who lives near here and who has a telephone, was called up by Grace Hicks, the girl who identified Mary’s body. Grace told her to come right on over and tell mother what had happened.

Saturday night when Mary hadn’t come home they had all been worried. Mary had said she was coming right back after the parade, but didn’t show up. Then somebody remembered she had said she had heard the show at the Bijou was good—some of the girls had told her—and she would like to go, but she wouldn’t go without she had some one to go with her. When she didn’t come home a little later they all though maybe she had found some of the girls anyway and gone, and so Mr. Coleman, her stepfather, went downtown to bring her home. He waited until the show was over and everybody had fled out of the theater, but Mary was not with the crowd. Mr. Coleman had returned home and found Mrs. Coleman and another woman, who had stayed with her while he had gone to town, still up and waiting for him. Then was when they decided that Mary had met up with her aunt from Marietta and gone home with her. She had intended going anyway Sunday.

“But I know Mary’s safe,” said Mrs. Coleman, and after a few minutes they all went to bed.

The Awful News.

When Helen Ferguson’s footsteps touched the front porch at 5 o’clock the sound waked her mother immediately.

“There’s Mary now!” Mrs. Coleman exclaimed as she sat up on the bed.

“No, it isn’t either,” declared Mr. Coleman. “I feel it’s news for us, and bad news.”

Mrs. Coleman went to the door.

“Mrs. Coleman,” said Miss Henderson [sic], “did you know that Mary had been killed?”

“Oh, it can’t be possible!” her mother sobbed. “What do you mean? I don’t understand you. Tell me how. Maybe you’re mistaken—maybe it isn’t Mary.”

But Miss Henderson [sic] said that Miss Hicks was positive in her identification.

And then Mr. Coleman came out and brought her mother in the house, she was crying so, and then as quickly as he could be dressed and went downtown to look at the body. There was no mistake. It was Mary.

Her voice was pitifully like a child’s when she had finished, as she asked The Georgian reporter if he thought the man would be captured.

“If they get him they ought to treat him just like he treated her,” she declared. “Oh, my poor little sister! He had no pity for her, and they oughtn’t to have any for him. Oh, God, I just feel as if I could die.”

She will attend the funeral of her sister in Marietta, going up with the family Tuesday. She was formerly employed at a downtown department store, but recently gave up her position. She is very pretty and attractive, slenderly built and resembles her sister to some extent, it is said.

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Atlanta Georgian, April 29th 1913, “‘I Feel as Though I Could Die,’ Sobs Mary Phagan’s Grief-Stricken Sister,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Georgian

Monday, April 28^th, 1913

“She was just a little, playful girl, without a bad thought in her mind, and she has been made the victim of the blackest crime that can be perpetuated,” was the bitter denunciation of the assailant of Mary Phagan by her uncle, D. R. Benton, yesterday.

Mary and her mother lived with Mr. Benton at his home near Marietta for several years following the death of Mr. Phagan. Then Mary’s mother married J. W. Coleman and the family moved from Marietta to East Point about 1907. Twelve months ago they moved to their little home in Atlanta.

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Atlanta Georgian, April 28th 1913, “Playful Girl With Not a Bad Thought,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)