The haunting title, rising from the pages of a newspaper over one hundred years old, was enough to send chills down the back. The brief summary of a life of morphine addiction, hopeless love, and final lonely desperation were touching. Gertie Nye, approximately 27, had taken a room at The Red Onion in Oklahoma City. She had apparently had a rocky life and had spent some time in the Insane Asylum at Norman, Oklahoma to take a cure for the morphine habit. So on a fall day she took a small room above a questionable business and October of 1902, she wrote a note to her dear love, "Jessie" expressing her deep and lasting friendship and sharing just how lonely she now was.
Beside the letter was a photo of "Gertie and Jessie" and on the back was the notation "To Nellie" and the note that Gertie was born Jan. 23, 1881 in Louisville, KY. She told Nellie, a friend or sister?, to learn from her mistakes and not make the same. Then she lay on the bed and took an overdose of morphine. The news article indicated her father John Nye lived in Guthrie, Oklahoma and she might have to be buried in a potter's field due to earlier family situations. They reported that the message had come from Guthrie about the girl having been 'enough trouble'.
A haunting story of someone's pain, loneliness and lack of connections with others that made their problems seem too great to bear. If you know someone, or have these feelings yourself, there are people who can help. One such place is National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Phone Number at 1-800-273-8255.
(Source: Weekly-Times Journal OKC), Oct. 31,1902, pg. 6).
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