Hannah Peck was a fine, round, motherly type. Health shone in her smiling eyes. But after two weeks of visiting her loving daughter and her impeccable son-in-law, she sickened and died of what was diagnosed as "kidney complaint."
Dr. Waite inconsolable, but, even in his grief, he thought only of others. He handled all arrangements for embalming the body in New York and transporting it to Grand Rapids. He lifted every burden from the stricken family, traveling personally with the body from Grand Rapids io Detroit where the cremation—which had been announced as Mrs. Peck's final wish—was performed.
Mr. John E. Peck, Clara's father. was 72 but was erect and sturdy, with clear eyes and springy step. It was natural though, as Dr. Waite explained to his wife, that the old gentleman's spirits and perhaps his health might suffer if he didn't get away for a time from the home which reminded him so vividly of his great loss. So Father Peck was invited to New York.
And there, after complaining of severe stomach pains, he died of "complications following a heavy cold."
Once more the grieving doctor shouldered the family responsibilities, arranged for the embalming, and. vith his wife on his arm and th casket in the baggage car, arrived m Grand Rapids, prepared to go through—a second time in six weeks—the sad business of ing the body of one of his wife's parents to the crematory in Detroit.
The funeral was duly held. The will—altered after the mother's death te give the entire fortune in aqua shares to Mrs. Waite and her brother Percy—was read. Dr. Waite solicitous, was about to the body on his grim journey to Detroit. He was in the act of placing a photograph of his wife and a small flower—his own sentimental iribute—in the coffin before the final closing, when a Western Union be; handed brother-in-law Peck this Michigan. We are both of opinion that the body of Mr. Peck contains arsenic enough to kill ten men. But of course there is always the possibility that the poison was in the embalming fluid."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.