This is a long lost and forgotten tragedy from my family’s immigrant past. (My 84 year old mother had never heard of it.) The story was remarkably told in the local newspaper, which I found to my our despair.
Michael O’Keefe’s Deed Discovered When Nephew Finds Revolver July 2, 1912 The Providence Daily Journal
“See what I found in Uncle Michael’s room,” exclaimed 11 year-old James O’Keefe, to his father, Daniel (my great-grandfather), as he ran into the sitting room of the O’Keefe’s home, 106 Pleasant Street, shortly after 9 o’clock last evening and handed his father a revolver.
Startled, Mr. O’Keefe sprang from his chair, and with his wife (my great grandmother) hurried to his brother’s room. Michael O’Keefe lay stretched on the bed, motionless and apparently lifeless. His brother could see no evidence of a wound on the body, but he immediately notified Lieut. H. D. Robbie of the Chalkstone Avenue station. The latter, after calling an ambulance, hurried to the house in the patrol wagon.
The surgeon accompanying the ambulance from the Rhode Island Hospital needed but a glance to see that Michael O’Keefe was dead and said the man had been dead probably several hours. Medical Examiner Clifford H. Griffin, who was called, found that a bullet from the revolver found on the floor by James O’Keefe has penetrated Michael O’Keefe’s heart. Dt. Griffin thought that death was probably instantaneous.
Michael O’Keefe was 24 years of age and a blacksmith by occupation. He had not been working for about a week owing to an injury to one hand. He remarked to a brother-in-law yesterday that he was discouraged and would “end it all,” but little heed was paid to him, as it was thought he was joking.
The young man boarded with his brother Daniel. He reached home between 5 and 6 o’clock yesterday afternoon and as he walked through the kitchen on the way to his room his sister-in-law said she would have supper ready for him in a short time.
A few minutes later Mrs. O’Keefe heard a pistol shot, but pain no attention to it, as boys in the neighborhood have been starting their celebration of the Fourth (of July) by letting off powder crackers and cap pistols.
Even when supper was ready and Michael did not appear, little attention was paid to the fact, for the other members of the family thought he had fallen asleep and did not care to disturb him. It was not until Michael O’Keefe’s nephew, James, who slept with him, went to the room to go to bed and found the revolver that the discovery was made. The shot heard by Mrs. O’Keefe was probably the one fired by the young man almost as soon as he entered his room after reaching the house.
-reporter unnamed.
Visiting the Relatives 