Alice Martha (Newman) Walser

arried Mr. Walser in about 1895. Alice M. Walser was a poet, spiritualist medium and lecturer. Sadly, according to author J. P. Moore, "a neurotic [depressive] and a drug addict," the eccentric Mrs. Walser ended her life in a Webb City hotel room by taking strychnine. Her unusual burial took place at midnight at the "Old Catalpa Park" some seventy feet from the northwest corner of the Walser residence next to the body of a woman said to have been a relative. Both bodies were exhumed in about 1940 for burial elsewhere, to make room for a coal mining operation. Of Alice, only a thigh bone and some hair remained; both were taken to the Liberal City Cemetery by the step-son of her brother and a man named Walter Snodgrass. (Her brother was an Albert Newman and his step-son was Allen Helms b. 2-14-1895 d. 10-1971) Information paraphrased from J. P. Moore's "This Strange Town--Liberal, Missouri" Both spouses seem to have fibbed about their ages on their marriage certificate: Groom G H Walser, Age 50 (born about 1845), residence in Liberal, Barton, Missouri Bride Martha A. Martin (fake name or name of former spouse?), Age 30 (born about 1865--no way!), residence in Fort Smith, Sebastian, Arkansas Married December 9, 1895 in Washington Count, Arkansas