Widow’s Grief Is Pitiful

PATHETIC SCENE AFTER LATE PRESIDENT’S BODY WAS TAKEN.
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Ladies with Mrs. McKinley Thought It Would Be Necessary to Bring It Back.

Special to “The Record.”
     Buffalo, N. Y., Sept. 15.[—]George Cortelyou, the secretary of the late President McKinley, was asked this afternoon if it were true as stated, that Mrs. McKinley had collapsed so completely as to necessitate the use of drugs, which had been continued up to to-day, rendering her unconscious of the death of her husband.
     “That is an infamous falsehood,” said Mr. Cortelyou. “Mrs. McKinley is fully conscious of the death of her husband. Her grief is very pathetic. To-day, when the President’s body was carried out, she broke down in a paroxysm of weeping, and these attacks have continued during the day.

PARTING WAS A GREAT SHOCK.

     “She realized keenly the departure of the President from her life when his body was taken away from the house to-day. Since then her grief has been terrible. It increases as the time comes for the conveyance of the President’s body to Canton, their home and the grave. She is bearing up under the blow better than we expected, but her grief is sad to witness.”
     Just before the funeral services in the house began Abner McKinley, Mrs. Hobart and Dr. Rixey assisted Mrs. McKinley into the room where the President’s body rested. The bereaved wife was left alone with her dead for half an hour. At the end of that time she was assisted upstairs again.

WANTED BODY BROUGHT BACK.

     The grief-stricken widow of the murdered President listened to Rev. Mr. Locke’s fervent prayer over her husband’s body from the top of the stairway connecting the first and the second floors of the Milburn house to-day. She consented to the removal of the body to the Buffalo City Hall to-day, but afterward her grief became so pathetic that the ladies with her thought it would be necessary to have it returned. She calmed down, however, during the afternoon and slept for a time.