Failing

Mrs. McKinley Mourning Her Life Away.
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For Hours the Distressed Widow Sits Grieving Beside the Tomb of Her
Murdered Husband—Fears That She May Not Survive the Winter.

     CINCINNATI, O., Dec. 10—The visit of Mr. and Mrs. Chas. G. Dawes to Mrs. McKinley at her home in Canton is thought here to be significant. Reports from Canton, while exceedingly guarded, are to the effect that the condition of Mrs. McKinley is regarded with great anxiety by the family and close friends.
     It is generally understood that Mrs. McKinley never fully recovered from the effect of her experience on her California trip and her illness in San Francisco. Then came the shock of her husband’s tragic end. While she appeared to endure this shock fairly well, it has developed since that the heart-breaking strain made serious inroads on her physical and mental strength. In fact it is regretfully admitted by those near to Mrs. McKinley that both mind and body have been seriously undermined, and that there are signs that seem to indicate she is failing rapidly.
     One of the unfavorable symptons [sic] of Mrs. McKinley’s case is her mental condition. She mourns constantly for her husband, and can think or talk of no other subject. The holiday season has always been a time for gayety with the McKinleys, but is understood that Mrs. McKinley feels her bereavement so poignantly that she has told her relatives she has no heart to participate in any Christmas festivities. It is said that she has even asked to be left alone in complete solitude in her room on Christmas day.
     Another fact shows how keenly Mrs. McKinley feels her bereavement, and how constantly it occupies her mind. It has repeatedly happened since the funeral that on pleasant days she has had a rocking chair taken to her husband’s tomb. There, accompanied by a nurse or a friend, she has sat for hours beside the tomb, plunged in grief and a prey to the deepest melancholy.
     In the last two weeks this tendency to melancholy has grown more marked, and Mrs. McKinley’s condition has become a source of anxiety io [sic] her friends at Canton and to those who have gone to see her from other parts of the state. So keen has the anxiety become that a systematic effort will now be made to interest her in the things about her, and to take her mind away from the one subject that absorbs her thoughts in all her waking hours.
     It was undoubtedly in pursuance of this plan that ex-Comptroller Dawes and his wife were summoned from Evanston, Ill., to make her a visit at her home in Canton. As is generally known, Mr. and Mrs. Dawes were the closest friends Mr. and Mrs. McKinley had in Washington. Mr. Dawes was not only a member of the late President’s official family, but almost a member of his household. On this account, doubtless, it is expected that the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Dawes at this time will be both acceptable and beneficial.
     Reports from Canton go so far as to indicate that unless there is an improvement in Mrs. McKinley’s condition there is grave fear she will not live through the winter. If it is found possible to divert her mind in some measure and to rouse her from her state of absorbing grief and melancholy, the mental respite, it is believed, will have a beneficial effect upon her physical health. Unless this can be done and her mind relieved in some degree of its load of grief those nearest and dearest to her fear the strain will prove too great for her to bear.
     Mr. and Mrs. Dawes are the first of a number of close acquaintances who will visit Mrs. McKinley and make a determined effort to distract her attention from her grief and inject a ray of sunshine into her melancholy.