“Scandal mongers and tattlers” can sometimes cause more damage to people’s lives than a real tragedy. Take, for instance, the rumors surrounding the 1917 death of Michael Clover, a farmer from lower Belews Creek.
Clover, himself, started the rumor, when on his deathbed, he raised an allegation so shocking it stirred a physician’s soul to unrest.
In the dead of winter, on February 2, 1917, Clover, 63, lay ill in his bed with symptoms indicating he had pneumonia. His physician, Dr. J. H. Parker, was there, along with Fred Heidbrink, a neighboring farmer. His family also had been gathered round him in the room, until Clover asked them to leave him alone with the doctor. Heidbrink also remained.
Later, Parker shared what Clover said that day. “(He) told us that someone, he accused no one in particular, had put lye in a glass containing whiskey that he had been drinking from. He said he was going to die and asked that after his death that I perform an autopsy on his body and ascertain whether or not he was speaking the truth,” according to a Feb. 15, 1917, article in the Jefferson County Record that the late Della Lang included in her publication, Deaths from Jefferson County Newspapers 1866-1920 Book I.
Parker said Clover seemed sane at the time.
“I was with him an hour and neither heard him utter a delirious remark or saw him act in any manner other than a man well set who had absolute control of his mind,” Parker said.
Heidbrink, Clover’s good friend, had been there for several hours and he, too, saw nothing unusual in Clover’s behavior. The doctor said Clover did not have a high temperature and wasn’t under the influence of any drug, the Record article said.
Clover died, as he predicted, that Sunday.
The doctor was torn about what his next move should be.
“What were we to do? It was a grave and serious thing to tell what we had been told and a dangerous thing to conceal it,” Parker said. “Other than his dying word there was nothing to cause us to believe he had been poisoned … I could sign a death certificate with the cause as pneumonia with a clear conscience, knowing he had pneumonia,” according to the Record.
At first, the doctor and Heidbrink hesitated.
“But put yourself in our place for one moment, then tell me, would you decide in an hour whether you would arouse the entire country and practically accuse one of the finest families in the county of murder, or would you allow the burial to proceed unmolested and possibly conceal a terrible crime?” he asked.
Eventually, though, the decision was made to perform an autopsy, as Clover requested.
“(We were) hoping that it would prove that his death was caused by pneumonia alone and thus save the family of this awful stigma, and also save Mr. Heidbrink and myself from carrying through life the thought that possibly we had concealed a crime.”
The autopsy caused such rumors and scandal in the neighborhood that the doctor made a statement to the paper to set the record straight.
“There was a happy termination. A complete autopsy performed by Coroner Fallet, Dr. Luckey and myself with a chemical analysis of the stomach, showed Mr. Clover’s suspicion to be unfounded,” Parker said. “Mrs. (Agnes) Clover remains the estimable lady beyond reproach in the minds of right thinking people. We feel sorry for the family that this trouble came up affording such scandal mongers and tattlers a chance to get in their deadly work,” he said, according to the Record.
Michael Clover, born Oct. 2, 1853, died Feb. 4, 1917, at his home near Cedar Hill. He was survived by his wife, Agnes, and two sons, William and Walter Clover, and two grandsons. He was buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery.
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