Tuesday 29th April 1913 I Feel as Though I Could Die Sobs Mary Phagans Grief Stricken Sister

Tuesday, April 29th, 1913

Among all the hearts that are bowed down in sorrow over the murder of Mary Phagan, the 14-year-old factory child found dead in the National Pencil factory Saturday, there is none who feels the suffering and the anguish of the separation so keenly as her sister, Ollie, 18 years old, her companion since childhood.

For with her it is the suffering of youth, when the rose-veil of life has been lifted to show its tragic and terrible side in all its fullness for the first time. And it is all the more pitiful for her because it is the kind of suffering that brings to one that sense of despair and a later sadness that makes the whole world seem never quite the same again, no matter what happens. Something of its sweetness and joy has gone out to stay.

"Oh, I am so lonely without her," the young girl told a Georgian reporter as the tears fell down her face unheeded. She was at her little home on Lindsay Street. "Mary and I were always together and we always told each other everything. We slept in the same bed at night; we had ever since we were little bit o' kids; and we always talked after the lights went out. There wasn't a thing that Mary wouldn't tell me, and I would always advise her and tell her what I thought was right if little questions would come up between us. She was always such a good little thing, nobody could help loving her!"

She clasped and unclasped her hands in front of her as though she did not know what to do, and leaned upon the bureau as if she were tired.

"I Never Had But One Sister."

"I don't know what I'm going to do—I haven't got anybody now," she said. "I never had but one sister, and she's gone."

Her voice choked and she could not go on for a time. When she did it was to speak of how she was in Marietta when the tragedy happened and how the news came home to her mother on Sunday morning. She had not been home to go to the poor little body in the undertakers' parlors shortly after it was taken there.

"The first mother knew of it all was a little before 5 o'clock Sunday morning," she said, her lips quivering. "A girl named Helen Ferguson who lives near here and who has a telephone, was called up by Grace Hicks, the girl who identified Mary's body. Grace told her to come right on over and tell mother what had happened.

Saturday night when Mary hadn't come home they had all been worried. Mary had said she was coming right back after the parade, but didn't show up. Then somebody remembered she had said she had heard the show at the Bijou was good—some of the girls had told her—and she would like to go, but she wouldn't go without she had someone to go with her. When she didn't come home a little later they all though maybe she had found some of the girls anyway and gone, and so Mr. Coleman, her stepfather, went downtown to bring her home.