00:00Today is Mary Fagan's birthday. Mother tells of party she planned, Atlanta.
00:04Georgian Sunday, June 1st, 1913.
00:07Parents intended to give child happy surprise, now they will strew flowers on her grave in Marietta Churchyard.
00:12By Mignon Hall.
00:13This will be the saddest Sunday with Mary Fagan's family since that fatal Sunday just five weeks ago,
00:18when the little girl's body was found hidden away in the basement of the National Pencil Factory.
00:23For today is Mary's birthday, and it had been planned by her mother and stepfather, Mr. and Mrs. W.J.
00:28Coleman,
00:29that they would give her a party.
00:31If she had lived, it would have been celebrated last night in her little home on Lindsay Street,
00:35where she had spent the past fifteen months of her life.
00:38Instead of that, there is a shadow over the household,
00:41and she was spoken of with an ache in the throat and tears.
00:44Where last night would have been so happy for Mary, there was silence,
00:48and today the family expects to go to Marietta to weep above the little mound where she rests
00:52and lay flowers on the grave, was to have been a surprise.
00:56Mary's birthday party, Mrs. Coleman said, was to have been a surprise,
01:00and as she told of it Saturday morning over the ironing board, spoke of her other childish birthdays,
01:05the things Mary said and did, and all the tender little recollections of her a mother's heart holds dear,
01:11her voice choked with sobs so that she could scarcely speak.
01:14It would have been the child's first party, she said simply.
01:18The poor little thing never had had much in her life she had to work so hard.
01:22It was Mr. Coleman's idea.
01:24He thought it would be nice for her.
01:26He was like a father to her anyway, and the only one she had ever known.
01:29Her own father died before she was born.
01:32We were going to have about twenty-five of the young folks and serve them ice cream and cake and
01:37fruit,
01:37and now the mother's lips twitched and her hands trembled as she straightened out the white waste
01:42and ran the iron across it, mother broken-hearted.
01:45Seems just like I can't get over it, she said.
01:47I can hold up pretty well for a while, and then it seems I just have to cry it all
01:51out.
01:51I know that all the tears in the world won't help things, but I just don't seem able to do
01:55anything else.
01:57I just dread supper tonight.
01:59Poor little Mary, Mr. Coleman, was going to give her a bracelet for her birthday.
02:02She said that Mary had always been so happy over her birthdays, and she never forgot one of them,
02:10even those when she was a little girl.
02:12I used to cook a little something extra for her, Mrs. Coleman said,
02:16and she would be satisfied, for she was always easy to please, the least little thing made her happy,
02:21and we'd have such a good time together.
02:24Most of her life Mary had lived in the country, her mother said, and she had always worked,
02:28for Mrs. Fagan was a widow, and there were four children besides Mary.
02:32The family had first lived six miles from Marietta on a farm, and then later in Alabama,
02:37till they moved here a few months ago, when Mrs. Fagan married Mr. Coleman.
02:42I will never forget Mary's birthday three years ago, Mrs. Coleman said.
02:46Her sister Ollie gave her a little locket with a little bit of a heart on it.
02:49It was pretty, and Mary took a spell over it and wore it all the time,
02:53till she bought another one day just before she got killed.
02:56I think the child paid a dollar or two for it, but just like she was about everything she had,
03:01she thought it was the nicest thing in the world.
03:03She never envied other girls.
03:06Longs for slain child.
03:08Mrs. Coleman dropped down in the chair, her hands listless in her lap.
03:12You don't know, she cried to the reporter.
03:14It seems to get lonesomer and lonesomer without Mary.
03:18It was a few minutes before she could speak again,
03:20and then it was to tell of how the days went without the child.
03:23It seemed, she said, like she just couldn't remember that Mary was dead.
03:27Sometimes when she would be cooking in the kitchen, she would be expecting her,
03:30and two or three mornings she had called her when it was time for her to get up.
03:35It's so quiet in the house, she said.
03:38Mary was always laughing and talking, telling what she had done and what she was going to do and all
03:42that.
03:43Me and the children are just like we're dead without her.
03:46Mary always used to carry my picture in her locket.
03:48She was a good child to me.
03:50I remember so well how she looked the day she was born.
03:53It was the first day of June she came.
03:54She had right black curly hair and the same smile she grew up with.
03:58I never will forget that smile.
04:00I used to see it the last thing every morning when she went to work.
04:04I never could to see her going off to the car without I watched her.
04:07Especially cold mornings, when I thought she might have to wait.
04:11I used to stand out there in the street with my arms hugged up,
04:14almost freezing till I saw her get on.
04:16I couldn't be satisfied without I did that, seemed like.
04:19Slain girls last week.
04:21And then Mrs. Coleman told of the last week before Mary had been killed.
04:24The child had mentioned her birthday several times.
04:27She was not at work in the factory and had helped around the house.
04:30She had baked her first biscuit one day as a surprise to her mother.
04:34I was always so proud of the child.
04:36Maybe I was too proud.
04:37Mrs. Coleman.
04:38I used to look at her when she was a little playful girl before she had to go to work
04:42out.
04:42And I used to think I was the happiest mother in the world.
04:45She wasn't much more than a playful little girl when she got killed.
04:48I'll show you just what size she was.
04:51Wait.
04:51And she went into the other room and brought back a short blue dress with white embroidered
04:56collar and cuffs.
04:57Mary always looked well no matter what she had on, she declared with moist eyes,
05:01as she held up the dress and took in its tender curves that would never again hold the little body.
05:07The neighbors used to say if she put on a toe sack she'd look just like a morning glory.
05:11Mrs. Coleman said she hoped someday to erect a stone over Mary's grave.
05:15They were too poor to do it now, though, and they would have to wait, she said.
05:19What they would get she did not know but something simple and sweet like Mary was.
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