Ah, You Just Don't Get Headlines Like That Anymore

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I have a subscription to Newspapers, the online site that has thousands of old (and new!) newspapers in PDF format so you can browse them by keyword. I saw a discussion here about the proposal to dam the "American side" of Niagara Falls in order to repair the bridges that go to Goat Island (which is a gorgeous area in New York offering up-close views of all three falls [and if you've never been there, that water is stunning as it flows over the falls!]), which prompted me to look up a tragedy that occurred in 1912. An ice jam broke loose below the falls, taking three people down the rapids to their deaths. That prompted the outlawing of walking on the ice jams in the winter. (Yes, it really does get cold enough to freeze the Niagara River -- and even the falls -- there. Niagara Falls is just north of Buffalo, which is notorious for its brutal winters and snowfall measured in feet not inches.) All of that lead to a newspaper (the February 5, 1912 edition of the Pittsburgh Press) that had an article about the accident. But that's not what caught my eye; rather, the headline about another story. Here it is: "THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH," SAYS MRS. SUYDAM "I Found That One Cannot Break the Laws of God," Says Woman So I gotta read this. And I realized, after reading the article, that we just don't get newspaper headlines like that anymore. The "Mrs. Suydam" in the headline was Louise White Noble. She was married to New York millionaire Walter Suydam Jr. As it turns out, she was having a fling with a lowly Brooklyn plumber's apprentice named Frederick Noble. She asked for, and received, a divorce from her millionaire husband to marry the plumber. After a month, the newspaper said, they "soon found they had nothing in common." So what do you think they did (especially given the headline)? Yep. They committed suicide together. No bleeping. The newspaper reports said that the couple apparently was filled with remorse over the dissolution of the first marriage and the fact that the grass wasn't very green once they got to the other side of the fence, so they barricaded the doors to their apartment in Brooklyn, went into the kitchen (and barricaded that door, too), and turned the gas stove on. You're probably rolling on the ground, laughing at this, but please do remember that this was 1912. Things were very different then, including the opinion of divorce. It was shunned in those days, and the US didn't have drive-thru divorce courts where you can get fries and a large Frosty with your dissolution the way we do today. Now you only get headlines like that at the check-out line on the front of the National Enquirer! And it all started with a mention of Niagara Falls: