Griffith - Icy May
Source: Akron, Ohioi Journal Fri 5 March 1915 p1
Crawfordsville, Ind March 5 – The pitiful prayers of two sisters, that they die on the same day have been answered. Icy May Griffith and Nellie Sylvia Griffith are dead, Friday. The Grim Reaper took both lives within two hours. Icy was 20 years old, Nellie 23. They had been sufferers from tuberculosis. There was no hope of a cure. They knew that death would sooner or later grasp them. They had been companions all through life, each sympathizing with the other in her sufferings. One did not want to live without the other. Day and night they prayed that when the end came both would go. The younger sister was the first to go. But the older one did not have to mourn long. She soon passed away. Both will be buried in the same grave.
(Note: They died at their parents’ home on Lane Avenue and are buried in Union Christan Church Cemetery in Newtown) Icy born 6 Feb 1895; Nellie born 12 March 1892 (both in Fountain County) but their tombstone (also together) says 1914 ☹
Source: Brownstown Jackson County Banner, Wed 3 March 1915 p 6
Crawfordsville – Icy May Griffith, 20 years old, and Nellie Sylvia Griffith, 23, sisters, died within two hours at their home her eof tuberculosis and complications. Their mother, two sisters and a brother survive.
Source: New Richmond Record 4 March 1915 p 1
Crawfordsville, Ind, Feb 25 – Funeral services for Miss Nellie Sylvia Griffith, age 23 and Miss Icy May Griffith, age 20, sisters, who died within two hours Wednesday were held from the First Baptist Church this afternoon at 2:30 the church auditorium being crowded with friends of the well known girls. An impressive service was conducted over the two caskets by Rev. BE Antrobus, pastor of the church and the caskets were borne to the hearses by 12 member of the Fidelity Club, an organization of girls of the Community House. Both Nellie and icy had been prominent in the activities of this club until their illness. On Friday morning the bodies will be taken to Newtown and will be laid to rest in one grave in a cemetery near that town. The double funeral and the burial in one grave seemed an act of Providence in answer to the repeated prayers of the afflicted girls. Realizing for weeks that their death was but a matter of time both have fervently prayed that they might die on the same day and that funeral services and burial of both might be held at the same time. This desire was prompted by the love felt by the girls for one another. On Wednesday at 11:30 when Icy died, her sister was unconscious in the next room. From that time until her death two hours later she did not recover consciousness and in her dying moments did not know that the prayer of herself and sister had been answered. The grief of Mrs. Margaret Griffith, mother of the girls, was pitiful. Deprived of her husband more than a year ago by the same affliction that caused the death of her daughters, Wednesday, Mrs. Griffith has been brought to a realization of the hopelessness of the girl’s fight for life. Their death coming within so short a time, however, proved such a shock to the mother that friends feared she would be unable to stand the ordeal. Wednesday afternoon she was nearly distracted with grief but today she had recovered sufficiently to be able to attend the sad scene at the church when the last words were spoke over her daughters’ bodies in the presence of a host of grieving friends. Mrs. Griffith is a sister of Job and George Westfall of New Richmond.
Source: New Richmond Record 4 March 1915 p 3
Mrs. Mary Westfall and sons, Dayton Westfall and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Pflughaupt, Frank Oppy, wife and baby attended the double funeral of the Griffith sisters at Crawfordsville Thursday afternoon. They were cousins of the Westfalls.