Lake County Obituaries

Maude Burke

Submitted by Anita Crabtree

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Unknown paper, Lakeport, California, July 19, 1916

MRS. MAUD BURKE KILLS HERSELF
Woman Commits Suicide To Avoid Motherhood Burden, Was Dead Six Days
Declaring she would kill herself before she accepted the duties of motherhood, 
Mrs. Maude Burke of Upper Lake shot herself in the head on the banks of Scotts 
Creek July 8th and pitched forward into ten feet of water where her body was 
discovered Tuesday by Fisherman Jim who was going down the creek in a canoe. He 
reported what he had seen to his son, who on Friday told George Finney, 
Superintendent of the Tule Lake Canning Co., who immediately reported to the 
proper authorities. The terrible deed was committed at a point about one hundred 
yards above the bridge leading to the Tule Lake cannery. The next day the body 
of her baby, born prematurely following the shooting according to physicians, 
was found floating nearby without any wrappings of any character, by officers 
from Mendocino County who weren’t satisfied to let the matter rest without 
finding all evidences of the affair. A coroner’s inquest over the body of Mrs. 
Burke, held Friday evening, decided deceased had met her death by gunshot wound, 
self-inflicted. An inquest held the next day over the body of the infant arrived 
at the verdict that death was due to premature birth. Both bodies were buried in 
the Upper Lake Cemetery on Saturday, where funeral services were held under the 
direction of the undertakers, Mr. and Mrs. A. M. Russell. 
Deceased was a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lee Johns of Mendocino County and was 
aged twenty-six years at death. Two years ago she married Edgar Burke of Upper 
Lake, but the union was not congenial, the couple separating several times. They 
had made final separation just before her death, and Saturday evening, July 8th, 
she started for the home of her sister, Mrs. McCullough, en route to the home of 
her parents in Ukiah, intending to stay all night at Mrs. McCullough’s. Because 
she had not sent word of her coming to her sister, her absence was not noticed. 
She had previously sent her grip to Ukiah and was walking, carrying a riding 
habit in a bundle. 
She carried a revolver given her by Mrs. McCullough, with which she killed 
herself. When the officers at Upper Lake were notified last Friday, District 
Attorney Churchill and Deputy Sheriff Burger were there and although the 
District Attorney, who was familiar with the troubles of the Burke’s, was 
satisfied she had killed herself, he went to the scene to make sure of it. 
Coroner Mathews was summoned and an inquest was held. Dr. Dwight and the 
undertaker performed an autopsy on the body and discovered the bullet which 
entered the skull behind the right ear, and imbedded itself in the skull on the 
opposite side of the head. The coroner’s jury was composed of A. O. Wheeler, 
Robert Maze, Herman Bonig, Burt Strawn, E. Tabor, Sam McKissick and J. M. True. 
A. O. Wheeler was foreman of the jury. 
After he bullet wound had been found, W. O. Ruddick, while exploring the bottom 
of the creek near shore, pulled out the revolver, a 32 calibre pistol in which 
were found three bullets to correspond to the one found on the body. 
Shortly after the dismissal of the case by the Lake County officials, District 
Attorney Hale McCowen and Sheriff Ralph Byrnes of Mendocino County appeared and 
made another search, desiring to locate, if possible, the bundle she had been 
carrying, and the body of the baby. During the night the infant’s body had come 
to the surface and was found near where the other body had been located. The 
package was taken from a clump of willows nearby. 
Deceased is a native of Colusa County, and besides a husband, is survived by a 
mother and father, and six sisters: Mrs. Grace Haley of Ukiah, Mrs. Ed Sandritch 
of Leesville, Colusa Co., Mrs. Joe Fowler of Ukiah, Mrs. McCullough of Upper 
Lake, and Miss Lucy and Hazell Johns of Ukiah. All but the father, who is ill, 
attended the funeral, as did the Burke family.