The Indicommons Cold Case Unit: Dorcas Snodgrass
Posted by Penny in ArticlesBecause the Bain Collection of uploads from the Library of Congress involves news photos of the 1910s, some of the photos shine a flashlight on long-forgotten crime investigations. Sensational coverage is hardly a recent phenomenon.
The case of Dorcas Snodgrass is a good example; links to the New York Times articles about her disappearance were added to the image of Snodgrass by Flickr user whyaduck. Following them, we learn why the unfortunate young nursing student’s photo is part of the Commons now, between athlete Jim Thorpe and a notorious opium dealer in the stream of newsmakers.
Miss Dorcas Iyams “Doc” Snodgrass, age 26, was reported missing from Mount Vernon, New York, in July 1912, by her brother-in-law John L. Crider. Snodgrass was 5′6″, about 135 lbs. She was recently engaged to an F. Eugene Schmidt, lived with her sister and brother-in-law, and said she was going shopping in New York City when last seen boarding a train. The Criders, Schmidt, and Snodgrass were planning to move to California together soon. Her sister insisted:
Dorcas was not the kind of girl to run away.
But, on the other hand, her sister considered Dorcas “temporarily deranged” by a bad headache the day she left. Dorcas’s brother, Edward Snodgrass of Virginia, posted a $500 reward for information.
On Sunday, 28 July 1912, the body of Dorcas Snodgrass was recovered, spotted by canoeists on the banks of a creek near Catskill, NY. Rivermen said she couldn’t have fallen or jumped from a boat elsewhere and washed ashore there. She was still wearing her corset (with the name “D. Snodgrass” on it), her watch, and her engagement ring. Her hat and hatpins were found in the marshes nearby.
The sister speculated that Dorcas took the wrong train (in her “derangement”) and became upset enough to commit suicide, or maybe she only stumbled into the creek by accident. Officials concurred, and the death was quickly pronounced a likely suicide. Within days of the body’s discovery, Mr. and Mrs. Crider moved to Oakland CA as previously arranged. They did not attend the funeral of Miss Snodgrass in West Virginia; nor did her fiance, Mr. Schmidt.
Perhaps because of this hasty resolution, the story continues to fascinate (haunt?) Flickr Commons visitors. Flickr user Right Brain touched up the image. Liana’s Paper Doll Blog posted a paper doll nurses’ uniform based on Dorcas’s student costume; Laura Moncur also made a blog post about the image. Almost a hundred years after her story flickered through the newspapers, her image on Flickr stands as a memorial to this young woman’s brief life, and a gathering point for speculation about her untimely end.