Claude Smith's Tragic Death at the Argonaut Mine

In all the years of living in and around Amador County, I have always been enamored by the history of both the Argonaut and Kennedy Mines. In previous blogs and even in my podcast, I have dedicated a lot of time and research into sharing the horrific details of the Argonaut Mine Disaster of 1922, but that wasn't the only time that the Argonaut miners had met with fatalities. In fact, there are several documented stories of deaths at the Argonaut.

In the past year, I have been spending much of my spare time working on my latest book, "Down Below: A History of Deaths at the Kennedy Mine," and so far I have discovered over 40 deaths during the years of operation at that mine that sits literally across the highway from the infamous Argonaut Mine. This book should be out in the next several months.

The Argonaut Mine also saw death, not just during the time of the mine disaster itself. One such story that comes to mind is the story of Claude Smith and Harvey Jones. I briefly mentioned it in my blog on the Argonaut and Kennedy Mine history back in 2017. 

Because their story is just as important to share with you as that of the other miners who perished in the Argonaut Mine Disaster, I am going to share it with you in greater detail today, so that Claude and Harvey's story will no longer be forgotten.

Claude Smith was born on June 10, 1902, while Harvey "Tex" Jones was born on September 16, 1879. Not a lot can be found about Claude's personal backstory, but we do know that both he and Tex worked in the mines, and that "Tex," was obviously from Texas. 

According to the Amador Dispatch, it states:

"A blast on the 5400 foot level of the Argonaut mine resulted in the death of Claude Smith and the serious injury of his companion, Harvey Jones, last Sunday morning at two o'clock. The men had completed their round of holes for blasting and Jones was engaged in igniting the fuse when the explosion took place.

Smith died instantly from the effects of the injuries that he received, his body being badly mangled. Jones, who was a short distance away, suffered fractured wrists, injuries of the chest, a dislocated knee cap, facial lacerations and the possible loss of an eye. In spite of his injuries he had the presence of mind to make his way to the station and summons assistance.

To do this he was compelled to climb a distance of about fifty feet, making his way in the darkness, his carbide lamp having been extinguished by the force of the explosion. Surprise is expressed at the ability of the man to accomplish the feat considering his physical condition."-- Amador Dispatch, 3/21/1930

Let's stop and think about this for a moment. The fact that Harvey had just survived a terrible blast from an explosion, with several severe wounds and injuries and yet he forced himself to climb up over 50 feet in complete darkness up a mine shaft speaks volumes on his will to live.

Another interesting thing about this story is that instead of being removed to the Jackson Hospital which was just down the road, they moved him all the way to Ione, which was 10 miles away, in order for him to be treated at the hospital at the Preston School of Industry. 

I have written two books on the history of the Preston School of Industry a.k.a. Preston Castle, and the only reason I can imagine they brought him there was because the local doctors in the county would often make their rounds to Preston on certain days of the week, which is possible that the local doctor was at Preston at the time of the accident and they brought Harvey there because of that reason. It is also possible that Preston's hospital had better equipment at that specific the time, in order to treat Harvey for his injuries. Due to the fact there are no documents that say either way, we are only left to speculate as to why he was brought there instead of the original hospital in Jackson.

Claude Smith's remains were brought to Daneri Mortuary where John Daneri performed the autopsy and prepared him for burial. An inquest was held on his death on the evening of Wednesday, March 19, where the verdict was reached that: 

"Claude Smith came to his death on March 16, 1930, by accidentally being blasted, while working in a cross-cut on the 5400 level of the Argonaut mine, near Jackson, California."-

Claude was only 27 years old at the time of his death, on March 16, 1930**.  His remains were brought back to Placer County where his wife lived, and he was buried at the Newcastle Cemetery, in Newcastle. 

(** Although his headstone states his date of death was March 15, and he went to work the nightshift the night of March 15th, it was actually at 2 a.m. on March 16th that his death occurred, and the coroner's inquest report reflects that.) 

Click here to visit his Find-a-Grave Memorial: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/111639898/claude-smith

(C/O Little Orange In the Big Apple; Findagrave)

Because it was believed that the explosion was caused by a defective fuse resulting in Claude's death and Harvey's critical injuries, the Argonaut Mining Company filed a lawsuit against the Coast Manufacturing and Supply Company for $20,821.00 in damages.

According to the Dispatch, the Argonaut Mining Company settled with Claude's widow, for the amount of $5000, and also paid Harvey Jones the same amount for compensation for his injuries, however due to the fact it was determined that Harvey would be incapable of working for the rest of his life, the Argonaut Mining Company was to pay Harvey double, in the amount of $10,000 for additional compensation. 

Sadly, Harvey would never be able to recover enough to live a somewhat normal life, or to have any enjoyment in his newfound retirement paid to him by the mining company. Only two years after such a horrifying accident, Harvey would succumb to illness, passing away on Friday, February 12, 1932 at the Weimar Sanitarium in Weimar, California (near Auburn). 

This facility was originally for the treatment and care of patients with Tuberculosis, and only in 1957 was it opened as a complete medical facility and hospital, so it is the writers belief that Harvey had "miners phthisis" or silicosis, and more than likely succumbed to that that as opposed to the original injuries from the accident.

His remains were brought back to Amador County, where he had many friends within the community. His funeral was held at Daneri Mortuary on Wednesday, February 17, 1932 with Reverand Upton Partridge conducting the services.  He was later buried in Section 5 at the Jackson Public Cemetery in Jackson, but sadly, there is no marker for Mr. Jones. 

Click here to visit his Find-a-Grave Memorial:   https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/160994191/harvey-jones

In ending, may these two men never be forgotten, and may their stories be known to all who seek the history of the Argonaut mine. Although these two men didn't die in the infamous Argonaut Mine Disaster that has become so widely known in history, doesn't mean that their stories are less important to share with you. I roam cemeteries all over the state and I believe everyone of those graves, markers or not, have a story to tell. I have spent the last 17 years doing that, and it brings me such peace and complete joy knowing that those people who have been forgotten for so long are now being remembered. Their names that hadn't been spoken out loud in so many years, are being talked about now. To me, this is how we keep their memories alive. I am a firm believer that we have an obligation to preserve the past, and to remember those who came before us, and with that, I choose to share those stories of the forgotten with you so that they will be forgotten no more.

Thank you for reading!

(Copyright 2023- J'aime Rubio, www.jaimerubiowriter.com) 

Some of my Sources:

Amador Dispatch (3/21/1930; 5/30/1930) Healdsburg Tribune (3/17/1930); Blue Lake Advocate (3/22/1930) Findagrave Photos: (Little Orange In the Big Apple & Steve Jones); Family Search.

History Repeating Itself- The Death of Mabel Steele & Nadine Purdy

UPDATE: To read more about this story, please check out my book "Stories of the Forgotten: Infamous, Famous & Unremembered" now available on Amazon! 

There's an old abandoned home near Interstate 80 and Hwy 65 in Roseville, California that has a sad and very tragic past. (Update: Sadly, the home has since been demolished). The facade of the building, left in arrested decay, holds only fragments of what once was. The home once belonged to the Purdy family. Rancher, Chester Stanley Purdy lived there with his adopted daughter Nadine in the early 1950s. After his wife Edith "Ida" Purdy passed away in 1940, at some point they moved from Klamath Falls, Oregon down to Roseville, California.

According to newspaper accounts,  Nadine, who was 24 yrs. old, suffered from some sort of mental disability. I am uncertain whether she was completely "mentally retarded" as the article claims or whether she just suffered from schizophrenia or mental illness. Either case, in his old age Chester was told by family members that Nadine needed to be put into an institution for her condition. Chester didn't want that for Nadine. He and his wife had taken care of Nadine from the time she was born and she knew no other life. Perhaps Chester was aware that he was not going to be around much longer, and he knew that in the event of his death that the family would go against his wishes and commit her to an asylum.

Sadly, he must have convinced himself there was no other option for Nadine, as he wouldn't allow her to be institutionalized. So, on January 27, 1954,  when Nadine was out in their yard, he shot her in the back of the head with his 410 gauge shotgun.  Chester was arrested by Sheriff Charles Ward, and put in jail for the murder of his adopted daughter. If the story wasn't bad enough, it turned out that just after completing the first day of his testimony in the trial, Chester Purdy fell ill and died that following Thursday at Placer County Hospital. Cause of death, partial heart attack and pneumonia.

Long Beach Independent, 1954

The entire case was dropped since he could no longer be convicted for her death. The entire ordeal  was a shock to the whole community of Roseville at the time and the story lingered, while the home eventually sat abandoned.

In his own mind, I am sure Chester felt it was a mercy killing because he couldn't see her suffer in an asylum, even though he didn't have the right to take another persons life. Perhaps though, the idea wasn't a new one. It seems that it had all happened once before, only 24 years earlier.

The First Mercy Killing- September 14, 1930


When I was researching the story about Nadine Purdy's death at the end of Stonehouse Court in Roseville, I noticed that Nadine was not Chester's biological daughter.  The census records I found in 1940 stated that she was their daughter, but that two other children were living with both Chester and Edith as well. Their names were Fredrick and Maeotta Steele. As I kept looking for a birth record for Nadine, I decided to do some more genealogy research on Edith, since one of the articles in the newspaper claimed that Nadine was Edith's sister's child. After finding Edith's parents and siblings online through my genealogy websites, I found a sister who died in 1930. Her name was Mabel Steele.  On her family tree listed a husband and three children, Frederick, Maeotta and Glenna Nadine.

It appears that soon after Glenna Nadine's birth, Mabel and her husband Glenn separated. Glenn basically left her and took their two oldest children and disappeared. Because he literally kidnapped the children from Mabel, she went frantic and had some sort of emotional breakdown. Not being able to care for her newborn baby, her older sister Edith stepped in and took the baby, changed her name from Glenna Nadine Steele to Nadine Purdy, and brought her home to the Sparks, Nevada area to raise her with her husband Chester.

Mabel's other sister, Ruth Weimer then had Mabel committed to the Sanitarium in Glendale. She was later transferred to the State Hospital at Norwalk and remained there for about a year before being released to Ruth's care in August of 1930.

LA Times, 1930

On the afternoon of September 14, 1930, tragedy struck the home at 418 W. 37th Street, in Los Angeles, California.  After an extremely emotional outburst between the two sisters, Mabel lay dead on the couch in one of the rooms, while a smoking revolver lay in Ruth's hands. Mabel had been shot three times in the neck and two extra rounds had been fired that lodged in the ceiling. Everything happened so quickly and before long Ruth was arrested for the murder of her sister.

The Morgue & Inquest

Shortly after the murder, the inquest was to be held at the morgue. Ruth was taken there and was allowed to see her sister's body one last time before the inquest started. Detective Lieutenants Condaffer and Ryan escorted Ruth to the morgue and held her by the arms as she "convulsed with sobs," when seeing her sister's corpse.

"No one can ever hurt her again, can they? She will never suffer anymore, will she?" Ruth asked the Detectives in a highly emotional state, almost as if she didn't realize the seriousness of what she had done. "I know I killed her. But I loved her just the same; I only did it to end her suffering because her husband took her children away."- (quoted from the LA Times, Sept. 17, 1930)

At the inquest a family friend and attorney, Benjamin Sheldon advised Ruth not to testify. Although off the record she did make several statements. When asked why she did what she did, her only reply was, "Did you ever see anyone you thought would be better off dead? I thought she would be better off dead, and that I would be better off dead, too. There are lots of things worse than death."

Ruth Weimer (LA Times)

Later when the case was on it's way to court, Ruth claimed she no longer had any recollection of the events that took place when she murdered her sister. That she remembered up to the time the death occurred but could not explain why or how she came to the decision to kill Mabel.  Attorney Benjamin Sheldon requested to reduce the charge of murder to manslaughter, given the strange circumstances of the case, however the Judge denied the request.  Somewhere down the line Benjamin Sheldon stopped acting as Ruth's attorney, and Nathan Freedman became her defense counsel.

The Trial

Judge Wood advised Ruth to plead "not guilty by reason of insanity", however she resisted. She was adamant that she wanted to plead "not guilty." It seems it went back and forth but she later did go with the insanity plea, but she claimed she suffered from "a temporary fit of emotional amnesia which inspired her to kill her sister out of sympathy to end her suffering."

Judge Fricke was assigned to oversee the trial and Deputy D.A., George Stahlman was acting prosecutor in the case. The D.A. wanted to prove that Ruth had planned to kill her sister, that she had animosity for her, for having to tend to her sister and put up with her mental illness. During the trial nothing but good character witnesses gave strength to the defense's case that Ruth was a good sister, who loved and cared for her sister selflessly.

Ruth and Mabel's niece, Evelyn Rains testified that she saw her aunt was not acting normally, and that she heard the gun shots go off and that Ruth attempted to shoot herself after shooting Mabel, but that the bullets just missed her head, lodging in the ceiling above. Rains claimed she called for Russell Smith, who had been outside at the time of the shooting. When he made it to the room where Ruth was, he discovered her searching for more bullets so she could reload the gun and commit suicide. It took Smith and another gentleman to detain Ruth until the authorities could arrive. She kept saying, "The worst part is I missed myself!"

When Ruth finally took the stand in her own defense, the courtroom was silent, waiting to hear Ruth's recollection of the events prior to the murder.  She stated that she was bombarded with constant prayers for death by Mabel, and that it had started even prior to her being released from the sanitarium. After her release to Ruth's care, Mabel continued with her cries of suffering and hallucinations. She mentioned Mabel's attempts to end her own life by poisoning herself and also trying to leap from an upstairs window just after her release from the sanitarium.

When it came down to the last events she remembered up to the moment she lost control, she asked the Judge to make her other sister Edith leave the courtroom. She didn't want her to hear what she was about to say to the court.

During her testimony, Ruth claimed that shortly after lunch, while she was ironing where she could keep an eye on Mabel, that her sister walked over to the piano for awhile and played some music and even asked her to join in. Ruth then accompanied her for awhile, playing a few duets together and had a good time, then Ruth continued with her ironing again. Then at one point, Mabel got up and walked right up to Ruth and stared at her and said, "I am dead already, can't you see the red blood streaming from my side? Don't you see the flesh falling from my bones?" Ruth claimed she tried to massage Mabel's feet and convince her that she wasn't really hurt, but it did no good. She was suffering from terrible hallucinations and they were getting worse.

"She said she wished she was dead. I said, 'you do?' she said, 'yes.' I rather wished I was myself. I went upstairs, I put her on the couch and said 'stop this noise and stop crying.' She said she wished she was dead. I said, 'do you really wish it?' She said, 'yes.' Then I went upstairs and got the gun and brought it down. I said, 'you wish you were dead? Then you are going to be dead!' She threw up her hands and I shot her three times before she crumpled. I pointed straight at her and shot, then pointed it at myself, but neither of the bullets hit me. I aimed to kill her. I couldn't stand to see her suffer year in and year out. She is out of her misery anyway. I don't care. My life is not worth much without her. She was the dearest thing I ever had on earth. You wouldn't understand."

The first evening of deliberations, the jury could not come up with a unanimous decision so they were sequestered to a local hotel nearby for the night. The next day, they resumed deliberations, eventually acquitting Ruth of all charges. According to a jury member, the original ballot was, 8- Acquittal, 4- Manslaughter. She was never in danger of being charged with murder. At the end though, they all decided that because of Ruth's openness about the whole story, that they felt she was sincere about the mercy killing.

According to the Los Angeles Times, this case set precedent being the first ever case in California to successfully use the amnesia defense in a murder trial. In the end, Ruth Weimer showed no animosity to the prosecution or the judge at any point. In fact, she had nothing but respect for them for just doing their job. When asked  about the entire thing, Ruth stated that she was very grateful and thankful to the jury and that wherever her sister Mabel was, she knows she is happy now.

Conclusion

After learning of this heart wrenching story of a sister who knew of no other way to end her mentally ill sister's constant suffering but to take her life, it only leads me to believe that poor Chester Purdy may have come to the exact same conclusion himself.

Although neither Ruth nor Chester had a right to end a life, in their minds they felt that was the only way to end their loved ones suffering. Murder is wrong no matter how you slice it. Sadly though, many times when crimes such as these are committed, reasoning has been thrown out the window and logic has been tossed aside as well.

Did the Weimer's and the Purdy's later believe that Mabel became more ill after her stay at the mental institution? Did Chester Purdy worry that Nadine would suffer the same fate if she was committed? Who knows. Perhaps the very thought of that led him to stop it before it could start. We will  never truly know what went on in his mind that day when he shot and killed Nadine.

In my opinion, this entire story is tragic for all who were involved. Ruth Weimer had to live with herself the rest of her life knowing she killed her own sister. Chester Purdy didn't live long after Nadine's death, but I am sure it would have haunted him the rest of his had he lived. The rest of the family must have all suffered from both deaths, being so similar in nature. In the end, history sadly repeated itself and both daughter and mother died the same tragic way, at the hand of a family member who just wanted to end their suffering.


Rest in Peace, Mabel, Nadine, Chester, Edith and Ruth....

To read more about Mabel Steele as well as many other strange and mysterious accounts of the past, purchase your copy of:

 "Stories of the Forgotten: Infamous, Famous & Unremembered." 

(Copyright 2014- J'aime Rubio)

Thank you to my friend, Joan Renner -- the wonderfully talented archivist, historian and writer from the fabulous blog, Deranged L.A. Crimes. Thank you for your astounding help.

Also a big thank you to Ken Fisher from the Roseville Historical Society for giving me the lead to this story and pointing me in the right direction!

Sources:
Daily Independent Journal, 1/29/54
Roseville Press Tribune 1/27/1954
Albuquerque Journal 1/28/54
U.S. Census, Family Search, Ancestry.com
LA Times Articles: (1930)
9/15, 9/16, 9/17, 9/20
10/10, 10/14
11/20, 11/21, 11/24, 11/25, 11/26, 11/28, 11/29
12/1, 12/2, 12/3, 12/4, 12/5, 12/6, 12/7

Photos of Purdy House: Copyright of J'aime Rubio and R. Boulware (2014) All Rights Reserved.
Photos from various newspapers, sourced.