Medora Clendenning Suicides.

This morning about 10 o'clock Medora Clendenning committed suicide by drowning herself in the Clearwater. Mrs. Leland, her mother, had gone to the funeral of Miss Anna Moxley and had sent Medora with her baby sister to Mr. Leland's office. Medora brought the little child to the stage office; and after lingering there a few minutes she walked up Main street around the corner of the N. P. saloon and then deliberately to the Clearwater river. She met parties of her acquaintance on the way and she greeted them without even displaying agitation and passed on to carry out her determination of self destruction. She paused the beach, looked around, covered her face with her hands, wrung her hands as if in dispair, and then waded out into the cold water as far as she could stand against the current and then lunged forward into the deep, swift stream. Mr. Julius Neumeyer was on the dike and witnessed the act. He rushed along the beach as the girl floated on the water and called to her, but she did not respond. She tried to force her head under the water as her clothes held her body afloat. She remained on the surface for four hundred feet but she made no out cry or effort to help herself. A half dozen helpless men saw her float by only forty feet away, saw her sink without a struggle to the death she courted.

She was below the point of the island when she dissappeared below the surface. A boat was manned and started in search but no trace of the body has been found.

She left a note to her mother the purport of which is: I am gone, don't cry for me. Her guardian, W. P. Hunt, says he can ascribe no motive for the rash act. Mr. Leland says he knows no reason for her aberation which must have led to the act.

The news of the suicide was a great shock to the people of Lewiston where the girl was known to everybody. She was the daughter of the late pioneer John Clendenning and she was the heir to his estate which made her the most wealthy heiress in the city.

The Lewiston Teller
Saturday, April 29, 1899

Medora Glendenning.

The body of Medora Glendenning was brought on the steamer today. After three months the waters gave up their dead. This bright sixteen-year old school girl consigned herself to the icy flood with suicidal intent January 27th, and her body was found April 27th. It had floated over forty miles, and after the ice floes of the breakup and the rise and fall of the river it was left on the beach at Long Hollow, twelve miles below Almota.

A farmer who was hauling wood from a drift, discovered the body on the beach. It bore but little resemblance to the human form, but close inspection revealed the startling fact that he had discovered a human body. He went to Pomeroy and notified the coroner. The fact that a reward of $500 had been offered for Medora's body caused inquiry and the description justified a belief this was the body of the girl. The body bore the same articles of jewelry which answered the description of those worn by the suicide. This resulted in the complete identification later.

C. F. Leland and L. L. Strong went down on the steamer yesterday and returned to-day with the body. Mr. Leland said he could have identified her only by the jewelry. Her clothes were torn off with the exception of shoes and stockings and an underwaist. The collar of her heavy dress was alone intact. The body was not badly decomposed, but it was discolored and bloated beyond semblance of the pretty girl that left her fine home, friends and fortune, and chose the mystery of death to life three months before.

The funeral will take place to-morrow at 2 p. m. from the family residence.