Almanac for March 10th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for March 10th: https://ko-fi.com/post/March-10-Harriet-Tubman-Sojourner-Truth-P5P6JD9H1

Bummer March 10th

March 10, 1693: Lydia Dustin dies in prison while awaiting trial, having been accused of witchcraft in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

March 10, 1906: 1,099 miners die in the Courrières mine disaster in Northern France when coal dust in the mine ignites, causing an explosion. Only 14 people survive. 

March 10, 1928: Walter Collins Jr., age nine, goes to the movies and never comes home. His mother, Christine, reports him missing. Los Angeles police try to convince Christine that a boy named Arthur Hutchens, Jr. is Walter, but Christine refuses to accept this, and Hutchens admits he ran away from his home in Chicago and claimed to be Walter because he thought the idea of living near Hollywood seemed exciting. 

Walter is never positively identified, but it’s believed he may have fallen victim to serial killer Gordon Stewart Northcott, the “Wineville Chicken Coop” murderer who kept his young male victims in chicken cages.

March 10, 1948: Zelda Fitzgerald, by then the widow of novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, has checked herself into Highland Hospital in what is now Montford Area Historic District in Asheville, North Carolina for treatment of her severe depression. She is awaiting an electroconvulsive therapy treatment in a locked room when a fire breaks out in the hospital kitchen. With no way to escape the locked room, she is killed by the fire.

March 10, 1973: Irene Ryan, the Old Hollywood actress best remembered as “Granny” on The Beverly Hillbillies, performs in the Stephen Schwartz musical Pippin. A heavy smoker, Ryan suffers an apparent stroke on the Broadway stage. She is quickly diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and will die on the 26th of April of that year.

March 10, 2010: Canadian actor Corey Haim, age 38, dies of pulmonary edema and heart disease after suffering from flu-like symptoms for two days. Authorities first suspect he’s died of an overdose of prescription medications. However, his cause of death is ruled to be natural, if perhaps indirectly related to his chronic issues with alcohol and drug abuse.