SAYS PAT M'GUIRE
WAS TWICE KILLED.
DROWNED AND THEN BURNED,
BUT LEFT AN ESTATE.
Between Pat's First and
Second Death, Wants the
Property Settled.
Two tragedies are recalled by the petition filed in the probate court yesterday by C. W Prince, attorney for Mrs. Mary F. McGuire, calling upon William Moore, administrator of the estate of Patrick McGuire, to make a partial division of the estate.
On March 29, 1903, McGuire, then living under the name of Oscar W. Ramsey, was married to Mrs. Mary Cochran, a widow, the present petitioner. When the flood of May, 1903, came, McGuire, then known as Ramsey, went out to engage in rescue work. He never returned. The wife advertised for him in the daily papers, when such advertisements were printed free after the flood subsided, but could get no reply or trace of him. On June 30, 1904, she married John W. Ballard, a point tucker.
The Ballards lived happily for over two years, when, in October, 1906, the Chamber of Commerce building in Kansas City, Kas., burned. Mrs. Ramsey-Ballard read that Patrick McGuire was among the missing tenants of the building, and that Mrs. Donald Logan, a friend of his, had escaped. Mrs. Logan's description of McGuire, printed in the papers, tallied to the dot with the missing Ramsey's appearance. Mrs. Ballard also recalled that the husband, known to her as Ramsey, had roomed at Mrs. Logan's house before she met him, and that friends who came to visit, after her marriage, called for Pat McGuire. Putting two and two together, Mrs. Ballard decided that the McGuire who was burned in the fire was none other than her husband. She talked to Mrs. Logan, and saw among the effects of McGuire, saved from the fire, a handkerchief which she had given Ramsey, and into which she had embroidered the initials, "O. W. R."
She was then positive that her husband had not been drowned in the flood, but was burned to death. She went into mourning again. Her marriage to Ballard was, by effect of her discovery, annulled.
McGuire left an estate in Wyandotte worth something over $20,000. The probate court of Jackson county, at Mrs. Ramsey-Ballard-McGuire's request, took charge of it, and William Moore was appointed administrator in December, 1906.
A few weeks ago a Mrs. Patrick O'Neal of Chicago sent a representative to Kansas City to secure a share in the estate, claiming that she was a sister of McGuire. This claim she has proven to the satisfaction of the probate court.
McGuire's wife's petition of yesterday is to have the administrator divide the estate between herself and Mrs. O'Neal. Mrs. McGuire's attorney hopes to secure practically all of the property for her under a Missouri statute which provides that estates lying outside the state shall be administered according to the law of the state which they be, and a Kansas statute, which gives all of an estate to the widow, if there are no children.
Mrs. McGuire lives at 2812 Spruce avenue.
