Tragic Death of a Young Woman

 

This post shares research I conducted in 2024 on a young Jewish woman from Charleston who tragically died in a car accident in 1913 at the tender age of 19. 

I am using screenshots from presentations I have given recently to the South Carolina Genealogical Society in Charleston and on a "The Ordinary Extraordinary Podcast" Cemetery podcast when I was the guest last June. Check it out on YouTube! 

Gertrude Mordecai, known as Trude ("Our Trude" is inscribed on the base of the statue), is buried in Charleston at Magnolia Cemetery. I wrote about her tall mourning woman sculpture in my 2014 book, "In the Arms of Angels: Magnolia Cemetery- Charleston's Treasure of History, Mystery and Artistry."

Upon learning that is was a car accident that took Trude's young life in 1913 I was struck by the fact that as soon as automobiles became more numerous at that time, car fatalities soon followed. 

I was always curious to learn details about Trude's fatal accident so in spring 2024 while Alesia and I were at the cemetery I stopped at her grave and took new photographs and took notes such as the Lord Tennyson poetry on the bench. 

I decided to look into the circumstances of her death in more detail than I had done for my "In the Arms of Angels" Magnolia Cemetery book. You see the questions I sought to answer. 

Here are some of the documents I found. 

The "Transportation of Corpse" and brief newspaper article "Girl Killed in Auto Crash" from Lake George, N.Y. I came across for my 2014 book. 

This was a new piece I found online. The newspaper in Plattsburg, N.Y. has a recurring feature "News from 100 years ago" that it ran on July 18, 2013, a century after Trude's death in 1913. Through this article I learned that the afternoon car crash happened near property belonging to George Foster Peabody, the prominent banker, businessman and philanthropist. The prestigious Peabody Awards in broadcast and online journalism is named for him. 

I was not able to learn the type of vehicle Trude was in that fateful day but it was surely one similar to this. There were five or six people in her car and I can easily imagine Trude being in the spot in the back where the two women sit. Atire blew out, the chauffeur lost control and Trude was thrown into a tree. Royal Peabody, brother of George, was home and rushed Trude to a hospital in his car. But Trude died on the way, according to the above article 

So why were Trude and her family in upstate New York in July 1913? I learned that her parents were building a home in the Lake George area. This area had become a popular summer destination for those with some wealth. 

Trude was the daughter of prominent Charleston attorney Thomas Moultrie Mordecai (1855-1926) and his second wife Gertrude Dahl Mordecai (1872-1924). In 1910 Thomas' law firm moved into what was called Charleston's "skyscraper", the eight story People's Office Building at 18 Broad St. that still stands today. 

After Trude's death in New York I was unable to determine if her family completed their Lake George home. Who could blame them if they did not finish it. 

One question I always had about Trude was why she was buried at Magnolia Cemetery. Magnolia is secular, not religious but I think it is safe to say there are not a large number of Jews interred there since it opened in 1850.

I say this knowing that just down Huguenin Avenue from Magnolia Cemetery is a Jewish cemetery where Trude's grandparents are buried in a mausoleum. It already existed when Trude died in 1913. Trude's father Thomas was interred in the structure upon his death in 1926. There are also two other Jewish cemeteries near this one. 

On the maternal side of Trude's lineage is Mordecai Cohen, born in Poland he immigrated to America in 1788. He became very wealthy with real estate in Charleston and operated a plantation on the Ashley River, owning many slaves. He and his wife are buried in the historic Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim cemetery on Coming Street in Charleston. 

So Trude's parents seemed to have many options in choosing where Trude would be buried. 

My detective work continued by contacting Magnolia Cemetery for assistance. The office manager Marcia was most helpful, sending me this email after looking into details about Trude's mother purchasing the plot for nearly $250 one week after her daughter's death. 

Then I contacted Harlan Greene, an old acquaintance from the College of Charleston (he wrote a nice blurb that is on the back of my "Churchyards of Charleston" book), which has an extensive Jewish Heritage Collection. Harlan put me in touch with Max Daniel who surmised that Trude could not be buried in a Jewish cemetery in Charleston because her mother was not Jewish, a policy held at that time (not sure if it still applies today, it might). 

At the end of my presentation to the Charleston S.C. genealogy group last December I said this finding may be anti-climatic. But this is what my research found. I was never able to locate an image of young Trude Mordecai. RIP Our Trude.