Surnames: Schneller, Tolford, Telford

----Source: NEILLSVILLE TIMES (Neillsville, Clark County, Wis.) 03/02/1905

Schneller, Alvina (5 SEP 1890 - 8 JAN 1905)

On Sunday, Jan. 8th, 1905, Miss Alvina Schneller, serving as maid at the home of J. W. Telford, quietly left the house and disappeared. Her going was though strange by the Telford family, but as the young woman’s home was at Humbird (Clark Co., Wis.) in this county and she had friends here, nothing serious was feared, and no great effort made to locate her. She was a young girl to be working out, having passed her fourteenth birthday the 5th of last September.

Matters ran along this way (after communication with her mother had established the fact that she was not at Humbird) for some time. She was not though a girl who would run away, and had no associates who could have suggested such a thing. The belief gradually grew stronger about town that she had frozen to death, as she had disappeared during the coldest part of January.

Last Sunday Capt Telford and H. Eberhart took a rig and started out over the wagon road to Humbird, impressed with the belief that she had, perhaps, undertaken, when homesick, to walk the distance, some seventeen miles. Three-quarters of a mile west of the Snell place they searched the abandoned schoolhouse premises, and found her in the woodshed, lying on her face. The door was open, and they judged by the way she had fallen that she had leaned her face against the board wall, and she had apparently not moved after falling. The head had been gnawed by animals. The searchers returned to the city and notified Justice Dudley and Sheriff Dwyer, and the four drove to the place and the body brought to the city and a coroner’s inquest ordered. Beyond the Snell place the road was badly blockaded with snow, and Messrs. Tolford and Eberhart were compelled to hitch their team and walk through the snow drifts to the lonely, deserted spot where she was found. Tracks indicated that she had tried to get into the schoolhouse, and that she was alone.

The victim of this terrible tragedy was the daughter of Mrs. L. Schneller, who husband was found dead in Eau Claire Co. some years ago.

An inquest was held Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning by Justice A. E. Dudley and a jury composed of G. W. Trogner, J. D. Stannard, Frank Breed, W. D. Beede, Thos. Lowe and C. M. Bradford, and a verdict was rendered "that after careful inquiring and thorough investiagation the said Alvina Schneller died from fatigue and exposure and was frozen to death on the 8th day of January, A. D. 1905, in the town of Hewett." The body was shipped to Humbird for burial on the 11:18 train Tuesday, under the direction of the Mentor town authorities.