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November
22 will mark the 85th anniversary of an East
Texas murder that created a still-lingering mystery and put
a timber baroness in a pauper’s grave.
Between 1915 and 1922, Lillian Marshall Knox was renowned for her
generosity, compassion and skills in running one of East
Texas’ largest lumber companies.
President Woodrow
Wilson complimented her for contributions to the World War I effort
and a national lumberman’s magazine called her “one of the most
influential women” in the industry.
But in 1966, when she died in Illinois, Mrs. Knox was buried in
a grave with no tombstone, her life scorched by five tragic deaths,
a string of forgeries and confidence schemes, a prison term and
a broken, scattered family.
In
the pre-dawn hours of November 22, 1922, a shot broke the silence
of millionaire Hiram Knox Jr.’s home at East Mayfield, near Hemphill,
in Sabine County. Knox was found sprawled across the bed, a bullet
in his head and a .45-caliber pistol in his hand.
It appeared to be suicide, but when Sheriff George Alford investigated,
Knox’s charismatic wife Lillian--widely known as “Lady Bountiful”
for her lavish spending and charitable endeavors--emerged as a murder
suspect.
Alford charged
Lady Bountiful with murder on his last day in office, igniting a
firestorm of newspaper headlines. But a grand jury refused to indict
her.
As the Knox
family history unraveled, it turned out that Lillian had been in
the shadows of the deaths of four other Knoxes.
Lillian Marshall,
a practical nurse, came into the Knox family in 1908 as a secretary
for Colonel Knox at Knoxville in Polk County.
Later that year, Hiram Knox Jr.’s wife Grace suddenly took sick
and died while Lillian was caring for her. Two years later, Lillian
married young Hiram.
In 1911, another
tragedy struck the family. Hiram and Grace’s son, Willie, was stabbed
to death at a Knoxville home. And in 1913, Colonel Knox died under
mysterious circumstances in a Houston hotel.
Lillian
and Hiram moved to the Hemphill
area, where they built a second sawmill and a railroad and started
cutting 25,000 acres of virgin pine timberland. Lillian, who ran
the mill while Hiram spent much of his time hunting, became the
most prominent woman in the industry. The Knox lands and mill were
eventually sold to the Temple family and Lillian left East
Texas. She spent money lavishly and her fortune quickly disappeared.
In 1937, she and a son, also named Hiram, were questioned in the
bludgeoning death of her wealthy mother-in-law, Mary Knox, in her
Dallas home. But neither
were charged in the crime.
Lillian Knox soon separated from her family, went to prison on charges
she wrote a hot check to Arthur Temple, Sr., served time at a prison
in West Virginia until 1944 and eventually made her way to Chicago,
where she became a nurse and caretaker for wealthy women.
Lillian almost
went to prison again for taking $53,000 in bonds from a Chicago
matron, but a smart lawyer helped her beat the rap.
“Lady Bountiful” died in 1966 of heart disease while living in the
Kankakee State Hospital, south of Chicago. None of her family members
were present and she was buried in the hospital’s weed-choked graveyard
with only a numbered post to mark her resting place.
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