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Show Ends His Life To Join Spouse Thus He Pays Homage to Memory of His Dear One. CHICAGO. After three years, Leroy Smith, 69, offered up his life as homage to his wife's memory. I Policemen found his body swinging swing-ing from a rope on a transom in the apartment the Smiths had lived in for years. A coroner's jury was told how Mrs. Mary Smith died in 1943 after a marriage that nad been happy for something over 40 years. Her husband did his best to conceal con-ceal his grief, according to Henry Smith, 40, a son. i Smith moved from the Van Buren street apartment into the home of a brother at 3703 Fifth avenue. But he maintained the old home just as his wife had left it for him. He went there frequently to sit alone in the quiet rooms, reliving the past. He touched nothing, moved no furniture, allowed the dust to gather on Mary's best-loved belongings. "He often spoke of people who committed suicide," Henry said "But then, too, he always said he never could imagine doing such a thing himself." Last Friday Leroy Smith said he was going fishing. He failed to return. re-turn. His brother, William, and a neighbor neigh-bor at the Van Buren street address, ad-dress, William Gozendach, went looking for him in the quiet old apartment late last night. What they found, they agreed, represented represent-ed the husband's final effort to be reunited re-united with his wife. |