For this source I went did a little investigating in the library. I found myself in the archives again. This time was for a source that seemed a little more what I was looking for. Eerie Eau Claire is what it was called. It’s a small book put together by Chad Lewis. This book talks about the strange stories in Wisconsin’s past. I chose this because it fit my time frame I was looking at and it gets into those odd stories I was wanting to learn about in the beginning. I believe that this source builds up a good ethos by telling where it come its stories from and when they happened. Majority of the stories come from Eau Claire Leader. The karios hinders this source because they believe he published this around 2002. This isn’t near the time when any of these events happened. Nonetheless finding this source in the archives made me feel like it was reliable because they wouldn’t put unreliable sources in there.
Opening up this source I had no idea what I would find. I was just hoping it was worth the time. I opened it up and it had a table of context explaining what it discusses. There were so many weird things within this book. I went straight to the bizarre deaths. There weren’t many stories so I thought I would discuss all that were written. The first one is about how a husband and wife died on the same day randomly. Mr. Hathaway died at 2 o’ clock a.m., and his wife passed away at 11:30 a.m. Mrs. William Jenner died after yawning without interruption for three days. Physicians decided that the woman was suffering from obscure lesion of the brain producing laryngeal spasms. She died of lack of strength. Miss Carrie Deavenport was found dead in her bathtub. She was in the habit of taking cold baths in the morning. One more the shock of the cold caused heart failure. Nellie Youngs died of heart disease when she saw her favorite poodle under the wheels of a fast passenger train. Mrs. C. T. Robinson died supposedly of the sight of blood. Schuyler Hall was thrown through the plate glass window of Robinson’s millinery story. Robinson’s saw the blood and dropped dead from heart disease. Weyenberg brothers died similar and the story is extraordinary. Both men lived to be the same age; both dropped dead from heart failure, neither having had a day’s illness for years prior to their death, and both died a short time after discussion the death of another. The last story they had was about a girl who was buried for a day then her neighbors claimed she was still alive so they unburied her and had to rebury her that day. All of these stories seemed a little far-fetched but can all be truthful.
I thought that this source was helpful with the topic and what I wanted to learn about. I think that if you wanted to hear some really interesting stories that this is a good source. I feel like some of the stories could be elaborated a little bit for the fun factor. I learned that Eau Claire had some weird things happen. This source really helped me in my research.
Wow, that is pretty interesting! Some of the stories are far out there. Good job on providing the rhetorical context! When your talking about the different stories about the different deaths, perhaps instead of listening one after another you should just pick a few. From there, maybe I would research if there is any more information about that individual. Or, what deaths were primarily common at this time and age? Did people get sick easily, or lack of education? Why were people dying? Obviously you won’t have some of the information that tells you that, but it sounded to me like heart disease was common? Maybe it would help if you found out more about that disease, why was it common, who was mostly affected by it? I think that would put some complexity on your research! Also, was this a reliable source? Do you think it is credible and accurate? Comment a little about your response and make it stronger. Where do you want to go from here to conclude your research? Otherwise, great job!
You hit the jackpot with this source — it seems to cover exactly what you want to write about. Two suggestions: 1) It would be helpful to provide more information about Chad Lewis: Who is he? What else has he written? What bio information about him would lead you to believe he is reliable? 2) You may want to start thinking about organizing your essay. Rather than simply listing the bizarre deaths one after another, perhaps you could arrange them in a more thematic way, such as self-inflicted vs. accidents vs. murders or see if deaths around a similar time period fit a general pattern.