From the Lawrence Daily World for Jan. 13, 1909: “A university student in ill health tried to take his own life last night by drinking carbolic acid. Doctors, however, soon put him out of danger but the story of his plight is a pitiful case. He is an orphan who has had to overcome many problems and recently has had severe stomach trouble. … An old woman in Lawrence was saved from freezing to death by Poor Commissioner Parnell who found her hovering over a dying fire without any more coal to use. She would have perished had the commissioner not found her.”