Mom: helpful or ghoulish?

The September issue of the National Genealogy Society Quarterly contains an item about what I would call the ultimate helicopter mom (one who hovers), with a macabre twist.

"In 1877 a desperate mother writes the State Department to beg for a position for her son.  Not unusual on its face, but there is a twist here.  She pins to her letter a newspaper clipping about a State Department employee's suicide, indicating she knows this place is no longer filled, and asks that it be given to her son."

Source:  Applications and Recommendations for Public Office, Hayes-Garfield Administrations.

I hope she at least waited for the funeral to be over.