A Life in One Sentence: Lucetta Luhr Clark Francis Browning

On the rare occasions when the death of an early ancestor is noted in the local newspaper, the lack of detail makes the item resemble a telegram, or perhaps TV character Sgt. Joe Friday of Dragnet, known for his dead-pan delivery of  "Just the facts, ma'am."  One such example is the death notice of my ancestor, Lucetta (Luhr) Clark Francis Browning, which appeared in the Canton (Lewis Co, Missouri) Press of 12 April 1878:  "Died, March 27, 1878, Luzetta, wife of J. H. Browning, aged 27 years, 9 months, and one day."

By the time of her death  at age 27, Lucetta had lost her father young, been married twice, given birth to at least six children, made the regrettable decision, probably at the direction of her first husband, to sue her mother, and gone through the public humiliation of a messy divorce.

I am grateful that I didn't stop researching with the death notice...there was a lot left to the story.