Despondent because of ill health, Maurice B. Wilbur, 53, residing at 510 Minnie Avenue, Grass Valley, took his own life by carbon monoxide fumes last Saturday night, July 10th.
While his wife Josephine was at the motion picture theater, where he was to pick her up at 9 p.m. for a ride home, Wilbur closeted himself in the garage at the family home, fashioned a garden hose from the exhaust pipe to the inside of the car, set the motor operating and sat down in the rear seat.
He had left Mrs. Wilbur at the theater at 7 p.m. When he failed to arrive at 9 p.m. after a 15 minute wait, Mrs. Wilbur walked home. She was unable to find her husband in the house and noting that the garage doors were closed entered the garage and found Mr. Wilbur slumped in the rear seat.
Coroner Shirley Briattin and the Grass Valley police department were notified. Both agencies made an examination and concluded that death was self-planned.
Wilbur was a native of Missouri and had worked in the mines of the tri-state area before coming to Grass Valley in 1933 to take employment in the mines of the local district. He was a member of Weimer Tribe No. 34 I.O.R.M.
Besides his wife Josephine, he leaves the following sisters and brothers; Mrs. E. Jones, San Carlos; Ruth Peterson, Iowa; A. H. Wilbur, Butte, Montana; an uncle W. J. Wilbur, Arbuckle; a mother, Mrs. Catherine Wilbur, Nevada, Missouri; step-mother, Mrs. Cora B. Wilbur, Joplin, Missouri.
Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Wednesday, July 14th at the Hooper-Weaver Mortuary with interment in the Redmen Cemetery. Rev. O. Wesley Janzen of the Methodist Church will be the attending clergyman.
