If you haven’t read the earlier parts, start at Part 1.
In October, Kate O’Neill told her friend Mrs. Smallenburg that she had gone to Mrs. Roberts’ home to confront her. Mrs. Roberts would not let her in but Kate stood in the street, screaming that she would kill Mrs. Roberts the first time she walked outside. O’Neill poked his head out from a second story window and laughed, telling his wife to do her worst.
After this, only one purpose dominated the mind of Kate O’Neill. She mortgaged all of her property to Mr. and Mrs. Smallenburg, saying that O’Neill would give it to Mrs. Roberts if she didn’t. The Smallenburgs spoke to O’Neill about his wife’s precarious state of mind. Apparently, Kate had made a previous suicide attempt and they were worried she might try again. But according to Mrs. O’Neill’s friends, her husband did not appreciate the interference. “He said he would do just as he pleased and didn’t care what became of his wife.” She bought the bottle of laudanum on October 24. And on November 8, she forced her son to drink laudanum and drank a large quantity herself. Due to her death, the Roberts’ divorce hearing scheduled for November 9 was postponed.
The wake was at Mrs. O’Neill’s home on Seneca street on November 12, and hosted by James O’Neill and Mrs. Roberts. The services were very nice. According to the Buffalo Enquirer, “Mrs. O’Neill was buried in an elegant casket which was covered with costly flowers.” According to one neighbor, the couple intended to move into No. 657¾ Seneca Street together. Another said that James O’Neill used to drive past the house with Mrs. Roberts often to taunt his wife.
Five days after Kate’s suicide, James O’Neill agreed to an interview with the Buffalo News. “O’Neill is not a bad looking fellow,” the News reported. “He is probably 35 years old, well built, has dark hair, a dark moustache and black eyes.”
“I wonder sometimes how I am alive,” O’Neill fumed. “The neighbors of my dead wife have been here and as they went down stairs they hooted me. I always treated her well. When she left my Eagle street house and moved here, I gave her $70 to live on. Everybody will tell you I treated her well. I am boarding with Mrs. Roberts. Nothing wrong has taken place between us.”
Mrs. Roberts was present when the reporter talked to O’Neill. She would not say anything about the story that Mrs. O’Neill visited her and threatened to kill her if she left her house. She said she was tired of her husband because he was worthless and couldn’t support her. As to O’Neill, he was only a border.
O’Neill went on to say most of the stories circulating around Buffalo about him and his wife and Mr. and Mrs. Roberts were not true. To begin with, Mrs. Roberts had filed for divorce before she met him. As to the rumors he took Mrs. Roberts out, he said, “I did take Mrs. Roberts out, but it was only when she was going shopping.”
Also, O’Neill told the reporter, Kate had not confronted Mrs. Roberts at her home. This seems a little absurd since Mrs. Roberts didn’t deny it but O’Neill insisted the story was an invention of the Smallenburgs. “It seems to me that the Smallenburgs have been active in poisoning my deceased wife’s mind,” he said, accusing them of so doing to obtain and sell his furniture. “I assert that they are the fountainhead of all misinformation concerning this matter,” he said. He said he planned to sue the couple.
O’Neill wrapped up with this: “I am so grateful for the recovery of my only child from an untimely death that I can pass by the malicious detraction at the hands of my enemies, but at the same time I desire that Mrs. Roberts, who has been wrongfully and maliciously associated with this sad occurrence, may be set right before the public, as she has a good name at stake which is as dear to her as any woman’s.”
But Mrs. Roberts’ good name was about to be endangered by her soon-to-be ex-husband’s machinations.
old spirituals 