Missing for days - Paul Orr, of Grimsby, suicides at Savage, Maryland - had been with Bedwell Racing Stable for a year - 17 years old.
A rather sad case of suicide took place near the training farm of H.G. Bedwell, near Baltimore, Md., on Wednesday, June 4, when Paul Orr of Grimsby, Ontario, aged 17, hung himself.
In August 1923 the lad was apprenticed to Mr. Bedwell to become a jockey, and went with the stable from the Hamilton track, wintering at the Bedwell farm at Savage, Maryland. According to Mr. and Mrs. Bedwell, the boy was getting along extremely well, but at times displayed an unwonted fit of temper. Mr. Bedwell had been away from home and was returning on the morning of June 4 to arrange for the departure of Mrs. Bedwell, and later himself with horses and the attendants, among whom would have been Orr. Previous to Mr. Bedwell's arrival on that morning, Mrs. Bedwell had talked with the youth and spoke of his impending trip to Canada and visit to his mother and family. On the arrival of Mr. Bedwell the boy was not around, but nothing was thought of it at the time. As time went on and the boy did not return, it was thought possibly he had taken time by the forelock and gone to Canada on his own initiative.
Some time later Bedwell and the string shipped to Hamilton for the meeting now in progress, and on Saturday, June 21, Bedwell, who had only arrived that day, received a telephone message from home saying that the boy's body had been found hanging from a tree in a woods not far from the farm. Some boys had been out hunting for turkey nests and discovered the remains, which were very badly decomposed and mutilated by birds. Mr. Bedwell at once communicated with the boy's mother at Grimsby, telling her what he had learned, and he again phoned to the scene of the tragedy but what action would betaken by the authorities there could not be learned on Sunday.
On August 23, 1923, Paul Orr and Harry Hunt, both of Grimsby, were apprenticed to Bedwell. Orr's mother, brothers and sisters still live in Grimsby, there being three brothers and five sisters: Hector, of Hamilton, Karl and Gladson, and Mrs. H.L. Gibson of North Bay, Willa, Reta, Helen and Audrey at home. The remains were interred at Savage, Md.
