Ida Mae Blanton, 32, Buried by Strangers, June 30, 1924

Mrs. Ida Mae Blanton Buried by Strangers

Greensboro News, June 26th

A woman deserted by her husband, her family, and all the men and women who knew her was buried yesterday morning in Greensboro through the co-operation of 50 or more persons, not one of whom had ever seen or heard of her.

She died exactly one week ago in the O. Henry hotel from an overdose of veronal, whether by accident or design will never be known. She had been married at 14. She had been divorced and married again to the same man. She had taken morphine regularly for a dozen years. She had lived with other men. She had known a roaming life over half a dozen states under all conditions of existence. And she had died alone in a hotel room after days of what must have been torture from the hunger for the drug on which she lived.

For a week after her death she lay in an undertaker’s room. Her husband came and looked at her and left; he didn’t have any money to bury her, he said. Another man, whose name she had used when she came to Greensboro and to whom she is said to have been married also came and looked at her body and left. Two women with whom she associated drove in an automobile from Charlotte, looked at her body and left. Her mother wired, “Can’t come. Bury her there. Have no funds.” The curious came to look at her body, and they left.

Her name was Mrs. Ida Mae Belle Benton. She was 32 years old.

From the front page of the Lincoln County News, Lincolnton, N.C., June 30, 1924