Abbreviations used
Date June 20 1891
County Saint John
Place Saint John
Newspaper The Daily Telegraph
The language of the text is the original used in the newspaper entry and as transcribed by Daniel F. Johnson. Records acquired by the Provincial Archives are not translated from the language in which they originate.
Chipman (Queens Co.) June 18 - About 5 o'clock Tuesday eve. a violent thunderstorm from the northwest suddenly burst upon the central portion of this parish, resulting in the death of Mrs. J. Robert RANKIN of Red Bank Settlement. .. Mrs. Rankin who was passing from the kitchen at the rear of the house to the dining room when right at the doorway she received on her right temple the fatal lightning stroke which killed her instantly. Her children, five in number, were all in the kitchen and escaped injury, as did Robert WARD jr. who was passing the house when the rainstorm came on and was invited by Mrs. Rankin, who expressed herself as being afraid of thunder and lightning. Mr. Rankin, her husband, went away that morn. to Coal Creek, 5 or 6 miles off, to attend to logs that he had rafted and became almost distracted at the sad news of his wife's death. The deceased was 40 years of age. Of the five children she has left behind, a second, a girl of 10 and the fourth and fifth, two boys, are hopelessly blind, never having had their eye sight from the time they were born.