Brown County (IN) Democrat, March 25, 1920, p. 1.
Avery Mann Smith, 30 years old, committed suicide by shooting his head off
with a shotgun at his home near Ogilville last Thursday morning. He used a
muzzle-loading gun that his father, Sidell Smith, took his own life with 20
years ago.
Avery, when he shouldered the gun, told his mother, Mrs. Cordelia Smith,
that he was going to kill a chicken hawk he had sighted, and when only a
short distance from his home, he stopped and deliberately shot himself in
the head. The act was witnessed by his mother who suspected her son of
designs on his life and was watching him. Besides his mother, a sister,
Miss Nellie J. Smith, survives. For many years the dead man had been
superintendent of the Sunday School at the Mt. Union Church near his home.
He had many acquaintances in Brown County and was highly esteemed by all who
knew him.