The Rev. L.H. Preul, pastor of Grace Methodist Church in Spencer, IA, selected the 99th Psalm to address the mourners who gathered at the Cobb-Warner Funeral Home in Spencer at 1:30 p.m., Monday, May 22, 1950.
There are bible verses that contain themes of hope, trust in God, the expectation of a better life for the deceased who lived his or her life following Christ, and forgiveness, redemption and virtue. The 99th Psalm firmly asserts the providence and power of God in the face of all things, no matter how tragic or inexplicable and instructs others in His faith and obedience.
How else could one give meaning to the macabre event which transpired three days earlier in Everly, IA?
On the morning of Friday, May 19, after shooting his wife and wounding his daughter, Roscoe “Wattie” Holm, 48, a former utility man for the St. Louis Cardinals, turned a revolver on himself and took his own life with one shot to the head.
Ella Holm, a seventh- and eighth-grade teacher for the Everly school system, was shot through the back of the neck as she was packing in the family’s upstairs apartment.
The family was planning to move to Linn Grove, a place where she and her husband had once lived in a house on a picturesque hillside surrounded by woods. She was planning to work at a ladies ready-to-wear store in Spencer.
Margaret Holm, 14, was struck by one bullet which entered her left wrist and lodged near the elbow. Her arm had been broken by the impact of the bullet. She was rushed to a Spencer hospital for treatment. She attended the funeral service for her parents Monday afternoon, but then was taken back to the hospital.
The Holm’s other child, Robert, 20, was working in Humboldt at the time of the shooting. He reached Spencer before noon. He visited his sister in the hospital and then talked with relatives and well-wishers. He was doing his best, under the circumstances, to keep his emotions in check.
The only other eyewitness to the event, other than Margaret Holm, was Fred Sindt, the owner of the apartment in which Holm and his family lived. He told reporters that he had talked with the Holms moments before the tragedy occurred.
As he reached the bottom of the stairs, he heard two shots fired, followed shortly afterwards by Margaret Holm’s screams of terror. Then there were two additional gunshots, Sindt said.
Margaret came running down the stairs toward him. Seeking protection, she rushed into the Sindt apartment, evading “another bullet fired by her father (that) would have hit her in the back as the missile tore through the screen door.”
Sindt rushed out the door to summon Mayor Andy Schoenewe of Everly.
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