Revised Nov. 2, 2002

Table of Contents:

1. A convict family
2. Gold!
3. A bad time and place to be Irish
4. Children on the stage
5. 'Festive little Maggie Moore'
6. 'They were an era'
7. End of a marriage
8. Phantom cable cars?
9. J.C. Williamson
10. Harry Roberts
11. Voices of the period
12. Playbills
13. Music

Phantom cable cars?

Maggie Moore died March 15, 1926. The cause of her death was variously reported. The book "The Australian Theatre" claims that Maggie was hit by a cable car. This story is repeated in the "Dictionary of Australian Biography" and Dickers' book, which both that she had a leg amputated as a result. Dickers goes so far as to say that Clay Greene, ghost writer of "Struck Oil!" was also a patient in St. Francis Hospital at the time of her alleged operation and asked to see her, but she turned him down, saying she wanted him to remember her as a young girl, not a tired old woman.

I have serious problems with the veracity of this account of her last days. The Sacramento Bee's obituary, which quoted her nephew Edward Riehm, a resident of Sacramento, says that her heart had been failing for some time and that she had in fact come home to die, though she hid it from everyone. I also have a transcript of Maggie Moore's death certificate. It gives the primary cause of death as arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) with several underlying cardiovascular problems, kidney damage, "obliterative endocaritis of feet and gangrene of both feet." (italics added) All this leads me (in my terribly nonprofessional opinion) to believe she may have had have had type II diabetes. Nothing was said about having a leg amputated or about a cable car accident, either in her death certificate or in the numerous articles published upon her death in the U.S. media.

True, things could have been covered up for some reason -- though cable car accidents weren't uncommon and were duly reported by the local media, and it's difficult to cover up such a public occurrence. It's also possible that the doctor didn't think the accident (if there was one) was the cause of death. (I have recently read a death certificate of a man who died of cancer, but the word "cancer" does not appear on it. For that matter, there is a persistent rumor that a certain Northern California newspaper editor who died in 1989 had AIDS, but his death certificate, which I saw, does not list AIDS as the cause of death. It said he had a heart attack. This does not mean he did or didn't have AIDS; it just means it didn't kill him, in the doctor's opinion.)

None of the accounts provide a source for the legend of the cable car. Her death certificate does indicate that she had an operation (the date given is Jun 1926 -- perhaps it says Jan., or they meant June 1925) but it isn't mentioned as a contributing factor in her death. I suppose, given that she had gangrene, she might have had an amputation, and that the cable car just got invented by some imaginative journalist. At one time I believed that exhuming her would prove it, but now I'm not so sure. If her remains have both legs, then yes. If not, can they tell why the amputation was done? And does it matter that much anyway? Maggie probably would have laughed it off. "If that's the worst anyone says about me ..."

I confess to being puzzled why the headstone reads "Comstock" and not "Sullivan" or "Moore" -- and if Francisco wanted her name on there, why she didn't put her full name on it. No other family members appear to be buried in Holy Cross, much less in that grave site. Perhaps Francisco made this personal tribute because her fund-raising failed. On the other hand, Francisco, the last of Bridget and James Sullivan's children, died in 1928, which means that she may not have energy or time to devote to the fund-raising process.

Another photograph of Maggie's headstone can be found at the Find a Grave web site. This photograph has not been digitally altered.

Created 20 Feb 1999 by Reunion, from Leister Productions, Inc. Revised January 10, 2003