“Miss Markham about a fortnight ago complained of heart trouble, and was treated by Dr. Howard. She grew weaker gradually, and on Sunday morning apparently breathed her last, to the great grief of her relatives, by whom she was much beloved. The doctor pronounced her dead, and furnished the usual burial certificate.
“Undertaker Jones took charge of the funeral arrangements. On account of the warm weather it was decided that the interment should take place Tuesday, and in the morning Miss Markham was put in the coffin.
“After her relatives had taken the last look on what they supposed was their beloved dead, the lid of the coffin was fastened on, and the undertaker and his assistant took it to the hearse waiting outside. As they approached the hearse a noise was heard, and the coffin was put down and opened in short order. Behold! there was poor Eleanor Markham lying on her back, her face white and contorted, and her eyes distended.
“‘My God!’ she cried, in broken accents. ‘Where am I? You are burying me alive.’ ‘Hush! child,’ said Dr. Howard, who happened to be present. ‘You are all right. It is a mistake easily rectified.’
“The girl was then taken into the house and placed on the bed, when she fainted. While the doctor was administering stimulating restoratives the trappings of woe were removed, and the hearse drove away with more cheerful rapidity than a hearse was ever driven before.
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“‘I was conscious all the time you were making preparations to bury me,’ she said, ‘and the horror of my situation is altogether beyond description. I could hear everything that was going on, even a whisper outside the door, and although I exerted all my will-power, and made a supreme physical effort to cry out, I was powerless.... At first I fancied the bearers would not hear me, but when I felt one end of the coffin falling suddenly, I knew that I had been heard.’
“Miss Markham is on a fair way to recovery, and what is strange is that the flutterings of the heart that brought on her illness are gone.”
From the Echo, January 18, 1895.