A Shocking Murder Tale

When Ima returned to New York in the fall of 1902 she had to change her residence: During the summer, Mrs. Greene, the headmistress of Ima’s boarding school, had developed “distressing heart trouble,” and died. As Ima wrote years later, “So I found a school quite different and more convenient, the Comstock School, 20^th & W. 40^th St.” The school, described as a “Family and Day School for Girls” at 32 West 40^th Street, was run by Miss Lydia Day, “a delightful and cultured lady.” 

        

         But the Comstock School and Miss Day, Ima soon discovered, were connected to a shocking murder: Ten years earlier, in 1892, New York newspapers had covered the sensational trial of Carlyle W. Harris, a young man accused of killing Helen Potts--who was then a student at the Comstock School under Miss Day’s administration. The lurid story behind this murder had fascinated readers in New York for weeks. In January 1891 Helen Potts, a nineteen-year-old student (described as “a brunette beauty”) was found dead in her room at the Comstock School (described as “an elite finishing school”). She had died from an overdose of morphine given her by a medical student who turned out to be her husband. Carlyle Harris and Helen Potts had been secretly married the year before, and she became pregnant. She then had, as the newspapers put it delicately, “an operation” (read abortion), and enrolled in the Comstock School. But her husband wanted to be rid of her, and gave her a “lethal dose of morphine.” He was tried and convicted, and was executed for murder at Sing Sing prison in 1893.

         In October 1902, Ima, newly enrolled at the Comstock School, heard this story and was evidently disturbed by it. Both her father and her brother Will wrote to her about it.  Will advised her, “If you are uncomfortable & wish to move for such cause, why, go to Miss Day and talk plainly to her.”  

        

         Apparently Miss Day dealt with Ima’s concerns. Ima stayed at the school, and she and Miss day became good friends.