Jeanette Corser was a popular student growing up in Cordova. She liked writing and contributed tidbits about school events and life to the Cordova Daily Times.

Her parents, Beatrice May and Caleb Corser, were known to one and all. Beatrice was born in Louisiana and loved to cook. Shrimp dishes were her specialty.

Caleb Corser took a position in Cordova in 1908 as the resident engineer for the Copper River & Northwestern railway. In 1913, he became the railway superintendent.  He was known as one of the best tennis players in town, “a champion wielder of the racquet,” according to the Daily Times.

I found his professional duties fascinating. In a future column, I’ll tell of his challenges while working in Cordova.

He left Cordova in 1924 and later became trainmaster in North Dakota and Minneapolis.

Beatrice and Caleb had many friends in Cordova. Even 14 years after Caleb’s career move, they came back for a visit.

The couple doted on daughter Jeanette and her sister Catherine.

Jeanette enrolled at the University of Minnesota and was about to graduate with the Class of ’33.

But first she needed to pass a final exam in biology, her major.

Caleb came home late one night from his Northern Pacific office to find Jeanette nodding off over her notes and textbook.

She told her father that she would set the alarm and get back to her studies at 3 a.m.

Before going to bed, she decided to take an aspirin.

Seconds later, she ran from the medicine chest into the living room.

“I’ve taken this poison by mistake,” Jeanette said.

She showed him a test tube containing cyanide, a deadly poison she used to kill insects for her studies.

Corser took Jeanette to the kitchen to beat up some egg whites to make her throw up.

By now, Beatrice Corser joined them.

Cyanide can kill in minutes. Such a poison had no place in a medicine cabinet.

In rapid succession, Jeanette’s body went into seizures and she slipped into a coma.

The frantic father phoned the hospital’s emergency room. He was advised to get her to the hospital at once.

Doctors would have an antidote ready.

The terrified parents put Jeanette into the backseat of the car.

They rushed her into the emergency room, but she had suffered cardiac arrest.

Jeanette was 22.

Her parents buried her on June 15, 1933, a few days before graduation.

Hank Nuwer writes books and journalism while based in Fairbanks.