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| Photo: J. Willis Sayre |
her twenties, Rudolph had been a noted beauty and a musical comedy star of shows like The Red Feather at the Mason Opera House in Los Angeles and a former singer of the San Toi Opera troupe of San Francisco. Now a 55-year-old former opera star beset by financial worries, Rudolph was rescued by police in the fall of 1936 after attempting to gas herself to death in the bathroom of her home at 508 North Bedford Drive in Beverly Hills. Weeks later on November 27, 1936, Rudolph registered at the exclusive Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills and requested "a room high up, where I can really rest." Moments after being escorted to her room on the seventh floor, Rudolph wrote a note, removed her hat and glasses, then jumped from a window fatally landing on a skylight over the ground floor.
The note, addressed to her former husband, Jefferson James Grove, read: "Dear Jeff: I have left a will giving everything to you, also the contents of my safety deposit box, which is under the name of Mrs. J. George Faber, Box No. 970. There is plenty of money to pay all expenses. Keep what you want here, and as to the rest, telephone the Goodwill . Well, I don't feel like retiring -- much. Lovingly, Mina." In a postscript she added: "I don't want a minister, music nor praying at my funeral. Just one person to look at me. If I can't be put with Maude in 'Frisco, just scatter mine also. I'll be so glad when it's all over with."
Wilhemina "Mina" Rudolph b 6 Dec 1882 was my grandfather's first wife with whom I am not related. She was involved in a very serious automobile accident in 1904 just prior to her marriage to my grandfather (Jefferson Graves). The article you posted appears to start in the middle of the sentence. Also, her mother in law had recently passed prior to her suicide and she was not left anything in the Will. Sincerely, Courtney
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