The Saddest Valentine

The strange epitaph on the tombstone makes us want to know more about poor George Spencer Millet, cut down in his adolescence by cupid's arrow, so to speak.

George Spencer Millet worked as office boy for a well-known insurance company in Manhattan, and the rather shy teenager enjoyed in spite of himself an enviable success with his female coworkers. A picture of him, published after the accident in the New York Evening Telegram, shows him as an Edwardian Macaulay Culkin, a radiant blond cupid with a naïve expression and a gentle, seraphic presence. George had yet another thing that made him even more adorable: he was born on the 15th of February, just a day after Valentine's Day, a sweet and sour element for this quiet, grotesque tragedy.

1909 - To celebrate his 15th birthday, a pack of stenographers are said to have teased the young George with threats of a birthday kissing spree, promising to execute their love trap once office hours were over. Later that day, they struck, charging lips first at the golden-haired kid who, overwhelmed and panicked, dodged the furies and fell on the floor, crying “I'm stabbed” before he collapsed, unconscious in a pool of his own blood. Confused and shocked by the tragedy of a scene that began as a Benny Hill chase, the office members called an ambulance, but unfortunately George died on his way to the hospital.

One of the office women was even arrested for murder! Read the rest of Millet's story at Atlas Obscura. Link


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