"I don’t want anyone in or out of my family to see any part of me. Could you destroy my body by cremation? I beg of you and my family – don’t have any service for me or remembrance for me. My fiancé asked me to marry him in June. I don’t think I would make a good wife for anybody. He is much better off without me. Tell my father, I have too many of my mother’s tendencies."
These are the traumatic contents of a letter left behind on an observatory deck of The Empire State building in May of 1947. Evelyn McHale's jump from the 86th floor immediately became regarded as 'The Most Beautiful Suicide'. Evelyn was 23 at the time.
Evelyn Francis McHale was born September 20,1923 in Berkeley, California. She was the second to youngest child out of seven to parents Vincent and Helen McHale.
Vincent accepted a position of Federal Land Bank Examiner and the family moved to Washington, D.C. around 1930. Helen soon left the family due to what many reports attribute to mental illness. The pair divorced and Vincent took custody of all of the children. He moved the family to Tuckahoe, New York during Evelyn's high school years while Helen returned to California.
Evelyn finished up high school and joined the Women’s Army Corps. She was stationed in Jefferson, Missouri. It was reported that after her service she burned her uniform.
After the War, Evelyn moved to Baldwin, New York to live with her brother and sister-in-law. She found a job as a bookkeeper at an engraving company where she met and became engaged to Barry Rhodes, an ex-GI studying at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. The plan was for them to get married at Barry’s brothers house in Troy, New York in June 1947.
Evelyn visited her fiancé in Easton just a day before her death. They celebrated his 24th birthday before the fallen beauty took a train back to NYC at 7 a.m. on the first of May in 1947.
Barry had no inclination that anything was off with his fiancée. He later stated to reporters that, “When I kissed her goodbye she was happy and as normal as any girl about to be married.”
Evelyn arrived at Penn Station around 9 a.m., went across the street to the Governor Clinton Hotel (which is where she actually wrote the unforgettable suicide note), then walked two blocks over to buy a ticket to the 86th floor observation deck of the Empire State Building.
Around 10:40 a.m. a patrolman could see a white scarf floating down from the Empire State building. Moments later there was a huge crash.
Evelyn landed on the roof of a United Nations Assembly Cadillac limousine. A horrified crowd surrounded her body. Robert C. Wiles, a student photographer, also rushed to see what was going on. It was then that he took this legendary photo of Evelyn four minutes after her death.
I came across Evelyn's story on my own train ride home. After realizing that she was only two years older than me, I immediately became saddened. I realized that us being close in age probably wasn't the only thing we had in common.
My parents weren't perfect and I'm still healing from that. There are days when I wonder if I'm going down the right path to success but I'm still young. I have moments where I'm not so sure of my abilities but I'm still working on myself.
Evelyn may have succumbed, but there was still beauty.
