From The Player, Friday, April 25, 1913

Automobile Accidents Bereave Well Known Theatrical People

“Isadora Duncan Losses Two Beautiful Children in Sad Catastrophe in France”

“The automobile, favorite toy of theatrical people, wrought sad havoc with stage folk, Saturday and Sunday.  Saturday in a Parisian suburb, the two beautiful children of Isadora Duncan, famous classic dancer, were killed.” (article also describes death of Mrs. H.B. Warner who was killed in New York)

“The Duncan catastrophe was a particularly sad one.  The dancer had just kissed her youngsters-one a boy aged about six and the girl of about four-(incorrect here Patrick was just shy of his third birthday and Deidre was six years and five months)-goodbye and placed them in a hired limousine with their Scotch (many say English) governess to go to Miss Duncan’s country villa which they had left a day or two before to visit in Paris.  Before the machine has gone a hundred yards the engine “went dead.” (no mention of the taxi cutting the car off  at the boulevard)  The chauffeur got out to crank it and evidently neglected to set his gears properly. (in the US, the cars would have reacted differently with cranking and setting gears) The auto started with one jump and shot past the driver, plunging through a heavy railing (there was no railing) and into the Seine close by.  Both the children and the governess were drowned.  Their bodies were recovered a couple of hour later (some account say much less than a couple of hours)  It has been announced that as a result of the calamity which has befallen her, Miss Duncan will leave the stage and become a war nurse.  The remains of her children were cremated, the attendant ceremony being one of the most pathetically beautiful which Paris has known.  Miss Duncan’s dancing pupils took part and the music was supplied by master artists in the French capital who have been associated with the great dancer in her stage work.