Mrs. Ray Gowan, 36, used chloroform and strychnine to take the lives of her two infant children and herself Tuesday, at her home at Flat Creek. Her husband, returning to the house from out on the farm found her in bed with the two children, the covers pulled over her head. She and the children, all unconscious, had rags saturated with chloroform over their faces.

The mother had recovered form the effects of the chloroform and was conscious when physicians arrived Dr. Pice Womack, first to reach the house, said she had chloroformed the babies and then had taken strychnine and administered chloroform to herself. She died a few minutes later. Dr. Womack said the babies - Sara Jean 2 1/2 and Ray Jr. four months - had been dead about 20 minutes when he arrived.

Mrs. Gowan left a note in whch she said she "wanted to die" and had been "planning it for some time." IN the note she also said that clothes for the children to be buried in would be found laid out on a bed at the home of her father-in-law. Sheriff W. A. Brown said that relatives blamed the act on despondency following severe burns which Mr. Gowan suffered last year, after which she remained in the hospital for several months. The Gowans had been staying with Gowan's father, Finn Gowan a short distance from their home for several weeks. At 2 o'clock this afternoon Mrs. Gowan insisted on returning to her own home.

The husband, who did not know his wife had returned home, said when he approached the house about 4 o'clock he smelled chloroform, and investigating, found his wife in the bed. He carried her to the porch, and summoned aid, before he discovered that the two children were under the covers.

Surviving in addition to her husband, are her father, John Harrison, stepmother, and a brothe, all of the Raus community, and a sister, Mrs. Kelis Winters of Nashville. The bodies were brought to Caleb Thompson Funeral Home where a special casket was secured for the three bodies, which was the request of the deceased in the note she left. Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. this morning at the home of Finn Gowan, with burial in the Flat Creek cemetery.