DAVIS, Roy W.

DAVIS, SHELLENBARGER, SHARP, BURNS, STRUBLE, WENTZIEN

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 4/23/2015 at 03:01:28

Dysart Reporter
Dysart, Tama County, Iowa
July 18, 1940

Roy Davis of Decatur City Dies Instantly

Death claimed its second victim on the highways of Tama county Monday night about 11 o’clock, when Roy W. Davis, 44, of Decatur City was instantly killed when his truck overturned on the graveled road two miles east of LeGrand near the Coffin quarry. Davis is believed to have fallen asleep at the wheel of his truck. According to Tama and Marshall county officers who investigated the accident, the truck swerved off the graveled road, plunged into a ditch and overturned.

Stump Causes Death

Davis was thrown clear of the truck but a tree stump in the ditch is believed to be the direct cause of his death. When he was tossed from the cab of the truck he fell with his head lying on the stump. The rolling truck caught his head against the stump and he was instantly killed. Had it not been for the stump it is likely that Davis would have escaped with only slight injuries. It was necessary to jack the truck up only a few inches to remove the body, which was not crushed.

The overturned truck with the body of Davis underneath, was found by Alpheus Shellenbarger of Montour at 11:10. Shellenbarger was on his way home from LeGrand and noticed the truck in the ditch.

Davis was employed by the B.L. Anderson Construction Company of Marshalltown and had been working hauling gravel and crushed rock from the Coffin quarry to a highway project in Poweshiek county for the past three weeks. He had been living in a tourist camp on the north side of LeGrand.

Call County Officials

Tama county officials, including Sheriff Harry P. Sharp, Deputy Sheriff L. W. Burns, County Attorney George H. Struble and Coroner Dr. A. J. Wentzien, were called to the scene of a fatal accident for the second time Monday night about 12 o’clock after Marshall county authorities had been telephoned. The accident was inside the Tama county line by more than two miles, but those who first reached the accident were uncertain as to what county the accident had occurred in and called Marshalltown.

Davis had spent Sunday at his home and reported for work at LeGrand at 2 o’clock Monday morning and began hauling gravel an hour later. He worked throughout the day and spent the evening in Tama.

He was returning to LeGrand at the time of the accident. He had been awake for more than 24 hours and the hard days work and the long hours he had been without sleep are believed to have caused him to doze at the wheel and to lose control of the car.

Davis is survived by his widow in Decatur City. They have no children. The body was taken to Mystic where burial will take place. Corner Wentzien said that there would be no inquest.

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Funeral services for Roy W. Davis, Worlds War veteran and member of the Masonic and I. O. O. F. lodges, who was killed Tuesday night, when his truck tipped over in a ditch near LeGrand, was held Wednesday afternoon at the Christian church at Mystic, with the Rev. Geo. Swan Jr. in charge. The mixed choir of Plano sang several numbers at the impressive service.

Roy, who was 43 years of age, was a former Mytic resident and had many relatives and friends here and many relatives and frineds in the west Plano vicinity and Wayne county (sic, should be Decatur County) where he lived, also in LeGrand and vicinity where he was living at the time of his death, and a large crowd of sorrowing relatives, friends and neighbors gathered at the Military and Masonic rites to pay their last repects to one whom they loved as a brother.

Interment was made in the Elgin cemetery at Mystic, with full military honors. A firing squad from the national guard at Centerville and Mystic American Legion assisted in the rites.

Transcriptions by Sharon R. Becker, April of 2015