Leo Charles Plunkett

PLUNKETT, OCONNOR

Posted By: Ida Morse (email)
Date: 3/12/2006 at 19:09:09

Mason City Globe Gazette, January 20, 1943
Mason City, Iowa

Funeral Will Be Held Here for Victim

Leo C. Plunkett, one of four victims of the passenger station fire at Burlington, was former Mason Cityan.

Mrs. Plunkett, formerly Miss Marjorie O'Connor, teacher in the Mason City schools, and two small children, Denice, 2 1/2 years, and John, 9 months survive.

Mr. Plunkett was telegraph operator for Clark Brothers, stock, bond and grain market offices in the Foresters building, from 1933 to 1935.

The body will arrive Friday morning and will be taken to the Meyer funeral home. Funeral services will be held Saturday at 9 o'clock at the Holy Family church. Burial will take place in the Sacred Heart cemetery at Rockwell, former home of Mrs. Plunkett.

The rosary will be said at the Meyer funeral home Friday evening at 8 o'clock.

The Catholic Daughters of America will meet at the Meyer funeral home for the Rosary Friday evening.

Mason City Globe Gazette, January 20, 1943
Mason City, Iowa

FIREMEN STILL HUNT 2 BODIES

Work through Ruins of Burlington Station

BURLINGTON, (AP)-firemen worked through the burned ruins of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy passenger station Thursday in an attempt to find the bodies of two persons still missing following a fire which swept through the building early Wednesday.

Two bodies were found in the ruins late Wednesday and were identified by relatives as P. E. Carlin, a conductor waiting to take over a train which was behind schedule, and Leo C. Plunkett formerly of Mason City, a telegrapher on duty at the station.

Still missing were Miss Doris Kenning, telephone operator, and L. H. Harvey, of Ottumwa, a civil engineer.

All four were last known to have been on the second floor of the station when the fire broke out.

The bodies recovered were found near the vault in a second floor section which remained standing amid the burned ruins

Service was restored on a make-shift basis with the express office and railroad coaches on sidings being used for emergency telegraph and ticket-selling purposes. The Union hotel lobby was pressed into services as temporary passenger waiting room.