Ada Towns Yocum, 1889-1927
YOCUM, TOWNS, PRICE
Posted By: Clay County IAGenWeb Coordinator (email)
Date: 5/23/2013 at 06:58:21
WOMAN FATALLY BURNED AT DICKENS
GASOLINE EXPLOSION CAUSES DEATH OF MRS. BURT YOCUM
SON, 17 YEARS OLD, BADLY BURNED TRYING TO SAVE HER
FARMSHOUSE IS DESTROYED
Baby is Dropped from Both Into Snow Bank But is None the Worse
Mrs. Ada Yocum, 41 years old, wife of Birt Yocum and mother of five children, was fatally burned by a gasoline explosion that caused the destruction of their home on the Randall Tuttle farm a mile, east of Dickens last Sunday noon. She died about eight hours later in Spencer hospital.
Her son Joe, 17 years old, was severely burned about the face and hands when he tried to save her.
The house was burned to the ground with all its contents. None of the farm buildings except the house was damaged, as the house was east of the rest and a wind was blowing from the west during the fire.
The explosion occurred in the kitchen. The Yocum car would not run (unreadable text) who was helping Mr. Yocum with the farm work, said he thought the trouble might be ice in the gasoline feed line.
They drew three or four gallons of gasoline out of the auto's tank into a milk pail and carried that into the house and set it on the kitchen floor a few feet from the stove.
Mrs. Yocum and Joe were in the kitchen about eleven o'clock or a little later when the gasoline exploded. The blazing fluid was thrown over her and set her clothes on fire. The kitchen was full of flame. Even in that moment she thought first of the children, and cried out to Mrs. Will Price in the next room, to save them.
Mrs. Price was bathing the youngest Yocum child, May, two years old. She quickly kicked the glass out of a window and storm window of the sitting room she was in, and put the naked baby through it onto the snow outside. She yelled for the men. Then she got the other Yocum children May, 4 years old, and Pearl, 12, and two children of her own, out of the house, and took a quilt out and wrapped baby May in it.
Little May looked none the worse next day for her snow bath.
Mr. Yocum was in a corncrib getting feed for the hogs, and Mr. Price was in the farmyard working on the car, when the explosion occurred. When they got to the house, Joe was trying to get his mother out of the kitchen by the back door but was unable to open it. Mr. Yocum thought that they were confused and tried to push the door open though it opened inward. He said that Joe would have burned to death himself before he would have abandoned his mother.
Price and Yocum got Mrs. Yocum and Joe out of the house. Most of her clothing was burned off. They wrapped her in a quilt and laid her on a mattress brought from the house, and got the first man who came along the road with a car to take her and the children to Will Edwards' house about half a mile north.
Mrs. Yocum was taken from the Edwards place to Dr. E. E. Bruce in Dickens. He saw that she was burned virtually from head to foot and that her condition was very dangerous. He had her brought as quickly as possible to Spencer hospital and went there himself at the at the same time. On arrival at the hospital about 1:15 or 1:30 she was taken at once to the operating room and her burns were dressed, but it was impossible to save her life. She died at 7:15 that evening.
Joe Yocum was burned on the lips, cheeks, ears and hands, and some of the hair was singed from his head. His burns were not considered dangerous, though painful.
The bereaved family found shelter with friends and relatives. Monday Mr. Yocum and his two youngest children were staying at the home of Charles Rodenburg, 1230 Grove street, in Spencer. He said that he would try to find a house in Dickens where they could live temporarily while he continued to work the farm. Work must go on. He was milking nine cows. His stepmother, Mrs. Hattie Averill, said she would go to Dickens and keep house for them. He had seen F.M. Tuttle and been told that a new house would be built on the farm as soon as weather would permit. All the Yocum household goods, and all their clothes except what they had on had been lost in the fire, but the farming plant and Mr. Yocum's stock, feed and equipment, had not been damaged. Mrs. Yocum had some insurance in the Royal Neighbors.
Besides her husband and the children named above, Mrs. Yocum is survived by a son Ernest, 18 years old, who has been in Louisiana since, last April, and by three sisters and four brothers, all in Louisiana. A message and ticket home were telegraphed to Ernest.
Funeral services, conducted by Rev. W. O. Roten of the Spencer Baptist church, will be held tomorrow, Thursday, at 2:30 p.m. at Cobb's Funeral Home. Interment will be made in Riverside cemetery, Spencer.
Mrs. Yocum was born at Vienville [sic], Louisiana, and grew up there. She was Ada Towns before her marriage to Burt Yocum on Thanksgiving Day of 1908 at Bienville. They lived there for eight years after their marriage then came to this county and lived for two years. They went back to Louisiana but returned here about two years ago. They bought out Floyd Wood, who was farming the Randall Tuttle place east of Dickens, and moved onto it themselves last July.
F. M. Tuttle said that a new house to replace the burned one would be built on the place as soon as the weather permits. The burned house was insured for about $1500, which will cover the loss.
Source: Spencer Reporter, Spencer, Clay County, Iowa; December 21, 1927.
Interment in Riverside cemetery
Clay Obituaries maintained by Kris Meyer.
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