Reimer, Wm. 1872 - 1908

REIMER, MCTAGGART

Posted By: Reid R. Johnson (email)
Date: 8/5/2021 at 20:31:24

Elkader Register & Argus, Thur., 23 Jan. 1908. Littleport column.

Again it has become our duty to write of the grim destroyer of life, this time in the person of Wm. Reimer, who on last Sunday afternoon was accidentally killed by a gun shot wound at a point only about 25 or 30 rods from the house. The story, as we are told, runs thusly:

Mr. Reimer left the house about 3:30 p.m., intending to spend a short time hunting, and while crossing a wire fence was killed, as the body, when found, was hanging over the fence with one foot and leg across the fence. It is presumed that in crossing, he slipped on a small stone found at the point of crossing and which bore evidence of having been stepped on, and that in some manner the gun was discharged, the lead striking him in the back of the head with sufficient force to carry away the skull, killing him instantly. The exact manner in which he tried to cross the fence and the exact manner in which the gun was discharged will, of course, never be known, as no one saw him and no one knew of his death until his brother Paul, while in search of the cows, found his lifeless body on the wire fence. The accident must have happened shortly after leaving the house, as indications pointed toward that fact, and it was in the neighborhood of 5:00 or 5:30 when he was found. Wm. Reimer was born in August 1872, and had he lived until next August would have been thirty-six years old. He was one of a family of five boys, all of whom survive him and all of whom were with him when the last sad rites were spoken except Charles, who resides in Missouri. His mother preceded him to the great unknown in 1900 and in the same year he was married to Miss McTaggart. Two children, a boy six years old, and a girl, but a few weeks old, are left with the wife, together with his father and brothers, to mourn his loss, besides a host of friends who showed their sympathy by following the remains to their last resting place beside his mother in the cemetery south of town.

The funeral, which took place Wednesday, was perhaps the largest ever witnessed in this locality, about 185 teams, besides the line of Woodmen and members of the Brotherhood lodges, to which he belonged, who followed on foot. Services were held at the house, the Lutheran minister from Elkport presiding, after which the Woodmen took charge of the remains and tenderly laid them away in their last long sleep.

The floral offerings were both profuse and beautiful, being marks of sympathy from friends and two orders to which he belonged and fittingly expressed the high esteem in which he was held by all who knew him. Such is life, the closing chapter of which we have seen. Let us weep not, but tenderly draw the mantle and look forward to a brighter day when he, with his wife, children, family and friends will again be reunited, smiling and happy, in a land beyond the skies.