Hearse Over Bluff 1908

VOELKER, HANNA

Posted By: Cheryl Locher Moonen (email)
Date: 2/24/2016 at 18:08:45

Dubuque Daily Times Journal, December 9, 1908

HEARSE OVER BLUFF
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WENT DOWN STEEP BANK IN A
BLINDING SNOW STORM
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UNDERTAKER VOELKER AND
DICK HANNA BRUISED
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Were Enroute to Balltown When the
Team Got Off the Road –
Vehicle Broken
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Undertaker Voelker and Richard Hanna, who was driving a team attached to the Trexler hearse, had an experience Saturday night that they will not soon forget and one that came near costing them their lives. As it is both men are badly bruised, Saturday night, as they rode down the steep sides of a high embankment between the city and Balltown.

Saturday night the gentlemen started with the hearse towards Balltown, Mr. Voelker having a funeral there Sunday. The blinding snowstorm was raging at the time and some little time after they left the limits of the city the snow became so blinding that it was almost impossible for them to see their way. They were nearing Balltown and the horses were feeling their way along the road when the driver felt something give under the wheel.

Before either man could jump, the wheels of the heavy hearse had slipped off the roadway, over the edge of the steep embankment and went toppling over into the gully below, smashing the sides of the hearse IN. The weight of the hearse was sufficient to cause the team to break lose, but the hearse went down the side of the bank, carrying the driver and the undertaker with it.

The men extricated themselves with some difficulty and while the hearse was pretty well battered up, the men escaped with nothing more than a few scratches about the face and limbs and some bad bruises. Neither suffered any broken bones, but both were pretty sore from the tumble which they had down the embankment.