Jake Dystra, 1901-1924

DYSTRA

Posted By: Emmet County IAGenWeb Coordinator (email)
Date: 7/9/2009 at 07:15:40

POISON "HOOTCH" KILLS FARM HAND

Jake Dystra, aged 23, a farm hand employed by Sam VanDerBy, west of Ringsted, died at the VanDerBy home about midnight last Thursday night following an afternoon's drinking debauch on bootleg whiskey.

The "hootch" was furnished by Dan Sibrel, a Palo Alto county bootlegger who has sold his villainous poison stuff in Palo Alto and Emmet counties unmolested for the past four or five years. It is reported to us on good authority that he visited Ringsted on last Thursday afternoon the same day the poison hootch was sold at the VonDerBy farm.

Another young man at this same place lay crazed with the same poison stuff in the barn all afternoon and evening.

Dykstra became paralyzed early in the evening. Dr. Demaree was called by Mr. VanDerBy. He was on a case in that neighborhood and arrived at the VanDerBy home about seven o'clock. He found Dykstra unconscious and he never regained consciousness. His stomach was pumped out, artificial heat was applied to his body and everything possible done to save his life but the poison "hootch” had done its work and the second victim of the bootleggers regime in this vicinity passed in away. Dykstra emigrated to this country only about eight weeks ago from Holland and has been employed by Sam VanDerBy since that time. He leaves aged parents in. Holland.

Dan Sibrel, who lives two miles south of the Conway school house, the unscrupulous bootlegger who sold the poison booze, had disappeared early the next morning when the sheriff called to arrest him for manslaughter. The people of this community should see that every effort is made to hunt down this criminal and that he is prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Every bootlegger is a criminal and it is time for people to realize it. Ringsted Dispatch.

Source: The Vindicator and Republican, Estherville, Emmet County, Iowa; May 28, 1924.