Gustav "Gust" Thoreson 1848-1884

THORESON

Posted By: Merllene Andre Bendixen (email)
Date: 8/19/2011 at 20:07:10

Gust Thoreson started from town yesterday evening for his home in Twelve Mile Lake, but at this writing has not been heard from here. His team was taken up at A. L. Gunderson’s with the sleigh pole attached and the sleigh was found on the prairie north of there. We hope nothing serious has happened to Gust, and that he has turned up all whole by this time. (National Broad-Axe, Estherville, IA, January 4, 1884)

A Sad Calamity
Gust Thoreson Frozen to Death on the Prairie
Our sincere hope as expressed last week that Mr. Thoreson would come up safe has proven barren of fruition. Hearing nothing of him since he left here for home Thursday evening, a party of volunteers numbering about fifty started out Tuesday in search of him, believing him an unfortunate victim of Thursday night’s terrible cold, and, sad to tell, the fears were well grounded. His stiffly frozen corpse was found by Lewis Jacobson within two and a half miles of his house and some four miles on the road home from where his team broke loose and left him. Mr. Jacobson had struck the track and followed its devious windings to the spot. Gust had not followed the road but the general course of his traveling was straight for home. He was a mile and a quarter from the house of his neighbor, Peter Ulrickson.

When found he was lying on his back on a side hill, feet toward north, with the right arm thrown straight out, the other arm and the rest of the body in such position as in natural sleep. The lower limbs were dressed in light cotton clothing and the feet in a pair of heavy boots, so it is evident his legs were so frozen and benumbed that he fell over and could not arise before that fatal torpor characteristic of freezing set in and he knew no more. His four mile walk such a night shows that he made a desperate battle for life.

Sheriff Whelan, who was one of the seekers, took charge of the body, brought it to town, placed it in the court room, had Mr. Youngblood and Mr. Hawk look after and thaw it out for burial, and Coroner Little made arrangements for an inquest next morning, summoning a jury of the following citizens: T. O. Myher, D. Thompson, and a. L. Gunderson, and the following witnesses were sworn in the investigation: Lewis Jacobson, E. S. Wells, L.S. Williams, Harvey James, J. O. Sando, John M. Barker whose testimony – leaving out Jacobson, who knew nothing except finding him – all went to show that he was intoxicated and not fit to take care of himself that night when he left town at nine o’clock. After deliberation the jury returned the following verdict “That the deceased came to his death on Thursday night January 3,1884, in the township of Twelve Mile Lake, Emmet county, Iowa, by freezing to death through exposure brought on by his intoxication.” David Thompson, T. O. Myher, A. L. Gunderson/attested by C. B. Little, Coroner

After the inquest the body, which we are pleased to say was excellently cared for by the two men in charge it was placed, was laid in a good coffin, his hair and beard combed nicely, a respectable necktie put on, everything possible done to make up the Gust of old and sent down to his afflicted home in Twelve Mile Lake, from which the funeral will take place. He was about 38 years old and was born in Norway.

Well Gust Thoreson is dead – dead in a manner horrible to contemplate – dead on the bleak prairie, all alone with his God and presumably not knowing he was about to face that august Being then for a final account – while his wife and five children, the youngest a babe of a few weeks awaited anxiously his coming. Tough, rugged, a hard worker, afraid of no hardships or exposure, never dreaming but that he would live to be “one of the old stock.” There is food for serious thought in the manner of his going. The verdict of the coroner’s jury was the only one to be reached by them and it was with sorrow they were compelled to put in its final clause, but there were the facts, and whoever it was who sold him the last pint of whiskey is certainly suffering in his heart. Peace to you, Gust; you were large in heart, honest in action and true in friendship when not so changed by unnatural stimulants as to make you another being; and may the God of the widow and orphan protect your wife and little ones. (National Broad-Axe, Estherville, IA, January 11, 1884)