ROUTCH, Eugene 1905-1930

ROUTCH

Posted By: Tammy (email)
Date: 5/8/2015 at 14:31:28

Farmhand Ends Life With Help of a Shotgun

Body Was Found By Game Warden Fred Riant At Side Of Road

Suicide Left No Reason For Act

Young Man Had Been Working on Jim Connell Farm Since Last March

Eugene Routch, a farmhand, committed suicide Saturday evening by shooting himself with a 12 gauge shotgun. The body was found by deputy Game Warden Fred Riant. The body was lying on its back to the rear of the dead man's car which was parked in a driveway leading to a grove a short distance west of the Jim Connell farm five miles west of Grundy Center. Mr. Riant was on his way home to Wellsburg. He took a sideroad and was on the look-out for out-of-season pheasant shooters. When he saw a car parked near a grove where there is no family living, he thought that he might furnish a surprise party to a poacher. The game warden was given both a surprise and the shock of his life when he saw a man with the top of his head partly blown off lying back of a parked car. He saw at once that the man was dead and he hurried to the Elmer Hoffa farm nearby where he sent word for the sheriff and the coroner to come out. The man had evidently been dead less than an hour before his body was found. No one heard the shot. He had tied his handkerchief around one foot. This was used as a sling to which he attached a string torn from cloth and tied the string to the trigger of the gun. The string broke as the gun was discharged. The muzzle of the gun was held against the temple. Death was instantaneous.

County Coroner L. D. Coffman brought the remains to the Coffman mortuary where they were prepared for burial. Services were held at the Sacred Heart church in Grundy Center Monday morning. Burial was in the Grundy Center cemetery.

Routch was about 27 years old. He was a native of --unreadable-- Alsace Lorraine. He came to this country a year and a half ago. The first year he worked on a farm in Minnesota. He came here early in the spring and got a job on the Jim Connell farm where the dead man's cousin, Lou Martin, had been employed for a year. Routch was a good workman and seemed to get along well at the Connell farm. Saturday morning be told Mr. Connell that he was quitting and wanted his time. When his time was figured up, it was found that he owed his employer $1.20. He had bought a car two months before and had not had the transfer recorded. Mr. Connell advised him to have the transfer looked after. He came to town at the same time that the Connell family were ready to come in to the Hummel funeral. Before leaving, Routch bid his employer and family goodbye, saying that he would probably be on his way when they returned. When the Connell family returned home they found $1.30 on the table which Routch left as the amount that he had overdrawn. They did not hear from him again until they were notified of his death shortly after the body was found.

The gun that was used belonged to Leo Martin, the cousin. Routch took the gun from the house when he returned from his trip to town.

He left a note in a tablet which was on the front seat of his car. The note was a request that his folks be told that he was killed in an automobile accident. On a slip of paper which was in his pocket, there was the address of Joseph Hulne, Sandwich, Ill. He had but six cents in money in his pocket which represented the total of cash that he had. He left a picture of himself with a black paper frame on the table at the Connell home.

Routch's father and mother, two brothers, and two sisters are living in their old home in Alsace Lorraine and they have been advised of the death of their son and brother.

--The Grundy Register (Grundy Center, Iowa), 16 October 1930, pg 1