REX THOMAS SINKS TO A WATERY GRAVE

THOMAS

Posted By: Judy Kelley, volunteer (email)
Date: 9/26/2010 at 11:30:49

Drowned Last Evening In the Iowa River.

WHOLE TOWN IN MOURNING

Drowning Occurred About 7:30 Last Evening Opposite Jno. Grimm Home While Swimming With Merritt Johann - Rescue Attempted But Too Late - Force of Men Drag River All Night, Dynamite - Body Not Found.

This community was delivered a stunning blow last evening about 7:30 o'clock, when word was passed around that Rex Thomas, 19 years old, youngest son of Mrs. D. C. Thomas, one of the most popular young men of Wapello, had sunk to his death in the river opposite the Jno. Grimm home.

He, with a score or more of men, women and children, seeking relief from the heat of the day, had gone in swimming on the east side of the river off the sandbar. With Merritt Johann, a youth of the same age, he waded out on the bar, which estends to the center of the river. As they came to the place where the bar left off precipitately into deep water, Johann told him that there the bar jumped off into deep water and that he was going out and float down. Thomas said he couldn't swim much and thought he better stay closer to the bar or he might float down and never come back. So they started out Johann floating down in the current on his back, with his ears under water and Thomas, about 15 feet to the east of Johann, swimming. A cry called Johann's attention to his friend who was struggling in the water, with an agonized expresson on his face. He hurried to the rescue and made a lunge for him, but the drowning boy collapsed and sank for the last time just out of Johann's reach. Even as Johann crossed the spot where his friend sank he felt him grab his leg and then slip off. Johann had seen his friend sink but once and expected him to come up again, but when he did not do so and seeing the bubbles rising to the water's surface, he knew he was drowning, and dived for him but the water was too deep and he could not reach bottom.

Raymond Davison, another bather, heard Thomas' cry for help and swam with all speed toward him, but as he had to swim upstream against the current, he could make no headway and Thomas went down the last time when he was about ten feet away. Davison dived several times in the vicinity of the spot where Thomas went down, but could find no trace of him, and himself becoming exhausted, was compelled to leave the water. Other swimmers, some of the best in town, came to the spot and dived in an effort to locate the victim, but as the water there is about twenty-five feet in depth, their efforts availed nothing.

By this time word of the accident reached town and in a short time hundreds of people lined the banks ready to render assistance in finding the body. Boats of all kinds were soon manned and the river was dragged with grappling hooks and hurriedly improvised appliances. This continued throughout the night by the light of searchlights attached to batteries. The river was again filled with boats this morning manipulating nets, drags and pike poles, and dynamiting is now in progress, but as yet the body has not been recovered.

About an hour after the accident Burlington, Keokuk and Davenport were wired for divers and even a call for the pulmotor at Burlington, was made in the desperate hope that its use might save the boy if his body was recovered soon after the accident. Word from Burlington stated that although they were willing to send the pulmotor that it would be useless so long after the drowning. No diver has been secured as yet but further efforts to get one will be made if the dynamiting does not bring the body to the surface.

Source: LCHS scrapbook; newspaper clipping with a handwritten date of July 12, 1916