Laurel Huffman

HUFFMAN, SZEMKUS, CUMP, JAMISON

Posted By: Treva Patterson (email)
Date: 4/2/2006 at 09:34:28

Winterset Madisonian
1967

LAUREL HUFFMAN DIES IN CRASH

Former Patterson Resident Killed When Car Struck Bridge

Laurel Huffman, 20 year old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lee Huffman of near Patterson, was killed last Friday night, Jan 27, in a highway accident near LaPorte City.

She and a friend, Faye Alice Szemkus of Garber, were driving from Iowa City to Waterloo that night. They planned to stay overnight in Waterloo, prior to a ski trip to Wisconsin.

Their car struck a bridge on Highway 218 in Benton county and went into a creek. Miss Szemkus was believed to have been driving. The bodies of the two girls were found Saturday morning.

Miss Huffman had graduated from Iowa Methodist school of nursing in Des Moines on Aug. 12, 1966, and was employed as a registered nurse at University hospitals in Iowa City, where she was working toward her degree.

She was a graduate of Winterset High school with the class of 1963. She was a popular student at the Winterset school, and was one of the Homecoming queen candidates in the fall of 1962. At graduation, she was one of the winners of the Krabiel Opportunity College Schlarships. Miss Huffman was born in Des Moines July 16, 1946, but most of her life had been spent in Madison county. She was a member of the National Federation of Registered Nurses, Baldwin-Patterson Ameerican Legion auxiliary and the Patterson Methodist church.

Surviving are her parents; the paternal grandmother, Mrs. Ollie Huffman of Seymour; her maternal grandfather, Andrew G. Cump of Des Moines; three sisters, Wende Lee and Robyn Lynn, both at home, and Mrs. Launa Jamison of Knoxville; and a brother, Jeoffrey, at home.

Funeral services were to be held this Wednesday at 1 p.m. from the First Methodist church in Des Moines, conducted by the Rev. Richard Bentzinger of Altoona and the Rev. James Louk of Patterson. Burial was to be made in the McGinnis Cemetery near Patterson.