Grant Bodwell (1922)

BODWELL, EPPERSON

Posted By: Pat Hochstetler
Date: 9/22/2013 at 17:21:09

The Winterset Madisonian
Winterset, Iowa
Wednesday, February 22, 1922
Page 1

BODWELL BABY BURNED TO DEATH

Little Child Loses Life When Barn on the Reimann Farm Burns

As Erwin Bodwell stood in Creger’s poultry house Friday afternoon, arranging for employment there, friends rushed in, telling him that his three year old son, Grant, had been burned to death in a barn on the Reimann farm, five miles from Booneville and fifteen from Winterset.

Mr. and Mrs. Bodwell, a five year old son, Herman; little Grant and their six weeks old baby are living on the Reimann place. Mr. Bodwell was in town, as has been stated, when the boys made a trip to the barn. They could not get in through the door, so crawled through a small opening and were playing in the driveway of the barn. The enclosure had a cement floor, with no hay, straw or other inflammable materials scattered around. A spring wagon was standing in the driveway, and the children in some manner had climbed into it. They had no matches, as was reported, and the older boy, Herman says, that all at once fire and burning particles of hay and the like began to fall from overhead. He was frightened and tried to get Grant out of the wagon, but the baby was probably too bewildered and scared to be gotten out easily by a small child. Herman managed to escape through the opening by which they had entered, ran to the house and told Mrs. Bodwell that Grant was burning in the barn. Herman says that when he got out, he looked through the aperture, and saw the baby fall out of the wagon on a pile of lumber. When Mrs. Bodwell reached the barn, it was a mass of flames, and nothing could be done to rescue the baby. The charred body was later found in the position described by Herman.

Mr. Bodwell is confident from the story of Herman and the conditions existing in the barn, that the children could not have set the place on fire as it was impossible for them to get into the haymow, and owing to the brief time which elapsed until the boy’s alarm was given, and the rapid spread of the fire, it would seem a fact that the fire must have been in progress overhead for some time.

Funeral services were held in Winterset Saturday afternoon in the Adventist church, with interment in the Winterset cemetery.

The Bodwells recently returned from Texas, and will move into the Ewing property, opposite the depot on March 1st. They lived in the same place at the previous time. Mrs. Bodwell, well known as Miss Vernie Epperson before her marriage, who has been prostrated by the tragedy, is reported as being better. The family is at the C. L. Gray home.

The deepest sympathy of the community goes out to these young people, whose lives have been saddened by this sudden and terrible bereavement.
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Coordinator's note: Buried in the Winterset Cemetery per his Iowa Death Certificate.