TAPPER, Lyle, Ruby & James

TAPPER, HANSON

Posted By: County Coordinator
Date: 12/14/2009 at 17:23:48

#1 of 2 items:

Kansas Crash Kills 3 From Osage Area

OSAGE, IOWA — Residents of the Osage area were shaken by a tragedy that took the lives of
three area residents on a Kansas highway Saturday night.

Mr. and Mrs. Lyle Tapper, Route 1, Orchard, and a son, James Michael, 7, were victims of the crash that occurred just before midnight on the Kansas Turnpike near Wellington, Kansas. The Tappers were on the way to California.

Four other Tapper children were injured in the accident that occurred on the family's first vacation trip in a number of years.

The injured children are Lyle Jr., 11; Kathy, 3; Mary, 5, and Janice, 9. Kathy, who has a fractured left hip and fractured lower left leg, was believed to be the most seriously injured.

Lyle Jr. suffered a concussion and multiple cuts. Mary suffered a slight concussion, and Janice was not seriously hurt.

The crash occurred when the Tapper car hit a truck which which had stopped on the turnpike behind another truck which had overturned. Officers said Tapper apparently did not notice there had been an accident.

The Kansas officers were able to learn details about the Tapper family from Janice, the only one able to be questioned immediately after the smashup.

The driver of the truck struck by the Tapper car, Franz Henry Johanning of Raytown, Missouri, escaped injury. However, the driver of the truck which had jack-knifed and overturned, Holm Akers of Ardmore, Oklahoma, was reported in serious condition with multiple cuts.

Akers told officers his truck rolled over three times, scattering oil field pipe it was carrying. The scattered pipe forced Johanning to stop his transport truck.

Mrs. Tapper and James Michael were killed outright. The father died about 3 a.m. in St. Luke's Hospital at Wellington. The injured children are in that hosptial.

The Tapper farm is about 3½ miles southeast of New Haven. The Tappers came to the area about 9 years ago.

Tapper, 35, a respected farmer, was reared in the Hampton area where he won awards for farm projects as a youth. He later gave military service before beginning farming in the Osage area.

Mrs. Trapper, 36, was the former Ruby Hanson of New Hampton. A registered nurse, she had been working at the Mitchell County Memorial Hospital for nearly three years, starting after the last of the five children was born. She had received her nursing training at Jackson park Hospital, Chicago.

Funeral services for Mr. and Mrs. Tapper and James will be Thursday at 2 p.m. at the Church of Christ in Hampton. Burial will be in Hampton Cemetery with Green & Sietsema Funeral Home in charge.

In addition to the children, both Mr. and Mrs. Tapper are survived by their parents, brothers and sisters.

His survivors are his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jens Tapper, northeast of Hampton; a sister, Mrs. Harry Davis, Colfax; two brothers, Allen, Hamption, James, Nevada.

Mrs. Tapper is survived by her mother, Mrs. Elsie Hanson, Los Angeles; three sisters, Mrs. Mary Westland, Anoka, Minnesota, Anna and Chris Hanson, California, five brothers, Vincent Hanson, Clarion; Chester, Hubert and Carlo Hanson, all of California, and Dennis with the Army in Germany.

(Mason City Globe-Gazette - Monday, August 12, 1963)

NOTE: Other newspaper stories regarding this accident referred to James Michael as being Carl.

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#2 of 2 items:

Eleven-year-old Lyle Tapper Jr. was to have his first plane ride today but the occasion is not a happy one.

Lyle and his grandfather, Jans Tapper of Hampton, Iowa, are taking the boy's seriously injured 3-year-old sister Kathy to a Hampton hospital. Their parents and Lyle's brother James, 7, were killed in a traffic accident on the Kansas Turnpike 11 miles northeast of here 10 days ago.

Lyle's three sisters were injured. All but one, Mari, 5, were to be dismissed from the hospital today, Mari was the most seriously hurt.

The children were told Saturday of their parents' deaths, the grandmother said. The grandparents arrived Friday following funeral services in Iowa for Mr. and Mrs. Lyle Tapper, who were from Osage, Iowa. The family was on a vacation trip to California at he time of the crash.

[THE LEAVENWORTH TIMES, Wednesday Evening, August 21, 1963]

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Photos below (from whole family photo in newspaper) is of James Michael Tapper, and Ruby & Lyle Tapper.

Click for 1962 Family Photo
 

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