Whitmer, Joy Donald 1915-1954

WHITMER, SPIES, HAUSER

Posted By: Linda Ziemann, volunteer (email)
Date: 1/29/2008 at 15:19:57

LeMars Globe-Post
February 8, 1954

MERRILL MAN KILLED IN SPECTACULAR BRIDGE SMASHUP

Richard Clarence Karssens, 47, of Sioux City, appeared in LeMars police court at 3 p.m. Saturday and entered a plea of guilty to a charge of reckless driving. He had nothing to say, and was not represented by an attorney. He was fined $43 and paid the $7 costs, and 15 days on the hill, suspended.

Karssens is the man who came barreling through early Saturday morning at an estimated speed of 80 miles an hour as city, county and state officials were getting the body of Joy D. Whitmer of Merrill onto a stretcher. Three red flashers were going on police cars and he ignored them all, narrowly missing some of the men who were trying to control traffic. Twelve trucker’s flares were out, and one trucker said he was almost hit as he tried to flag Karssen down. Shorty Hentges, who had parked his car and was walking back to offer help, had to leap into the ditch.

Nobody saw the Whitmer accident, which occurred near the Schiefen corner, halfway between LeMars and Merrill, formerly known as the Mallette corner. First news of the accident was brought into LeMars by a trucker who stopped at the Blaue Oil Co. and reported there was a man lying alongside the road. He did not see the car, which had rammed against a big cottonwood tree beside the road.

LeMars police, Walt Bogen and Dwight Calhoon, immediately went out and radioed back that a fatality had occurred. Although the victim’s body was not badly mangled, it was some time before he could be identified.

Scattered wreckage showed that Whitmer had been traveling south at a very high rate of speed and hit the abutment of a small bridge about 100 yards north of the corner.

From the looks of it, Whitmer had negotiated a curve between the railroad bridge and the corner, and didn’t get straightened out, as he hit the left side of the bridge. He was thrown out, a distance of about 60 feet, and landed on the east shoulder of the road. The car went off the west side, tumbling along the ditch for about 300 feet or more and came up against the tree, a total wreck. Parts of the care were scattered along the road and in the ditch. The wreck was dragged in to the Stoos body shop.

The car was a new Mercury with only 750 miles on it, hit the bridge so hard that a piece of it was left wrapped so tightly around the abutment that it took three men to pull it off.

Coroner S.H. Luken said that Whitmer died of a skull fracture and a broken neck. The coroner finally identified the victim, who had moved recently to Merrill from Willmer, Minn. He was married to a Merrill widow, Mrs. Earl Spies, and had been transferred to the Sioux City division of the Chicago and Northwestern railroad from Willmer.

Joy Donald Whitmer was born May 30, 1915, at Morris, Minn., and was 38 years, 8 months and 6 days of age at the time of the fatal car accident on February 6, 1954. Whitmer was employed by the Great Northern Railroad Co. out of Sioux City.

Delia Hauser Spies and Joy Whitmer were married October 24, 1953, in Sioux City.

Funeral services were today, Monday, Feb. 8, at 1:30 p.m. at the Mauer funeral home with Rev. F.W. Wimp of Merrill officiating. Burial was at Hillside Cemetery in Merrill. Survivors include his wife, Delia and a stepson, Robert Spies, of Merrill. Several brothers and sisters also survive. Their home is in Minnesota.