David Warren Meets Death In His Play

WARREN

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes (email)
Date: 4/8/2013 at 14:32:37

The Grinnell (IA) Herald; April 25, 1916

DAVID WARREN MEETS
DEATH IN HIS PLAY
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Thirteen Year Old Lad Is Drowned
Last Evening In Lake on Count-
try Club Grounds.
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WAS PLAYING ON RAFT
WITH THREE COMRADES
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Three Were thrown Into the Water,
But Other Two Scrambled
Back To Safety.
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Happy, brave hearted David Warren, the thirteen year old son of Mrs. Addie K. Warren, is dead. While his mother waited at home for him to return from his afternoon of play, he was drowned last evening in the lake on the Country club grounds. The body was rescued by Dr. P.E. Somers, but in spite of artificial respiration and all the doctors could do, the vanished spark of life could not be recalled. It is a sad tragedy and it has saddened all Grinnell.
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The drowning occurred sometime between 6 and 6:30 o'clock. David, Mark Blair, Kenneth Brock, and Bruce Hammond were playing together on two rafts which they had been building as their time and boy finances permitted. There was one large raft and one smaller. The two rafts were tied together with rope and the boys had one pole to propel them. David and Bruce Hammond were on the smaller raft, and Mark Blair and Kenneth Brock on the larger one. They pushed out into the middle of the main lake, playing as boys will, and there was some jumping form one raft to another. In making one of these jumps, David came too close to the edge of the smaller raft, tilted it, and he and Bruce Hammond were thrown into the water. They struggled at once to the larger raft, but it could not hold the weight of all four boys, and tilted, throwing David, Bruce Hammond and Kenneth Brock into the water. Mark Blair, who was on the far side of the raft, saved himself by clinging to the edge which was raised in the air.

Bruce Hammond and Kenneth Brock struggled back to the raft, but David seemed confused and swam at first directly away form his only hope of safety. Then he saw the raft and his companions, and turned back toward it. The boys on the raft had a piece of rope which they threw toward him in the hope that he might catch it and one says that he did catch it for a moment, but he evidently could not keep his hold and, weighed down by the heavy rubber boots he wore, he sank, in about six feet of water.

L.C. Bennett was the first to reach the scene. He is unable to swim and could not help, but he sent Mark Blair and Kenneth Brock to the clubhouse after a rope and to try to find a doctor, and then hurried over and called Dr. Somers and his brother, H.W. Somers, who were on the golf links over by the M. & St. L. tracks. They hurried to the scene as fast as possible, but probably eight of ten minutes had elapsed before they reached it. Dr. Somers went into the water at once, but the spot where the boy had gone down could not be located definitely, and he estimates that it was ten or twelve minutes longer before he was able to locate the little body and bring it to shore. Artificial respiration was begun at once and continued for half an hours, but in vain.

Bruce Hammond, while his comrades ran to the clubhouse as directed, pushed off again on the raft in an attempt to locate David, but was not able to do so.

Little David was a boy of much promise. He was sweet natured and kind, a comfort and help to his widowed mother, a frank, friendly little soul whom everyone liked. He was a basketball devotee and was always one of the little fellows who tossed the ball about during the intermissions at the college games. He was an expert swimmer and diver, and but for the heavy rubber boots he wore would probably be alive today.

The funeral will be held probably tomorrow afternoon and the body will be taken for burial to What Cheer, the family home.