Eldon Lynch Killed

LYNCH, COGLEY, MAACK, HILL, SPIRE, STECKER, HIXON

Posted By: Marilyn Holmes (email)
Date: 4/11/2013 at 12:49:39

The Grinnell (IA) Herald
Marach 9, 1923

ELDON LYNCH KILLED
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Car Turned Over On Sheridan Boy
South of Tama, James Cogley
Injured.
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COGLEY CRAWLS FROM UN-
DER CAR AND GIVES ALARM
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Lynch Was Proprietor of Sheridan
Garage and Was Prominent Young
Man in That Community
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As the result of an automobile accident after midnight Wednesday night Eldon Lynch, aged 22, the proprietor of a garage at Sheridan Center, ten miles south of Tama, was killed. His companion in the car, James Cogley, of about the same age, beyond shock and trifling bruises, was uninjured.

Funeral services are to be held Sunday afternoon at 2:00 from the Sheridan M.E. Church. Rev. M. Wissler of Chester will preach the funeral sermon.

The tragic accident occurred about forty rods north of the home on the Toedt farm on the Tama-Sheridan road, four miles south of Tama. The exact time of the accident is unknown but is thought to have been at about 3 o'clock Thursday morning. The car, a Ford coupe belonging to Cogley, went into the ditch on the west side of the road and was thrown on its side, pinning beneath it its two occupants.

The accident occurred while the young men were driving south form Tama where they had attended a dancing party given Wednesday evening at the Woodman hall by Lewis Maack, who is moving from a farm a mile and a half south of the Sheridan store, which he recently sold, to another farm he owns near the store.

Cogley was held under the car for some time, he does not know exactly how long, but finally succeeded in crawling out from under it. It was between 5 and 5:30 o'clock that he knocked at the door of the farm house on the Toedt farm, occupied by Hiram Hill and family.

Mr. Hill at once accompanied Cogley to the scene of the accident and the two were able to get the body of the dead man from underneath the car. Mr. Hill telephoned at once to County Coroner Carpenter and soon thereafter the body was brought to Tama where it is at present at the Harrison undertaking rooms.

Lynch, according to statements made by Cogley, was not instantly killed, but was slowly strangled to death. He reports the dying man's last words to have been, "I'm strangling; I'm dying; get this off me."

Cogley, pinned beneath the car and unable to make more than the slightest movements, was powerless to assist his companion and was compelled to lie there and hear his voice being slowly stilled in death. When the coroner viewed the body he found that no bones had been broken. The only injury visible was a mark across the neck where the edge of the seat had pressed against it, making a deep indentation.

Eldon Lynch was well known in south Tama and north Poweshiek counties. He was a son of John W. Lynch, was born in Sheridan township Nov. 17, 1900, and died at the age of 22 years, 3 months and 21 days, all of his life having been spent in this neighborhood. For the past three years he had been in partnership with his father in operating a garage at Sheridan.

He is survived by his parents, his grandmother, Mrs. Spire, three uncles, Thomas, Earnest and Truman Lynch of Sheridan; two aunts, Mrs. August Stecker of Brooklyn and Mrs. Frank Hixson of What Cheer, and other relatives.--Tama Herald.