TerHaar, Philip - Abt. 1932-1950

TERHAAR

Posted By: Linda Vander Linden-Volunteer (email)
Date: 6/9/2013 at 12:39:10

Paper date of October 12, 1950 (there are 5 other articles of the same date, but this article is from a Maurice, IA-Special Edition)

Two Sioux Center youths were killed instantly in an automobile smashup near the "million dollar" corner 2 miles north of here early Sunday and then lay for nine hours in their twisted steel coffin before being discovered.

Philip Ter Haar, 18, and Lee Haverhals, 19, met death when their car plunged off the west end of a bridge and plummeted 80 feet through the air before landing on the east bank of West Branch creek.

The wreckage was discovered about noon Sunday by the driver of a cab-over-engine truck from Alton, IA. The height of the driver's seat enabled him to spot the tangled mass far below the road level after it had escaped the notice of a steady stream of Sunday morning traffic.

Harry Dykstra of Orange City, IA., Sioux County sheriff, investigated and fixed the date of death at 3:15 a.m. A smashed watch on one of the youth's wrists had stopped at that time.

According to relatives, the boys were returning from a party at Hawarden, IA, when the accident occurred. It could not be determined whether the driver had gone to sleep or if some mechanical failure caused the smashup.

A wrecker was needed to pull the demolished automobile apart in order to extricate the crushed bodies of the victims.

Young Ter Haar was the son of Mr. & Mrs. Henry Ter Haar of Sioux Center. Also surviving ate two brothers and two sisters.

The Haverhals boy's survivors include the mother, Mrs. Case Haverhals, three brothers and two sisters.

Both boys were day laborers.

The bodies were taken to the Vander Ploeg funeral home at Sioux Center.