Wayne Tisdale (1904-1930)

TISDALE, DONALDSON

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 5/17/2021 at 16:53:12

From Nevada Evening Journal January 2, 1930

KILLED ACCIDENTALLY IN A NEW YEAR'S EVE CELEBRATION

Wayne Tisdale, 25, former Story county boy, is dead and two men are under arrest at Fort Wayne, Indiana according to word received here.

Tisdale, formerly of Colo, had been working at Fort Wayne as an engineer and his death is said to be due to the welcoming of the new year with promiscuous gun shooting.

Police arrested John P. Shaffer, 27, of Woodstock, Ill., and Charles W. Harris, 26, of Winamac, Ind., and charged them with firing the death shot.

The two men confessed, police said that they tried to shoot out some lights to celebrate the arrival of the new year and that one of the bullets accidentally hit Tisdale.

The body will be brought back to Iowa and taken to the home of his parents at Union, where the funeral will be held, after which interment will be in the family lot in the Zearing cemetery.

Tisdale was the son of Mr. and Mrs. A. J. Tisdale, now of Union, but formerly of Colo and Zearing, where the father was engaged in the mercantile business. He was born in Union Des 29, 1904.

He leaves besides his parents, one sister, Mrs. Willard Donaldson of Fernald, besides other relatives in the county.

The young man graduated from the Colo schools with the class of 1924 an later attended Iowa State college, where he took a course in Civil Engineering.

Tisdale was an engineering foreman for the Pennsylvania railroad at Fort Wayne, where he had been employed for the last year. The first message indicated that his death was due either to murder of suicide, but a later message said that the shooting was accidental. This was confirmed by an International News Service dispatch received by the Evening Journal today.

Young Tisdale recently returned to Fort Wayne after spending a short Christmas vacation with his parents at Union and with relatives and friends at Colo, Zearing and Fernald.