Donald Laverne Mackey (1926-1940)

MACKEY

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

From Nevada Evening Journal July 5, 1940

Story City Boy Drowning Victim at Lake Comar

Story City, July 5 -- Just five years after the day his father sank to his death in the waters of the Des Moines river while on a Fourth of July picnic, Donald Laverne Mackey, 14, drowned in Lake Comar Thursday.

Young Mackey, second son of the widowed Lena Mackey farm woman of southwest of Story City, together with his companion, Russell Fletcher, had left his family at the Story City celebration grounds and gone down to Lake Comar for a swim.

The lake not being open to the public now, there were no lifeguards on duty and the lad was drowned in the presence of his companion, Fletcher.

His father, the later Glen Mackey drowned in the Des Moines river five years before, while on a Fourth of July picnic, July 5, 1935.

Donald Laverne Mackey, son of Mrs. Lena Mackey, was born on a farm west of Story City, March 18, 1926. He leaves his mother and brothers Glen Jr., 15, and George, 5. He had attended the Story City schools and would have been in the 10th grade when school opens in the fall.

Funeral rites for the boy will be held Sunday afternoon at 2 o'clock from Grace Evangelical church here, with Rev. G. L. Bergeman in charge. Burial will be in the Story City cemetery.