Janice (Radabaugh) Borton 1942 - 1969

BORTON, RADABAUGH, ANDERSON

Posted By: Linda H Meyers (email)
Date: 5/22/2009 at 09:13:54

A farm tractor has claimed the life of the second and last child of the Irving Radabaughs of Ames.

Twenty-seven year old Mrs. Art Borton, Rt. 2, Nevada, was killed about 1:30 p.m. Saturday when she was crushed under a tractor at a rural intersection six miles north and a mile west of Nevada.

In a strange quirk of fate, Mrs. Borton's death bore a striking similarity to the accident that killed her 17-year-old brother Don Radabaugh, on August 20, 1960.

Janice, who worked a secretary to the County Nurse at the courthouse during the week, was helping with the farm harvest Saturday. She had driven a car toward Roland, met one of the men on a tractor returning from town, and switched with him, driving the tractor back toward her mother-in-law's, Mrs. Roy Borton.

The tractor, an almost new Intenational 856 diesel, was pulling two empty grain wagons.

At a gravel road intersection a mile west of the Art Borton home and about a half mile north of the Roy Borton farm, Janice met her husband, Art, driving another tractor with wagons headed west on the same road.

Art says they reached the intersection at almost the same time and Janice slowed to let him turn south first. Art went on south and didn't look back until he wsa nearly at his mother's place. What he saw was the tractor and wagons overturned in the ditch.

Mrs. Borton had made a right turn onto the north-south road. The tractor went off the road on the left hand (east) side about 20 feet south of the intersection. The road was clear, there were no obstructions, and no apparent reason for the accident.

The tractor turned all the way onto its top, pinning Mrs. Borton under the left fender. Her leg was pinioned by the steering wheel in almost the identical fashion in which her brother died nine years ago.

It was Janice who found 17-year-old Don Radabaugh nine years ago. Their parents were gone on vacation. Don went after the cattle and didn't come back. Janice found him under the tractor. He had apparently driven under a dangling ware, which distracted him. The tractor ran into a fence and overturned.

Born May 2, 1942 in Iowa Falls, Janice Borton was the daughter of Irving and Christina Radabaugh.

She graduated from the Milford Township High School after moving to Story County in 1956. She was a beauty contest winner and became state queen of the Iowa Conservation competition.

On December 13, 1959 she was married to Art Borton at Nevada.

Survivors include her husband, her parents, a son Richard and a daughter Jackie Lynn; and her grandfather Alfred Anderson of Sheffield, Iowa.

Funeral services will be at the church of her membership, the Memorial Lutheran in Nevada, Tuesday at 1:30 p.m.

The Story County Courthouse will be closed from 1 to 2:30 p.m. for the ceremony. Pastor Harry Myklebust will officiate. Burial will be in Evergreen Memory Gardens. The family will be at the Ryan Funeral Home Monday evening between 7 to 9 p.m.

A memorial fund has been established.

---from the Nevada Evening Journal