GILES, Sylvia Jean

GILES, BIDEAUX

Posted By: Betty Hootman-Volunteer
Date: 2/23/2014 at 11:01:01

SYLVIA JEAN GILES

The body of eight year old Sylvia Jean Giles, who drowned in the Des Moines river below Croton last Thursday evening, was recovered Monday at about 4 p.m. after it had floated to within about a mile and a half from the Des Moines river highway bridge near Keokuk.

The body was found by Morris Springer, Sr. and Morris Springer, Jr., of Croton who had come down the river in a skiff hoping to find some trace of the little after dragging operations had been given up.

She was near the base of the Buena Vista cemetery hill and had been carried almost 15 miles from where she had drowned by the swift current of the river.

Dr. F. L. Lyman of fort Madison, county coroner, gave Sheriff Harry V. D. Maas permission to move the body and said that he would sign the death certificate.

From the Greaves Mortuary here the body was taken to the Swan funeral Home in Farmington where funeral service was held at 11 o’clock Tuesday morning.

Sylvia Jean was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Bideaux who live about 3 miles below Croton.

She and a brother, Larry, another little boy, Eugene Speiz, had gone down to the river to see a beaver dam. She slipped off a log into about 4 feet of water.

Crews of men, the county sheriff and the Coast Guard dragged the river, dynamited and done everything trying to find the body.

Source: Scrapbook of Unknown Origin, Page 55