Frank Teal ~ 1874-1929

TEAL, BEAN, ANDERSON, BARKER, KECK

Posted By: Volunteer - Rhonda Rankin Rowe
Date: 1/31/2002 at 09:44:00

Frank Teal was instantly killed about eight o’clock Saturday night, Nov. 16, when struck by an automobile driven by T.J. Andrew of Waterloo, Iowa.

Mr. Teal had gone to Keosauqua with his sons. The boys had decided to attend the show at the Wampas Theater. Mr. Teal left the car for them to use and was walking to his home on the Rinabarger farm one mile southeast of Keosauqua when he was killed.

Andrews was driving a Whippet car at a speed which he said was around forty miles an hour and was en route to Bonaparte. He was alone in the car and Mr. Teal was alone. No other person saw the accident.

Mr. Teal was evidently walking along the shouldering on the outside of the curve near the gate entrance to the Rinabarger pasture or park where the Farm Bureau picnic was held last summer. The tracks left by the car indicate that the Andrews car left the paving and for a distance of sixty or eighty feet was driving along the shouldering and entirely off the pavement, the right wheels of the car being over the edge of the shoulder.

The left side of the car struck Mr. Teal, broken glass from the left lamp indicating about where he was when the car struck him, and when the car was stopped it was on the pavement and about one hundred feet distant from the broken glass from the lamp.

Mr. Teal must have been killed instantly for his skull was badly fractured. No other bones were broken.

Don Jamison and Thad Sherod were the first ones on the scene after the accident. They were going to their homes in Keosauqua after being employed during the week at the Swank quarry in Farmington township.

Coroner H.A. Burnett was called and decided that an inquest was not necessary, it being evident that Mr. Teal had been instantly killed by the accident.

Mr. Andrews is under parole to John Earley, having recently been employed as carpenter on state work at Keosauqua and Fairfield. He was employed several months ago on the rebuilding of the lodge at Keosauqua state park.

The barber who shaved Mr. Andrews shortly before the accident, and Coroner Burnett who interviewed him soon after the accident gave it as their opinion that he was not intoxicated. Andrews says that he did not see Mr. Teal until the car was almost ready to hit him.

It appears that he was driving at rather high speed around the curve and that the car left the paving and to the shoulder of the road almost out of control of the driver and that he was striving to get the car back to the paving when he struck Mr. Teal.

Funeral services were held on Monday afternoon at one o’clock at the Methodist church in Utica, Rev. M.D. Cox of Keosauqua officiating. Interment in Dibble cemetery.

Deceased is a son of Thomas H. and Mary Teal and was born on June 1, 1874, on a farm northwest of Utica, being at the time of his death 55 years, 5 months, and 15 days of age.

He was united in marriage on Nov. 29, 1905, with Dana Bean, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Bean of Winchester, and to them were born five children who with the wife and mother mourn his untimely death. The children are Mrs. Naomi Anderson of Charles City, Iowa, and Marvin, Norwood, Refa and Lyle at home. He is also survived by his mother, Mrs. Mary Teal, age 85, and by his twin sister, Mrs. Robert Barker of Keosauqua, another sister, Mrs. Judson Keck of Keosauqua, and one brother, Ferg Teal of Fairfield.

The Teal family had moved from a farm near Utica to the Rinabarger farm last March.

Source; Iowa Rankin and Jenny Matheson newspaper clippings