FICKEY, William

FICKEY

Posted By: Volunteer: Sherri
Date: 1/21/2017 at 19:10:06

Details of Wm. Fickey's Death.

James Fickey, of Keosauqua, who was called to Alvardo, Texas, last week by a telegram informing him that his brother, Wm. Fickey, who left here a couple of months ago, had been killed by being struck by a railroad engine, returned home Monday. A mention of the death was made in our columns last week, but we had no particulars. The body was kept until the brother James Fickey arrived at Alvarado, and he identified it at once. The deceased was not run over by the cars, but death resulted from the violent concussion of being struck by an engine. It seems he was walking on the track and a freight train was approaching at a rapid rate. The engineer saw Mr. Fickey on the track and sounded the whistle, but being quite deaf he apparently did not hear it until the train was nearly upon him, when he stepped from the track, but that step did not take him quite far enough for the end of the heavy truss of timber, to which the cowcatcher is attached, struck him just above the hip and hurled him so violently to the ground as to cause instant death. Just one more step and he would have escaped. The only bruises on his body were where the beam struck his side, and a lump on his forehead where it hit the ground when he fell. The remains were given interment in Alvarado cemetery. Mr. Fickey found the people there very kind and is grateful for the assistance and sympathy extended him in the burial of his brother.

Source: Van Buren Co. Genealogical Society Obituary Book H, Page 77, Keosauqua Public Library, Keosauqua, IA