George Abraham WEDDLE (abt. 1862 - Aug. 11, 1904

WEDDLE, STOWERS RELATED FAMILIES- MCKERNAN, TERRILL, SANDS, STINSTRA, WELSH, HINKLEY

Posted By: Jean A. Weddle (email)
Date: 7/6/2010 at 10:51:27

"Sioux City Journal" Newspaper, 11 August 1904
Microfilm at Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Copy/roll #1115 July 1, 1904 - Sept. 30, 1904

Man Killed by Landslide
George Weddle is Buried Beneath Dirt
Catastrophe at Brick Yards

Delos Pravanche is Injured in the Accident – body found only after strenuous efforts of rescuers to Save the victim.

Crushed and mangled under tons of sliding earth, George Weddle, a resident of North Riverside, met a tragic death at 1:30 o’ clock yesterday afternoon.
Weddle was a laborer employed in the yards of the Sioux City Paving Brick company. With the gang of nearly a dozen men he was yesterday engaged at blasting shale from the steep bluff just north of the company’s yards at North Riverside. One blast had been fired, tumbling a great volume of clay down the steep bank a distance of nearly 100 feet. Strata of harder rock in the shale of which the bank was composed had resulted in the formation of a ledge a little more than half way up the bank. This ledge was more than a rod in length and about 5 feet wide. Big chunks of loose clay had alighted upon this when the giant powder tore the bank away from above it and had remained there.
Weddle, in company with a companion workman, George LaBrune, climbed up to the ledge to push away these chunks that the ledge to push away these chunks that had alighted there. Still above them were huge quantities of overhanging shale which had been loosened but not precipitated by the former charge of giant powder. Suddenly this began to slide. Weddle and LaBrune were upon the ledge 50 feet from the base of the perpendicular bluff and directly in the path of the coming avalanche. Both men saw the danger and ran in opposite directions on the ledge to escape, if possible, the slide. Le Brune succeeded.
Warning to Others.
Seeing that he was surely caught, Weddle called to the men below to look out, and then slid over the edge of the ledge just in front of the avalanche hoping that by some trick of fate he might be thrown away from the force of the dirt behind him. The heavy shale soon overtook him, however, and ground him round and round between it and the wall in the slide to the bottom. It was the work of an instant.
When the avalanche had subsided Weddle could not be seen and his companion workmen immediately set to work with spades and picks to recover the body. They realized that the chance of his being alive when found was very small, but they worked away desperately for an hour and a half. Finally the body was recovered near the edge of the mass earth that had fallen. It was buried less than two feet, but the crushing that it had received on the slide to the bottom had destroyed all signs of life.
Weddle’s companions carried him at once to the home of Frank Turl, foreman for the Sioux Paving Brick Company. An examination of the body showed that the head had been badly cut; the right leg broken both above and below the knee and the left leg broken below the knee. The body was otherwise crushed and bruised.
The men who were in the gang with Weddle at the time of the accident and who saw the affair were George LaBrune, John Villim, Fred Randall, Tom Chillieu, Will Purple, George Dagle and Henry Pravanche.
Pravanche is injured
The death of Weddle came near being accompanied by another serious accident. Delos Pravanche, almost 60 years of age, who is engaged in driving the horse which pulls the small dirt cars down to the kiln, was standing near the bottom of the bluff near where the mass of sliding dirt settled. The noise accompanying the rush of dirt scared his horse causing it to start quickly. Pravanche, standing near it, was knocked down and seriously bruised. It was at first thought that his leg was broken but later examination showed that it was not.
The news of the awful accident in which Weddle had lost his life was soon circulated among the people of North Riverside, most of whom are employees or members of the families of employees of the brick yard. All work in the yards was suspended while the men flocked to the scene of the accident.
Wife is Hysterical
News of the tragedy was carried to Mrs. Weddle by one of the gang of workmen of which her husband was a member. At first she could hardly believe it. Then, when the realization dawned upon her, she was almost hysterical. Sobbing and moaning, she was led to see the remains of her husband at the Turl home. She asked to have them taken to her own home at once. On the way back to her own home, Mrs. Weddle had to be supported on the arms of workmen.
Mr. Weddle was 38 years of age and had been employed by the Sioux Paving Brick company for nine years. He had only been a member of the blasting gang, however, since spring. He leaves a wife and five children, the children ranging in age from 3 to 17 years. The oldest child is a girl. The family is not left in good financial circumstances.
Mr. Weddle was a member of the Order of Ben Hur.