Vedette
Panora, Guthrie Co. Iowa
September 18, 1902
A TERRIBLE ACCIDENT
Mrs. G.C. Wells the Victim of a Gasoline Explosion at her home in
Davenport
Last Wednesday afternoon, Mrs. G.W. Wells of Davenport, a former
Panora woman was so badly burned by the explosion of gasoline
that she died from the effects of her injuries Friday. Mrs. Wells
was in an upstairs room in her house, cleaning furniture with
gasoline, when an accidental lighting of a match ignited the
gasoline and at once enveloped Mrs. Wells in flames. Finding that
she was unable to put out the flames she leaped from the second
story window. In her fall her left arm was broken in two places.
A neighbor living near, rushed to Mrs. Wells' assistance, and put
out the flames but not before she was badly burned. The burns on
her body were so serious that death came Friday as a relief to
her suffering. The remains were brought to Panora Saturday for
burial. She was buried in the east cemetery which is on the farm
where she was born. Amanda Frazier was born October 31, 1861. On
January 7, 1885 occurred her marriage to Mr. G.C. Wells.
Immediately they moved to Stuart, then to Ft. Madison, and later
to Davenport, where Mr. Wells is employed in the government
machine shops on the Rock Island. They have one child, a son
twelve years old. Mrs. Wells is well known here in her childhood
home and many of her friends and school mates of other days were
present at the funeral. She was a woman who loved her home and
took the greatest delight in an unobtrusive way of looking after
the comfort and welfare of others.
The remains were accompanied from Davenport by her husband and
son, her aged mother, who has made her home with her ever since
her marriage, her sister, Mrs. Sarah Dygert of Davenport and two
sons, Ward and Art Dygert and wife, and Mr. Wells' mother of
Marissa IL, and brother of Des Moines. Mrs. Wells is a sister of
Mrs. Hougham and George and William Frazier of this place. The
funeral services were conducted by Rev. J. Irving Brown at the
Presbyterian church, Sunday afternoon in the presence of a large
throng of friends.