OCR Text |
Show Four Fatally Injured Near Beaver In Worst Car Accident In County's History a Three Beaver Young People and One From Min-ersville Min-ersville Dead As Result of Head-On Collision Monday Evening; Two' Others Hurt A . Four Beaver young people and two from Minersville Monday evening eve-ning were involved in a head-on automobile collision which resulted result-ed in death for four of the number num-ber and chalked up the worst motor accident ever to occur in Beaver county and one of the worst in the automobile history of southern Utah. Only one, occurring occur-ring about 11 years ago at Delta, in which seven members of an Erickson family were killed in a train-car accident, is recalled as being worse. Monday's accident occurred at about 9:30 o'clock near the junction junc-tion of the new Granite Pass road with highway 21, about six miles west of Beaver. Dean Bowden, 35, driver of an Oldsmobile sedan, and Jack McMullin, 21, both of Beaver, were killed instantly. Miss Frances Pearce, 20, of Beaver, also an occupant of the Bowden car, died early the next morning at her heme, and Earl Harris, 28, of Minersville, driver of a model A Ford sedan borrowed from a Minersville Min-ersville friend, died the next forenoon fore-noon following amputation of an arm at the Cedar City hospital, where he was taken at the insistence insist-ence of Beaver parties. Dell Hol-lingshead, Hol-lingshead, 25, also of Minersville, an occupant of the car driven by Harris, is recovering from shock and bruises, though reported at one time to have died from injuries; in-juries; while William Brooke, 22, of Beaver, fourth occupant of the Bowden car, is at his home in Beaver still in bad shape as the result of internal injuries and a broken shoulder. Joint funeral services for the three Beaver victims of the terrible ter-rible accident were to be held this Thursday afternoon in the Beaver Bea-ver L. D. S. West ward chapel, to be followed Friday by services at Minersville for Mr. Harris. .Sheriff Jasper Puffer and Lawrence Law-rence Adams of Parowan, state highway patrolman, made a complete com-plete investigation of the accident and a three-man coroner's jury termed the fatalities the result of a head-on collision without fixing the blame as the verdict of an inquest in-quest conducted Tuesday morning. Concensus of opinion is that the accident was due to the excessive speed of the Bowden car. Evidence at the inquest showed the speedometer speed-ometer finger of this car to be jammed at the 100-miles-per-hour mark, but this may have been due to the force of the impact, which must have been tremendous, both cars being completely demolished. The fact that two persons escaped death is considered nothing short of a miracle. Harry Jefferson of Milford was one of the first persons to arrive at the scene of the accident and assisted with first aid for the injured in-jured and care of the dead. Attorney At-torney and Mrs. Sam Cline, returning re-turning home from Fillmore, also arrived at the scene only a short time after it occurred. Dean Bowden, store owner and stock grower, born October 25, 1904, at Beaver, was a son of Charles Henry and Lettie Patterson Patter-son Bowden. He married Gwen MoGhee of Milford on February 18, 1926, at Beaver. He had lived there except for several months at Milford, when he was employed employ-ed by the Union Pacific railroad. At the time of his death he was manager of the Bowden Dry Goods store and was also engaged in stock raising. He is survived by his Widow; a son and two daughters, daugh-ters, Kenneth, Donna Dean and Carla Bowden; his mother, Mrs. Lettie Thomppson, and a grandmother, grand-mother, Mrs. Martha H. Patterson, Patter-son, all of Beaver. John (Jack) McMullin, former B. Y. U. student, was born July 22, 1918, at Beaver, a son of the late Clair B. and Elizabeth Edwards Ed-wards McMullin. He was a graduate grad-uate of the Beaver high school. He is survived by a brother, Clarence McMullin; a half-brother, Douglas McMullin, and his stepmother, step-mother, Mrs. Ruby Hales McMullin, McMul-lin, all of Beaver. Miss Frances Pearce was bom in Washington, Utah, on August 19, 1919, daughter of LaMar and Vina Jones Pearce. She was a 1937 graduate of Beayer high school. She is survived by her parents; five brothers and sisters, Mrs. Wanda White, Rex and Ruth Pearce of Beaver, LaMar Pearce jr. of Electric City, Washington, and Mrs. Virginia Ward of Butte, Montana. Earl Harris was born October 25, 1911, at Junction, a son of Charles and Nellie Warner Harris. Har-ris. He was a farmer and stock grower at Minersville. He is survived sur-vived by his widow, Mrs. Nettie Moyer Harris; two sons, Ronald and Charlie Harris of Minersville; six brothers and sisters, Stan Harris and Mrs. Loneva Craw of Minersville, Mrs. Jennie Mar-guardson Mar-guardson of Beaver, Mrs. Ada Winn of Monroe, Homer Harris of Pioche, Nevada, and Christine De-Witte De-Witte of Buhl, Idaho. M |