Killed in Auto-Train Collision

Mrs. Eugene Glenn, Daughter, Niece Die in Accident

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BULLETIN

  Martha Pickering, 8, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Vernon L. Pickering, West Des Moines, died just before noon Wednesday in the St. Joseph hospital in Centerville.

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  Mrs. Eugene (Elizabeth) Glenn, about 27, north of Promise City, was killed, and her daughter, Mary Ann Glenn, 7, was fatally injured at 2:15 p.m. Tuesday in the collision of their car and a Milwaukee road freight train at Butler's crossing three miles northeast of here.

  Martha Pickering, 8, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Vernon L. Pickering, West Des Moines, and niece of Mrs. Glenn, suffered a let fracture and one arm was almost severed. She was in poor condition Wednesday morning in St. Joseph hospital in Centerville. Mary Ann Glenn died on the way to the hospital.

  Mrs. Glenn and the two girls had driven from the Glenn farm to deliver some berries in Seymour, according to information given State Patrolman James Douglas and Wayne County Sheriff Nova E. Kelly.

  Officers said high weeds and a high bank obscured visibility at the intersection of the gravel road two miles east and two miles north of Seymour, although skid marks indicated Mrs. Glenn saw the approaching west-bound freight train when she was about 70 feet from the crossing. Witnesses told patrolmen they thought she was driving about 40 or 45 miles per hour.

  Lynn Harris, who lives a few hundred yards from the crossing, was the first person to reach the scene of the accident besides the train crew. He immediately called for an ambulance from Seymour.

  Cy Johnson was engineer of the Milwaukee freight. Other members of the train crew were F. Hunt Sr., fireman; Mr. Alinger, conductor; A. D. Harding and Mr. Rush, brakeman. Their home addresses had not been learned by press time.

  The two girls were thrown from the car as it was tossed and shoved about 65 feet. Mrs. Glenn was in the crumpled car lying on the front seat when rescuers reached her.

  Mrs. Glenn is survived by her husband and 19-month-old son; her sister, Mrs. Pickering; her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur King, and two sisters, Mrs. Wallace Koestner, Centerville, and Mrs. Don Ladendorf in Illinois, and two brothers, James King of Clarinda and Joe King in the air force on his way to Japan.

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  Transcribed from The Seymour Herald of Thursday, 9 July 1953.