T. E. Spencer Meets With Violent and Sudden Death
circa 1880s
You may be curious about my obsession with cobwebby news items! It is not that printed stories of the bygone era were not any more or less accurate, just more comfortable for my finite brain to grasp on to. The art of journalism has evolved, or more accurately, in my way of thinking devolved, in an untruthful way that simply alienates me from attaching too much confidence to the popular news of the day. Well, so much for progress! In my pure mind, a typical article clipped from a contemporary journal is actually far more likely to be laced with biased inaccuracies than an item perused from a 19th-century publication. Current day news reporting bases itself on guides of a continually moving bar; at least old news stories are pretty much founded on their own honor. The truth of the old adage is proven over and over: there is nothing new in old news except what you didn’t know, which is of my own convoluted composition.
This may sound singularly reminiscent of what Harry S Truman said, “The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know.”
To attach relevance to this essay, I will add that I have stumbled upon and acquired more true knowledge about my life in general by delving backward in time. Reconciling my view of current events by coming to grips with events that shaped the world in which my ancestors lived, coped with their own world, and grappled with the unfolding events of a bygone culture.
Pursuant to my search to add to my education… Last week I wrote of a cousin, Burr Holton Spencer, that died of the Spanish Flu while employed at the Norfolk Naval base rail yards, Norfolk, Virginia. Half a continent away, this post finds a different cousin, Thomas Eddy Spencer, thus holding down a job at the A.T.S.F. rail yards in Newton, Kansas.
Through the “Warps and Woofs” of history and the repetition of cycles in the generations, I am learning to appreciate more and more the intricate complexities of family and societal history.
KILLED BY THE CARS
T. E. Spencer Meets With Violent and Sudden Death
The Weekly Republican Newton, Kansas 30 Oct 1885
T. E., better known Ed Spencer, while in the act of making a coupling in the Santa Fe yard yesterday afternoon, was almost instantly killed when caught between the drawheads.
The accident happened almost opposite the freight house at four o’clock, in “making up” a train. Spencer and Jehu McCabe, both day switchmen, were standing on the foot-board on the switch engine as it backed down to couple to a train, the first car to which was detached and standing distant from the others four or five feet. While the engine was several feet from the car, Spencer jumped to the ground on the south side of the track, leaving McCabe to make the first coupling while he ran to the other end of the car to connect it with the train. McCabe failed to make his coupling, and the force of the blow sent the car back against the others, catching Spencer, as it is supposed, between the bumpers. Nobody witnessed the accident. Yardmaster Howell, standing near, saw Spencer reel as he emerged from between the cars on the north side, and hastening to his side caught him as he fell. “Are you hurt, Ed?” asked Howell, to which the wounded man gave an inarticulate response, but located the location of his injury by placing his hand upon his stomach. Spencer then sank into sensibility, from which he never aroused. He was then carried into the Freight house, and a messenger dispatched for Dr. Boyd, but life was extinct before he arrived.
Coroner Dr. Coleman impaneled a jury and examined several witnesses, without, however, throwing any additional light upon the precise manner in which the deceased came to his death. An examination of the body showed only small bruises on the abdomen and back. No evidence of broken bones or external rupture could be found, and the physicians, dispensing with an autopsy, pronounced death to have resulted from internal injuries. The coroner’s jury rendered a verdict of accidental death, attaching no blame to anybody.
Deceased had been married about ten months and lived with his wife, and mother, Mrs. Elmira Spencer, in Steele’s addition. He had been in the employ of the Santa Fe company, in various capacities for two years, but had only worked in the yard since last spring. He was a popular man among associates and had no bad habits.
The funeral ceremonies will be held e at the residence at eight o’clock tomorrow morning and will be participated in by the Sons of Veterans and the Newton Rifles, of which he was a member. The remains will be interred in the Peabody cemetery, the family burying ground, which will be by escorted by six pallbearers from the societies named, and the relatives, to whom the railroad will give free transportation.
And so ends the life of T.E. Spencer.
𝚨nything for A Quiet LifeΩ 