Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 October 1907 — BOW JOE MILLER LOST HIS LIFE [ARTICLE]

BOW JOE MILLER LOST HIS LIFE

Hammond Paper Relates Accident That Caused Death of Jasper —— County Boy. The following article from the Hammond Times of Tuesday evening explains how Joe Miller, son of Werner Miller, from north of Rensselaer, lost his life in that city Monday afternoon! —~ “Joe Miller, age 21, of Rensselaer, who has been employed at the Standard Steel Car company’s plant lor the last five or six weeks was killed last evening by a traveling crane which either caught or struck him as he was climbing up a ladder to fix some windows and crushed his body so that he lived only a short time after the accident happened. In the building in which Miller was working there are a set of steel supports running thru the center of the building and thrnout its entire length. On rails that are supported by these central supports and those on the sides of the building two traveling cranes operate back and forth and are used for the purpose of lifting the steel that is used in the construction of the cars. It is thought that Miller in climbing up the ladder which leads to the place where he was working, failed to see the traveling crane as it approached him or perhaps he had his clothes caught iu some part ot the machinery as it paned. At any rate he was caught by the crane and so badly crushed that there was no hope for his recovery. The officials of the Standard Steel Car company took great pains to notify the parents of the injured young man as soon as the accident happened.” Mr. Miller says that Joe was sent up a ladder to close a window and the men who operated the crane were not told to stop working until he came down and that no one was stationed to watch as is the custom. He was decending the ladder and had. almost reached the ground when the crane struck him. He was crushed between the crane and the ladder, his left side being torn open and his left jaw broken. He was conscious tor some minutes after he was hurt and called for his friend and room mate, Dave Zeigler who hastened to him, but he soon lapsed into unconsciousness and died in about a half hour. He had expected to come home this next Saturday and probably remain to take care of the corn crop. That therj is responsibility for the boy’s death by the steel company seems quite certain, and they will probably be asked to make some settlement. Mr. Miller went to Hammond on the early morning train. Tuesday and returned home on the 2 o’clock train, and the body of the boy was brought home on the milk train at 6 o’clock, and was accompanied by his companion, David Zeigler, son of Noah Zeigler, a neighbor of Joe’s in the country and who was employed in the same steel car com pany’s plant and who was in another part of the big plant when he was killed. The funeral will take place at St> Augustine’s Catholic church at 10 o’clock Thursday morning, • in charge of Rev. Father Meyer, and burial will take place at Mt. Calvary cemetery south of town. Deceased was a son of Werner Miller by his first wife, who was a BisteP’of Adam and Michael Nagel, and he was the only child by his first marriage. He was 21 years of age on Sept. 10th, and was a young man of exemplary habits and was very popular wherever he was known, and his sudden death has cast a gloom over all his relatives and friends.

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