The following article about a fatal crash that claimed the life of Miss Alma Buddemeyer was published in the Auglaize Republican newspaper on August 27, 1927. It is interesting to note how the writing style and expressions have changed over a period of almost a hundred years, even to the extent of mentioning the race of the people who transported the victim to the doctor’s office in St. Marys. This is probably the earliest fatal auto crash involving a New Knoxville resident. In the 1936 New Knoxville Centennial book, which contains a list of tragic deaths, this is the earliest fatal automobile crash listed. The road on which the crash occurred is today known as County Road 33A. At one point in the article the location of the crash is named as the Bay stop. At one time there was a settlement called Bay approximately where the Moulton Gun Club is located today on Bay Road, and the Bay stop was a drop-off and pick-up point for the interurban electrically powered railway. Miss Buddemeyer’s home farm is located at 12656 Bay Road, which is only about a mile south of where the crash occurred.
GIRL DIES IN MIDNIGHT AUTO SPILL NEAR MOULTON
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ENROUTE HOME FROM LIMA GIRL DIES EARLY SUNDAY MORNING FROM CRUSHED CHEST – COMPANIONS HURT
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Miss Alma Buddemeyer, aged 20 years, a clerk in the William Duhme general store at New Knoxville, is dead as a result of an auto spill which occurred at 1 a. m. Sunday four miles west of Wapakoneta on the St. Marys pike. Miss Buddemeyer suffered from a crushed chest when the automobile, a Ford sedan in which she was riding on the rear seat, overturned in the ditch on the north side of the road at Bay cross roads. She was hurriedly taken by passersby to the offices of the Drs. Noble at St. Marys where she died about an hour after the accident. The dead girl’s companions, Gust Schroer, 25, and Harry Schroer, 19, both of New Knoxville, escaped with slight injuries.
According to information the Schroers and Miss Buddemeyer had gone to Lima, accompanying Andrew Schroer, a relative, there to catch a train. After leaving the cousin at the Lima depot near midnight, they started homeward. Gust Schroer, the elder of the two boys, and Miss Buddemeyer were in the rear seat. Harry was driving. His passengers fell asleep.
About a hundred feet west of Bay stop the automobile left the highway, due either to bright lights of an approaching car or heavy fog, it is said. The sedan overturned catching Miss Buddemeyer over the chest. She was unconscious when her companions lifted the car from her body. Two passing negro motorists were hailed and they conveyed her to St. Marys. She did not regain consciousness.
The dead girl is a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George Buddemeyer who reside one mile south of the St. Marys – Wapakoneta highway on the Bay road. She has been residing, however, with her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Korspeter, at New Knoxville while she was employed at the Duhme store. She is survived by four brothers.
Miss Buddemeyer was an attractive young woman and was well known and generally held in esteem among a large circle of acquaintances in and about New Knoxville. She was graduated from the high school there in May 1927. She was born August 13, 1907.
Coroner Alfred W. Veit was called from this city and made an investigation. The injuries, he said, were accidental and probably due to driving in the fog bank which had settled upon the highway at midnight. Some of the clouds were so dense that a motorist easily lost his way in them. The Schroer car, he said, apparently had been driven too close to the right side of the road and the wheels caught in the loose berm gravel, overturning the sedan. Miss Buddemeyer’s death, he said, was due to a puncture of the lung by a broken rib. The body was lacerated in several places by broken glass. Gust Schroer was also cut about the face, he said.
The body was taken to the home of the parents, southeast of Moulton. Funeral services will be held at 1:30 p. m. Wednesday at the residence and later at the First Reformed church at New Knoxville, the Rev. L. H. Kunst in charge.