Ionia County MI Archives Obituaries.....Higgins, Wayne B. 1924
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Belding Banner-News, 25 Jun 1924

Eleven Year Boy Drowns At Smyrna Dam

Recover Body Tuesday Noon From Water Wheel Pit At Power Plant

Wayne Higgins the eleven year old son of Burr Higgins, was drowned at the
Spencer Light & Power Co. dam at Smyrna, Monday afternoon between five and six
o’clock when in some way unknown, he fell into the river below the water wheel
and sank with his cries for help unheard.

Young Higgins lived with Arthur Jenkins, south east of this city and with Mr.
Jenkins and Joe Kammers jr. had gone over to the dam to fish.  He had been
around the place for some time and went around to another spot to try his luck.
 When he failed to appear after about twenty minutes, a search was begun and
resulted in the finding of his fish pole floating in the water.  Later on his
hat was found where it had floated over on the opposite side of the river.

Work was at once started looking to the recovery of the body and researchers
worked all night and until about 12:30 o’clock Tuesday noon before the boy was
found.  It was supposed that he had fallen off from the wall below the water
wheel and that the current had carried the body in back of the wheel and had
kept it there.  The plant was shut down on Tuesday morning and the water lowered
in order to make the work of hunting for the body easier.  Sheriff Henry Cook,
of Ionia, was on the scene and was of the opinion that the body was in one of
the pits under the wheels.  Superintendent Edgar Stanton, of the power company,
owners of the dam and plant, ordered the water to be sloshed through the wheels
and shut off as quickly as possible and this sudden action was successful in
dislodging the body and it floated out.

When young Higgins fell into the water he wore a shirt and a pair of bib
overalls.  Tuesday morning these clothes were found and fished out of the
stream.  When the body was recovered it was entirely nude and bore numerous
marks where some part of the machinery or other object under the water had come
in contact with it.  In addition to numerous gashes, bruises and cuts on the
body, head and feet, the boy’s neck was broken.

After the body was recovered from the water it was brought to this city and
taken to the Wicks-Fales Co. undertaking rooms, where it was prepared for burial
and this morning was taken to the home of the child’s grandfather, Norman
Higgins, in Keene, from where the funeral will be held Thursday afternoon at two
o’clock.  Burial will be in Marble cemetery.

The boy’s father, Burr Higgins, is employed in a Grand Rapids garage.  He said
that the child was eleven years of age last November and that his mother had
died eleven years ago this month.  Other survivors are two sisters, Mrs. Fred
Bradford, of this city and Mrs. Ernie Cox, of Owosso and a brother Cecil
Higgins, about fifteen years of age, who lives near Saranac.


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