Ionia County MI Archives Obituaries.....Jerrils, Lewis LeRoy 1940
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Ionia Sentinel Standard, 30 Oct 1940

An Ionia Boy Is Killed By Truck In Alley

Lewis Jerrils, six-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Jerrils, 20 6 ½ West Main
street.  Was instantly killed beneath the wheels of a large semi-trailer truck
in an alley at the rear of the Masonic temple in Ionia at 10: 10 o’clock
Wednesday morning.  The child was pronounced dead when admitted to the Ionia
Community hospital where he was taken by Wallace H. Jackson, of Boynton’s Inc.,
who was in the rear of the store and heard the accident.  Deputy Sheriff Karl
Stearns, who investigated, said the boy apparently had run into the side of the
slow-moving transport Associated Truck Lines truck and was knocked under the
left rear dual wheel of the truck trailer which passed over his shoulder and
head.  The child’s neck was broken.

It appeared that his desire for a of corn brought death to the child who became
the 16th Ionia County highway fatality this year.  According to Henry Voelker,
an official of the Masonic temple, two men were cleaning out corn shocks in the
hall which had been used for previous night at a party of the Eastern Star
lodge.  Voelker said he heard the boy shout from the bottom of the rear stairway
door asking if he could have an ear of corn.  Voelker said, “What do you want it
for?”  The child said according to Voelker, “I want to eat it.”  Voelker had
come to the top of the stairway and told the boy he could have an ear of corn
and then return to the auditorium.

Carrying out the corn were Donald Ferguson, 32, of South Ionia, and C. F.
Preston, 56, of 427 Rice street, Ionia.  Both are truckers.  Ferguson said he
and Preston were coming down the stairway each carrying a basket of shocks. 
They said they noticed the large truck passing the doorway as the Jerrils boy
was shouting to Voelker.  They told Deputy Stearns they saw the boy suddenly
turned around and dart from the doorway apparently without knowledge that the
truck was passing.  They said he ran into the truck and disappeared as the truck
went by.

Cornelius LeMaise, 31 of Grand Rapids, driver of the truck, said he was driving
northward up the alley-way toward the city fire station at the intersection of
the alley and Washington street.  He said he was driving in low gear and
traveling about three miles an hour when he felt a slight jolt from the trailer
and halted the truck within nine feet.  He found the child lying on the alley
pavement.

Coroner Harry Myers said there would be no inquest and immediately announced
that the accident was unavoidable.

The Jerrils have two other children, a son, Erwin 4, and a daughter Gay Ann, 3.
 Erwin was with Lewis when the accident occurred and ran screaming home to his
mother.  Jackson said he believed the child was dead when picked up from the
pavement.

Funeral services are to be held from Boynton funeral home on Rich street, Ionia,
Friday afternoon at 2:30 o’clock.  Rev. Knight of Grand Rapids will officiate. 
Burial will be at an Ionia cemetery.

[Transcriber’s note:  There is a notation on the obituary card that he was
buried in Easton Cemetery.]


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