Ionia County MI Archives Obituaries.....Kelly, Sanford M. 1925
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Marilyn Ransom mlnransom@chartermi.net September 12, 2012, 6:11 pm

The Ionia Sentinel-Standard, Tuesday, December 22, 1925

With his head crushed as the result of his heavy oil truck crashing into a 
tree, Sanford Kelly was found about 6:30 Monday evening, hanging from the cab 
of his truck, one foot caught in the wreckage of his cab, his head upon the 
ground, fatally injured.  The truck had crashed into a tree on the curve in 
the Prairie Creek road where it passed the George Peterson farm.  The front of 
the car was smashed, the cab crushed, and the engine going full tilt, when 
John Shamp, passing in his car, stopped to investigate.  Mr. Kelly was removed 
from the car and taken to the Peterson home across the road where he died a 
short time later.

How the accident happened will never be known as no one saw it.  One car was 
reported to have passed the wreck without stopping, its occupants never 
realizing that a tragedy had been enacted.  Mr. Shamp noticed the truck its 
engine going and got out to investigate.  Mr. Kelly was apparently driving 
home from his day’s work and his wheel tracks showed that he had taken the 
extreme edge of the road, evidently to avoid the slippery highway, which at 
that point is dangerous when covered by ice or snow.  There were no chains on 
the wheels.  It is assumed that the truck gathered momentum as it approached 
the turn, and the driver was unable to make it, the car heading for the tree, 
and crashing into it.  

When the cab struck the tree, and was crushed, the driver was apparently 
thrown against the wreckage with such force that he suffered a fractured 
skull, and was hurled from the door way.

Mr. Kelly, the son of Samuel Kelly, Prairie Creek Civil war veteran, has 
always lived at Prairie Creek, where he has a widow and….(portion illegible)
….employed by the Standard Oil company, and was for a number of years a rural 
mail carrier out of Ionia.

Examination of the truck after the accident revealed that the corner of the 
cab on the driver’s side had struck the tree and had been crushed back against 
the front end of the big oil tank, with such force that the front of the tank 
was bent in and re-inforcing strips of steel about the upper edge jammed back, 
at a point immediately behind where the driver must have been sitting.  Mr. 
Kelly suffered a fractured skull, there was a hole in his neck at the base, 
and several bones were broken.  He had evidently been caught between the tree 
and tank and crushed.

The funeral will be held from the residence at Prairie Creek Thursday 
afternoon at 2:30.  Rev. E. E. Branch, of Grand Rapids, will conduct the 
service.  Burial will take place in the family lot at Highland Park cemetery.

Subsequent Publication:  Saturday, December 26, 1925

The funeral service for Sanford Kelly was largely attended from the home at 
Prairie Creek Thursday afternoon at 2:30.  Rev. E. E. Branch, of Grand Rapids. 
Conducted the service.  The music was furnished by Mrs. Ray Colwell and Mrs. 
John Hodgkins….(portion illegible)….The bearers were Bert Kanouse, David Dent, 
David Passon, Ernie Franks and Thomas Erridge.  Burial took place in the 
family lot at Highland Park cemetery.



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