Ionia County MI Archives Obituaries.....Toleson, Edward J. 1941 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/mi/mifiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Sandy Heintzelman sheintz@iserv.net March 14, 2017, 6:51 pm Ionia Sentinel Standard, 30 Jun 1941 & 2 Jul 1941 Hit-Run Auto Kills Shiloh Farmer Youth Ionia county sheriff’s officers today sought an automobile believed to have contained two men which struck and fatally injured 15-year-old Orleans township youth and left him to die beside a blacktop pavement near Shiloh on the Long lake road sometime Saturday night. The dead youth is Edward Toleson, 15, son of Mr. and Mrs. Earl Toleson of Orleans township, who live near Shiloh and the scene of the fatal accident. Deputy Sheriff Loyal Hodson, who investigated the accident, said the body of young Toleson was found a few feet from the pavement covered with grass. The body appeared to have been carried from the road to the side. A shoe was found 140 feet away just over a field fense where Deputy Hodson said it appeared to have been thrown. Officers were seeking a car which contained two men and a license number first traced to Mt. Pleasant and then to Portland. The car was said to have been near the scene hours later on Sunday morning. Young Toleson was said to have been at the Arthur Walker oil station at the corner of M-1_ and the Long lake road at 9:30 o’clock Saturday night and Walker told officers Toleson had walked from the south and was walking toward his home. The body was found at 9:20 o’clock Sunday morning by Vern Haynor of Shiloh who was walking from his home at Shiloh to the Walker station. He said he saw young Toleson lying [unreadable words] grass. Deputy Hodson said it appeared that Toleson had been struck in the back as he walked along the highway and had been thrown onto the car. The injured youth probably was thrown on to the car, Deputy Hodson said, and the occupants carried him to the side of the road. Deputy Sheriff Ben Neve said he had learned the youth was not dead when carried away from the car. Indications were that he had thrown up after being placed in the weeds. There were no tracks nearby to indicate how he was struck or how he was carried into the weeds. Coroner Harry Myers said a hole at the base of the skull had caused death. An inquest will be held. Edward J. Toleson was born March 11, 1926, in Ionia county and is survived by his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Earl Toleson; three sisters, Virginia, Alice and Janice; six brothers, Robert, William, Norman, Manuel, Harland and David, and his maternal grandmother, Mrs. Clara Bennett, of Ionia. Funeral services will be held Tuesday at 2 p.m. from the Myers funeral home on East Main street with interment at Oak Hill cemetery. The jurors for the inquest will be Fred Buck, Claude Billings, George Bowker?, Fred Sherry, Edward Krainbrink, and James Dickout. ------------ Funeral For a Hit-Run Auto Victim Funeral services for Edward Toleson, 15, victim of a hit-and-run driver who left him to die along the side of a lonely country road, were held Tuesday afternoon a 2 o’clock from the Myers funeral home. The service was conducted by Rev. A.R. Kuehn of the Evangelical church and interment was in Oak Hill cemetery. Pallbearers were Hoyt Christensen, Russell Haverstick, sr., Keith Harrison, Robert White, Leon Wilson and Dean Selleck. Mrs. Orin F. Schmidt furnished the music. Public indignation is high over the cowardly manner in which the boy was left to his death and reports are still coming into the sheriff’s office offering clews and aid in the apprehension of the drivers of the death car, Deputy Loyal Hodson said Wednesday. Every possible lead is being traced and with public cooperation continuing as it has the persons responsible will be apprehended soon, is the belief of sheriff’s officers. The Toleson boy was struck about 9 o’clock Saturday evening as he was walking along the Long lake road. An inquest jury decided that the boy did not die immediately. Deputy Ben Neve had found the body covered with hay, which indicated a deliberate attempt to conceal it, he said. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/mi/ionia/obits/t/toleson5927gob.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/mifiles/ File size: 4.4 Kb