Norfolk City Virginia USGenWeb Archives Obituaries.....Overton, Leroy August 20, 1908
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Dorothy Strawhand https://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00034.html#0008405 August 4, 2021, 6:11 pm

Virginian Pilot August 21, 1908

            15-YEAR-OLD BOY KILLED BY N. & W. PASSENGER TRAIN

LeRoy Overton Dodges One Train to Step in Front of the Other  - Only Support 
of An Aged Father and Mother

Leroy Overton, the 15 year old son of Mr. and Mrs. M. Overton, of South 
Norfolk, was run over by west bound passenger train of the Norfolk and 
Western Railroad yesterday morning at 9:30 o'clock and instantly killed.
The accident occurred at the crossing of the Norfolk and Western and the 
Virginian Railway, about a mile from the South Norfolk post office.  Overton 
with four other boys, who had left the Elizabeth Knitting Mill, South 
Norfolk, where they are employed, having been laid off for lack of material 
in the department in which they were employed, started with one of the boys 
in quest of watermelons.  There is double track at this point and it was 
stated that the boy's attention was attracted to a train on the opposite 
track from which he was standing and the train en route to Richmond speeding 
at about forty miles an hour struck him and came near getting a second of 
the number. 
The operator had given the outgoing train the right of way and when it 
passed the tower four shrill distress whistles were sounded and the operator 
looked in time to see the boy
ground to pieces under the wheels. The train was brought to a standstill, 
the accident causing considerable delay.
The boy's mother, Mrs. Sarah Overton, reached the scene shortly after the 
untimely end of her son and only support, and was nearly frantic in grief.  
She stated yesterday that her husband is 63 years old and on account of 
affliction is unable to work and that she is also not able to do hard work 
and the boy was her only support.  She said that she has been left 
destitute, with not so munch as a small insurance policy on the boy's life 
with which his body can be buried.
A coroner's jury under acting coroner, Justice T.C. Humphries, of South 
Norfolk, viewed the remains and heard evidence and rendered a verdict of 
accidental killing while on the company's property and exonerated the 
railroad.
The remains were turned over to Funeral Director E.L. Cox for burial.  The 
affair attracted considerable attention and much sympathy was manifested for 
the dead boy's mother.
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The funeral of the late LeRoy Overton, who was killed by being run over by a 
Norfolk and Western train in South Norfolk Thursday morning, was conducted 
from the family residence, near the Greenleaf-Johnson Lumber Company's 
mills, yesterday morning at 11 o'clock.  Rev. Q.C. Davis, pastor of the 
South Norfolk Baptist Church, conducted the funeral services.  The interment 
was in Magnolia Cemetery.

Virginian Pilot August 22, 1908       


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