Date :
Location : St. Mary's Cemetery, Rock Valley, IA
The following item taken from the Sioux Valley News will be of more than usual interest to people of this vicinity because the victim of tie accident was a son-in-law of Mrs. Mary Kaskie, of Rock Valley. His wife was formerly Lucy Kaskie.
John E. Friesen, a farmhand employed for the past eight years on the Emit H. Olson farm, ten miles west and ten miles south, of Canton, was dragged to death about 10 o'clock on Wednesday morning when a six-horse team he was working stampeded. Friesen was dead when neighbors arrived at the scene.
Friesen was using a harrow, riding a cart behind the drag with the lines tied about his body. It is not known what frightened the team. They broke loose from the drag and jerked Friesen from the cart. They ran half a mile before Friesen's body became loosened from the lines and were very nearly back to the starting point when they became mixed up and stopped after one horse had fallen. The field was fenced and the maddened animals ran to the end of the field and back.
Ralph Lounsbery, working on the Lewis Johnson farm adjoining the Olson farm, saw the runaway an hurried to the scene, arriving just as the team had stopped. He found Friesen dead, the body being terribly bruised from the long dragging on the plowed field. His watch had stopped at several minutes to 10, which fixed the time of the accident.
Coroner W. J. Byrnes was called but decided there was no need of an inquest. The facts of an accidental death were plain. Arrangements for the funeral have not been announced.
Friesen was aged about 45 years. He was an efficient farmhand and Mr. Olson had employed him continuously for the past eight years. His employer is a bachelor, and Mrs. Friesen kept house for him. The deceased is survived by his wife and two sons, Martin, aged 16 and Andrew, 12.
Rock Valley Bee - May 22, 1931
