One Killed, Four Injured In Williamstown Auto-Train Crash
ON WAY TO BALL GAME TUESDAY,
VICTIM WAS BROTHER OF LOCAL WOMAN
One man, Robert Hoffman, 34, coach of the Valley View baseball team is dead and four others were quite badly injured, and are patients in the Pottsville hospital as the result of an accident in which their automobile was struck by a train near the ball park in Williamstown shortly after five o’clock Tuesday evening.
The injured are: Leo Updegrove, 26, of Valley View and left fielder for that team in serious condition because of a fractured scull; Elmer Davidson, 20, Branchdale, lacerations of neck and head; Edward McGovern, 51, of Branchdale, lacerations of the face and head; Wilmer Hatter, 28, of Spring Glen, umpire, head lacerations and back injuries.
According to one report, McGovern and Davidson were visiting in Valley View Tuesday. They had gone there in a sedan said to have been owned by Francis McGovern, a brother of the injured man. As game time arrived the Branchdale men offered to take the three Valley View men to Williamstown. Davidson, it is said, operated the car.
The accident occurred at a grade crossing between Main Street and the baseball park. The car was struck by a miners train said to have consisted of a coach and engine, backing towards Williamstown. Members of the crew included Thomas H, Davies, of Lykens, engineer, and Ralph W. Sweigert, Cressona, conductor.
The automobile was all but demobilized in the crash and carried near a hundred yards with the injured men imprisoned inside. Spectators and players heard the crash in the park, not far from the crossing and rushed to their aid. The five men were extricated from the wreckage and rushed to the Pottsville Hospital in ambulances of J. B. Ralph and Fred Dodson of Williamstown. Hoffman died there about ten o’clock that evening.
Yesterday hospital attaches reported the conditions of McGovern, Hatter and Davidson as fair, but Updegrove had not recovered consciousness yesterday afternoon.
Hoffman was a son of the late Mr. and Mrs. James Hoffman, and was a life long resident of Valley View. Prior to the closing of the Good Springs Colliery four years ago he had been employed as a stationary engineer. He had been coach of the Valley View baseball team the past six years.
Survivors are his wife, formerly Miss Catherine Scholl of Branchdale; one son, Robert Hoffman at home. Six sisters: Mrs. Harry Dietrich, Elizabethville; Miss Margaret Hoffman and Mrs. Ralph Kreis, Tremont; Mrs. Oliver Kimble, Schuylkill Haven; Mrs. Elizabeth Koppenhaver and Mrs. Stanley Conrad of Valley View; and one brother, Harry Hoffman also of Valley View.
Funeral services will be held from the residence at 1:30 o’clock Saturday afternoon, Rev. D. I. Sultzbach, A.M., PhD., pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church, Valley View will officiate and interment will be made at that place.
Out of respect to Mr. Hoffman, E. E, Heckert, president of the Twin County Baseball League has requested postponement of all games for the remainder of the week.
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From the Elizabethville Echo, 25 May 1933, via Newspapers.com.
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