Fort Wayne, IN Child Killed Under Train, Apr 1913

BABY KILLED UNDER TRAIN

Elmer Baker, Aged Four Years and Eleven Months, is the Victim.

WABASH ELEVATION

He and His Two Brothers Had Hopped a Freight Train This Morning.

PREDICTED HIS DEATH

Youngster Told His Father a Week Ago That He Would Be Killed.

Elmer E. Baker, aged four years and eleven months, is dead as the result of injuries received when he fell from a Wabash freight train which he hopped on the elevation near Thompson avenue about 8:30 this morning. The baby, with his brothers, Edgar, aged ten, and George, aged eight, had climbed the elevation opposite their home, 2415 Thompson avenue, and got aboard a west-bound freight. When two hundred feet from the crossing the youngster lost his grip on the car, fell to the rails and was cut in two. He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Ed Baker.

"I saw it happen," said little George, who had been hanging to the same car. "He began to slip and his legs hung down, and then at last he fell on the tracks and was run over. Then I was afraid to jump, and hung on till the train stopped away down the track. He didn't know how to ride the trains just right, you see it was his first ride on a freight. Yes, he often went up on the elevation, but he never tried to jump a moving train before."

The accident was seen by Mrs. Eliza Hames, 2410 Thompson avenue, who was watching the boys from a back upstairs window. She saw the child fall under the car, and rushed down to the back yard. There she met Peter Lucy, of 1414 Huestis avenue, another witness to the fatality. They called Dr. Henderson and the police and notified the family.

The crowd that gathered about the little form on the rails found that although he was badly mangled there still was a spark of life, and when the patrol wagon arrived, Dr. Henderson ordered him removed to the Lutheran hospital. The boy died in the wagon as it passed the corner of Creighton and Fairfield avenues.

An examination showed that he was cut in two completely at the hips, and that his skull was crushed. Although terribly mangled, he did not bleed much, the ends of the blood vessels having been crushed together. When asked about the accident the mother said:

"I have told the boys not to ride trains so often I can't count, but every time they go out and do it again. I've whipped them, too, but it never did any good, they just would ride the trains. All I can say is that I hope the other boys have learned a good lesson.

"Some girl came up to the door and told me to come quick, and the minute I seen the women all wringing their hands I knowed that one of them had got it, but I didn't know which one.

"Only a week ago,' she continued, "he told his papa that this would happen. He said, 'Papa, I know that I'm going to die and that I will get killed some way. I think that he really felt that it was coming."

There are five children in the family, the youngest being two weeks old. The father is employed by the Doud Real Estate Company.

Fort Wayne News, Fort Wayne, IN 25 Apr 1913
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Transcribed by Linda Horton. Thank you, Linda!