Omaha, NE Child Struck by Auto, Jun 1937

3-Year-Old Is Killed by Car

South Side Child Is Victim No. 17

Before his mother’s eyes, Donald Socha, 3, son of Mr. and Mrs. Adam Socha, 4028 South Thirty-eighth street, was injured fatally Wednesday about 3 p. m. when struck by an auto at Thirty-ninth and F streets. Driver of the auto, Joe Piska, 4024 South Thirty-fourth street, was released under $2,500 bond Wednesday evening, and County Attorney James English said he will file charges of manslaughter and causing death while unlawfully operating an auto against Piska today.

Donald’s death was the seventeenth auto fatality in Omaha this year.

Mrs. Socha, the mother, said she had given him 30 cents to buy groceries and 3 cents for candy, and that he was walking to the store, singing and counting his pennies, when the car struck him. Mrs. Socha rushed to the scene, about a block from her home. Piska, she said, put the boy and herself into his car and started for South Side General hospital. But a few blocks farther the car stalled, and another auto took the mother and child to the hospital. The boy died there of a skull fracture.

Piska told police the lad darted from behind a high bank as he approached the intersection. Coroner’s Investigator M. D. Japp, who took Piska to the scene to re-enact the accident, said he learned the boy was carried 80 feet by the car before it stopped.

Donald’s uncle, Edward Wrona, 15, was injured seriously by an auto January 19 at the spot where the boy was killed Wednesday.

Besides his parents, Donald is survived by a sister, Jeanette, 18 months old. The body is at the Staskiewicz mortuary.

Omaha World Herald, Omaha, NE 10 Jun 1937

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Transcribed by Linda Horton. Thank you, Linda!