Obit: Eckes, William W. #2 (1896? - 1938)

Contact: History Buffs

Surnames: Eckes, Blake, Groh

----Sources: Colby Phonograph (Colby, Clark County, Wis.) 09/22/1938

Eckes, William W. #2 (1896? - 16 Sept. 1938)

W. W. Eckes of Spencer, age 40, died of a fractured neck early Friday morning when a car he was driving failed to make a curve and crashed into a ditch.

His death brought the total of traffic fatalities in the county so far this year to 11. He was also the sixth to die in a month on Marathon county roadways.

According to M. C. Blake, Marathon county traffic officer, Eckes was driving about 1 o’clock, when he failed to make a curve at the north village limits of Spencer.

The car, Blake said, ran along the ditch for 160 feet and then rolled over. Eckes was dead when passing motorists reached him.

Edward Groh of Loyal, a passenger in Eckes’ car, leaped to safety as the car started into the ditch.

Blake quoted Groh as saying he could see that Eckes wasn’t going to make the curve. Groh was unable to state, however, how fast Eckes was driving or why he had lost control of the car, Blake said.

The men were returning from Unity, Blake said, where they had visited Eckes’ wife, who is employed in a tavern there.