Obit: Blanke, Fred Jr. (1931 - 1959)

Contact: Stan
Email: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Blanke, Mueller, Sprengler

----Source: Colby Phonograph (Colby, Clark Co., Wis.) 09/03/1959

Blanke, Fred Jr. (8 Oct. 1931 - 30 Aug. 1959)

Fred Blanke, Jr., who had been employed at the American Box Board Company plant in Colby and who lived in Colby with his wife for about a year, was killed and his wife seriously injured Sunday noon when their motorcycle whizzed out of control on a Highway 51 curve and crashed through a fence near Wenona, Ill. Mr. and Mrs. Blanke recently moved to Madison.

Police report the couple were on their way to the National Tourist Trophy motorcycle championships at Peoria, Ill., when the motorcycle went off the curve. An inquest reported Blanke’s death as accidental.

Mrs. Blanke is the former Vera Mueller, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Mueller of Abbotsford, Wis. Her parents left Sunday for Streator to be with their daughter who is in a serious condition with chest injuries in St. Mary’s Hospital at Streator. Fred Blanke, Jr., age 26, is a son of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Blanke, Sr., who live on Highway 29, about eight miles east of Abbotsford, Wis.

Funeral services will be held this Thursday afternoon in Christ Lutheran church at Abbotsford, Rev. F. H. Sprengler officiating, and internment will be made in the Abbotsford cemetery.

Mr. Blanke was born October 8, 1931, in Waukesha and lived in the town of Johnson and Abbotsford as a youth. He married Vera Mueller of Abbotsford on October 17, 1951. They engaged in farming near Edgar before moving to Colby, Wis.

Surviving are his wife and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Blanke, Sr., of rural Athens.