Surnames: Jorstad

----Source: OWEN ENTERPRISE (Owen, Clark County, Wis.) 11/24/1949

Jorstad, Gerald (1937? - 19 NOV 1949)

Mrs. Etta Jorstad, 48, formerly a resident of route 2, Owen (Clark Co., Wis.), and her 12 year old son, Gerald, lost their lives when a Soo Line freight train plowed into their car at a railroad crossing in the Village of Boyd at 6:45 a.m. Saturday.

Mrs. Jorstad was killed instantly, while her son died a few hours later in a Chippewa Falls hospital. Two other sons, Hartwell, 18, and Floyd, 26, are still hospitalized at St. Joseph’s Hospital, Chippewa Falls, and their condition is still reported as being serious.

Mrs. Jorstad and her children had been living at Wausau these past years since she obtained a divorce from her husband, Hartwell, four years ago last August.

Funeral services were conducted from the Lutheran church at Wausau Monday afternoon for Mrs. Jorstad and her son, Gerald.

Hartwell Jorstad, 18, was driver of the ill-fated car. Floyd, married and the father of two children, suffered a possible skull fracture, shock and a broken arm. Hartwell’s injuries included a skull fracture, broken arm and fractures of both legs below the knee.

Dr. C. B. Hatleberg, who attended the three sons after the accident, said Gerald had been the most seriously injured. Death is believed to have been caused by a severe skull fracture.

Mrs. Jorstad and Gerald were on their way to visit relatives in Boyd at the time of the accident, while the older sons had intended to go deer hunting. They had just turned of Highway 29 to enter the village when the car was struck by the locomotive and carried 200 feet along the tracks.

Hartwell, interviewed by officials at the hospital, told the Chippewa County coroner that he had not seen the locomotive until the car was on the tracks an instant before the collision. There were not other witnesses to the crash except the two injured men and the engineer of the locomotive, S. Nelson of Stevens Point.

Mrs. Jorstad, who had been employed as chef by several Wausau restaurants for several years, is survived by one other son and four daughters, besides those in the car with her at the time of the accident.