Obit: Johnson, Charlene (1939 - 1953)

Contact: Dolores Mohr Kenyon

Email: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 
 

Surnames: Johnson, Lindow, Gault, Grottke, McNaul, Bersell, Manz 
 

----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI.) July 30, 1953 
 

Johnson, Charlene (3 June 1939 - 27 July 1953)  
 

Final rites for Charlene will be held at 2 p.m. Friday in Immanuel Lutheran Church, Marshfield; burial in Hillside Cemetery. Charlene was born June 3, 1939.  She was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Johnson and the granddaughter of Ludwig Johnson, veteran cheesemaker at the Chili corner. 
 

Lives of Lindow and Johnson snuffed out as they played in a pit -  
 

A lone bicycle and empty shoes and stockings were the alarm which on Monday shook Wallace Lindow of Lynn into feverish activity.  His little boy Mark 5, was telling him that he could not find his cousins, Gloria Lindow and Charlene Johnson.  
 

"they are hiding from you," said the father, knowing the manner of the girls’ play. 
 

"No" said little Mark, "Gloria’s bicycle is there, and the girls’ shoes and stockings." 
 

To Wallace Lindow that meant the perils of a sand pit.  He ran across the road to the pit on the farm of his brother, Merlin; found there the bike and empty shoes and stockings, and saw a fresh slide on the 25-foot sand bank.  The girls, he knew, had dug a cave there.  The girls were under the shifting sand. 
 

They Dig Desperately 
 

Wallace Lindow tried to dig the sand away, but the fluid sand flowed in as fast as he could dig.  He ran to the phone to give the alarm to the Chili and Marshfield fire departments, and out came the rigs with the firemen upon them.  They all dug in desperation. But too much time had passed.  The sand had cut off the air, and the two girls had suffocated.