Obit: Sindler, Charles (1884 - 1955)

Contact: Dolores Mohr Kenyon

Email: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 
 

Surnames: Sindler, Sindelar, Sharp, Schulte, Brani, Monick, Leketas, Schoen, Bush, Eggiman, Dobes, Bergemann, Ulrich, Filitz
 

----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI.) June 30, 1955 
 

Sindler, Charles (2 November 1884 - 25 June 1955) 
 

Grandson Sent for Help; is too late - Charles Sindler, 70, Had buyer coming Sunday; planned chicken raising:--  
 

The Brown Swiss bull that mauled to death Charles Sindler, Sr., 70, on his Levis Township farm Saturday evening would have been gone from the farm 24 hours later had events taken their planned course.  
 

During the day Mr. Sindler made an appointment with a cattle buyer to inspect the herd Sunday morning, for it was his intention to quit dairying in favor of raising chickens.   
 

But Sunday was too late.   
 

He was attacked shortly after six o’clock as he went to drive the cows into the barn. His calls to his grandson, Harold Sharp, 16, of Chicago, brought the lad from the creek, a short distance away.  After opening the barn doors for his grandfather (and being a stranger to the cattle), he had gone to nearby Rock Creek to wash the barn dirt from his hip boots. 
 

Clung to Ring:

Hearing his grandfather’s call, Harold said he ran toward the pasture.  His grandfather was on knees, but had the bull by the ring with his right hand.  At Mr. Sindler’s instruction, Harold grabbed a short piece of rope made from several strands of binder twine and tried to pass it through the ring; but there was not room enough for both fingers and rope.  
 

The bull swung to the side and sent Harold sprawling against the nearby fence.  But Mr. Sindler held tight to the ring, and held the animal’s head low. 
 

It was then, Harold related, that he started after help at his grandfather’s instruction.  Hip boots and all, he ran to Sindler’s pickup truck and drove down the winding driveway toward the road.  The truck became stuck once.  Harold freed it. Then it became stuck again and he couldn’t get it out. 
 

Fails to find help:

He ran to the old Henry Schoen farm, across the town road and a little distance from the Sindler place.  The house there has been occupied by a couple of young men pulling moss in the area.  Harold’s shouts failed to raise them. So he struck out for the Glenn bush farm, a mile or more along the highway. 
 

But about 300 yards from his grandfather’s farm Ray Eggiman of Neillsville, a county highway worker, came upon him from the rear.  Harold stopped him; said a bull had his grandfather down.  Eggiman backed his car to the Sindler driveway and drove in. 
 

He sent Harold for a pitch fork, and he ran to the spot where the bull was.  Picking up a fence brace on the way, Eggiman used it as a club to beat off the bull.  But his arrival was too late.  Mr. Sindler had been crushed about the chest and abdomen. 
 

Eggiman said he could feel no pulse. 
 

Drove boy up tree:

When Harold arrived with the fork he instructed the lad in the use of it, and told him to take to a nearby tree if the bull came too close.  Then he drove to the Bush place to call officers and a physician. 
 

Shortly after Eggiman left, Harold related, the bull started after him.  He went up the tree, and the bull kept him three until Eggiman returned, with Bush driving close behind. 
 

Harold was sent for a gun and returned with a .22 caliber rifle, the only gun in the house, and some cartridges. Bush fired at the bull, but missed. The enraged animal disappeared into the woods. 
 

A few minutes later Undersheriff Frank Dobes, Coroner John Bergemann and two physicians arrived.  The had to tip a disc on its side to remove Mr. Sindler from beneath.  Mr. Sindler was brought to Neillsville. 
 

An interesting sidelight was provided by Ernest Ulrich, chairman of the Town of Levis, and Elmer Filitz, a member of the town board.  They drove to the Sindler farm to take care of the milking.  When they arrived the bull was in the yard. 
 

Within two minutes, Mr. Ulrich said, the bull had worked himself into a lather and started to charge the Ulrich car.  Mr. Ulrich drove out of the way. 
 

In those two minutes preceding the charge on his car, Mr. Ulrich said, the bull had generated "a bushel of foam around his nose."  He said that in all his farm experience he had never seen a bull as mad. 
 

Officers made an effort to corral the bull; but he had gone into the nearby woods.  The following morning they went to the Sindler place anticipating a hunt and a battle; but they found him in the barn with the cattle and calmed considerably.  He was loaded on a shipper’s truck and is now becoming bologna. 
 

The attack of Mr. Sindler was the first such in Clark County in about two years. 
 

Young Sharp had arrived here from Chicago only that morning.  He had planned to stay for the summer and help his grandfather make the transition from dairy farming to poultry raising.  Now that transition has been stopped and Harold is much shaken by the experience. 
 

Mr. Sindler’s Obituary: 
 

Funeral services for Mr. Sindler were conducted Wednesday from the Bergemann Funeral Home.  The Rev. Fr. Peter Leketas officiated and interment was made in St. Mary’s Catholic Cemetery. 
 

A general rosary was read Tuesday evening at the funeral home. 
 

Mr. Sindler was born November 2, 1884, in New York City to the late Mr. and Mrs. John Sindler (or Sindelar).  When he was a small boy his family moved to Chicago.  He grew to manhood there and worked on the railroad for 20 years.  He ten moved to the farm in Levis which had been his home for 35 years. 
 

His marriage to Minnie Schulte took place in Chicago in 1911. 
 

Mr. Sindler is survived by his wife and the following children: Cpt. Milton Sindler with the armed forces in Japan; Mrs. Mildred Sharp, Chicago; Charles Sindler, Jr. Chicago; M/Sgt. Clarence Sindler, with the armed forces in Alaska; two sisters, Mrs. Mary Brani of Chicago and Mrs. Fannie Monick of Quincy, Ill.: and six grandchildren.