Bio: Sweet, Thomas B. (Drowning Death - 1913)

Contact: Ann Stevens

Email: ann@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Sweet

----Source:  Neillsville Times (Neillsville, Clark County, Wis.)  July 10, 1913

Sweet, Thomas B. (Drowning Death - 5 Jul 1913)

Thomas B. Sweet met death by drowning at his home a few miles north of Fairchild at about 6:30 o’clock Saturday evening.

Mr. Sweet had been at Augusta that afternoon and upon his return home decided to give his horse a cooling off by a plunge in the creek just back of his barn.  He put on a bathing suit and took the horse with him to the creek.  His wife went with him, but soon left him to pick blueberries a short distance away.  She had only left him a few moments when she heard him call her and went to the stream to see what he wanted.  She found the horse grazing by the side of the stream and saw her husband come to the top of the water and recognized that he was in distress.  Mrs. Sweet made an effort to reach him but as the water was above her head and she was unable to swim she went to the shore to find something to reach him with, but before she could come to his rescue he went to the bottom for the last time.  She finally secured a garden rake and by wading in the water to her neck she secured the rake to take hold of his bathing suit and pulled the body to shore.

The young man was 29 years old.  The day of his death was his father’s 75^th birthday and he and his young wife had arranged to celebrate the event by asking the neighbors and friends to gather at their home that evening to give the old gentleman a surprise. - Fairchild Observer