Obit: Dyer, W.A. (? - 1913)

Contact: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Dyer, Sherrett, Neacy

----Source: Granton News (Granton, Clark County, Wis.) 08/22/1913

Dyer, W.A. (? - 17 AUG 1913)

Mrs. Ezra Sherrett and Miss Anna Dyer of the town of Washburn (Clark Co., Wis.), mourn the loss of their brother W.A. Dyer of Fond du Lac who was drowned with 31 others when the Pacific coast steamer "State of California," on which he was a passenger, struck an uncharted reef on the Alaska coast and went down within three minutes at 9 o’clock Sunday morning, Aug. 17^th, 1913 in Gambler Bay, Alaska.  The vessel sailed from Seattle the Wednesday before.  The vessel cargo, mail and express is a total loss, the estimated value being more than $1,000,000.  Ten passengers suffering severely from exposure, having been adrift for more than 20 hours in the seas among the ice floes until picked up by the steamer Jefferson, which too was enroute from Seattle, can hardly be called survivors because they were more dead than alive and most of them succumbed before reaching Juneau.

Mr. Dyer, a senior in the medical school of Marquette University, was with a chum of his, one Paul Neacy, taking a summer vacation trip and going to Skagway, Alaska and were to have been gone until October 1^st.  Telegrams to friends advise them of the safety of Mr. Neacy and confirm the death of Mr. Dyer.  Mr. Dyer is survived by his father Andrew Dyer of Fond du Lac, two brothers, J. Dyer of Eldorado, Wis., and Clem Dyer of Seattle, four sisters, Nora, Mrs. Ezra Sherrett of the town of Washburn, and the Misses Anna and Genevieve, professional nurses, and Miss Martha, a student preparing to become a nurse.

This sudden death of so worthy a young person comes as a great blow to his surviving relatives to whom is extended the sympathy of their many friends hereabouts.