Obituaries (May 30)

Dora Cole

Chenango Telegraph, June 23, 1939

Mrs. Dora Cole, 81, of Woods Corners [Norwich, Chenango Co., NY], died Tuesday afternoon [June 20, 1939] after an extended illness.  She was a life long resident of this vicinity except for the past two winters which she spent with her daughter, Mrs. Ira Wall of Stockbridge, N.Y., where she was stricken about the first of March.  Besides the above mentioned daughter, Mrs. Cole is survived by three sons, Ervin S. of Woods Corners, Perry D. of North Norwich and Charles E. of Hickory, North Carolina, also several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  Funeral services will be held Friday at 2 p.m., daylight saving time, at the Breese Funeral Home.

Chancey Crandall

Died January 14, 1940

Chancey Crandall, 76, died at his home, 12 Academy street, at 9:30 Sunday night, after an illness of three weeks. The deceased had spent a greater part of his life in farming near Smyrna [Chenango Co., NY].  For the past six years he had resided in Norwich.  He leaves three sons and four daughters, Ivon Crandall of Fabius, Frank and James of Smyrna, Mrs. Joseph LoCantro of Norwich, Mrs. Helen Ford of Norwich. Mrs. Howard Tuttle of Otselic and Mrs. Eric Argen of Sherburne four Corners. Services are to be held at the Fahy Funeral Home on North Broad street at 2 o'clock Wednesday afternoon. Rev. George B. Callender will officiate and interment is to be made in the North Norwich cemetery [Chenango Co., NY].

Willian C. Coy

Died April 10, 1941

Will Coy who had been suffering from a severe cold was forced to stop work in Hile's grocery about a week or more ago and go home where he grew worse and on Monday and Tuesday suffered great pain in the region of his stomach. Tuesday night the ambulance was called and he was taken to the Chenango Memorial hospital at Norwich, where it was found necessary to operate on him.  It was found gangrene had formed in the intestines and his condition was pronounced very critical, with but little hopes of recovery.  His sister, Mrs. Edgar Wills of Walton has been staying at the Coy home for a few days, assisting in his care.  His son Kenneth and wife were notified and came at once. Will has many friends who are hoping there may be a change for the better.  He died Thursday afternoon. The funeral will occur Sunday afternoon at 3:00 o'clock at the Baptist church.

William C. Coy of South New Berlin [Chenango Co., NY] died at the Chenango Memorial Hospital at 4 o'clock Thursday afternoon.  He had been a hospital patient since Tuesday night.  Mr. Coy was born in New Berlin [Chenango Co., NY] Aug. 3, 1876 and had been employed as clerk at the Edward Hile grocery in South New Berlin for several years.  Funeral services are to be held in the Baptist church at South New Berlin at 3 o'clock Sunday afternoon with Rev. C.H. Skinner officiating. Burial will be made in South New Berlin. There survive the wife and one son.

Jennie Crandall & Adele Sutliff

Died August 10, 1931

Struck by the fast Buffalonian, crack express of the New York Central lines, two Norwich women were instantly killed early Monday morning, a few miles south of Schenectady, as they attempted to cross the tracks on foot.  The dead women, sisters, are Mrs. Jennie Crandall, 60, and Mrs. Adele Sutliff, 53, both of 108 Silver street [Norwich, Chenango Co., NY].  So quickly was the tragedy enacted that Mrs. Sutliff's husband, Wesley [Sutliff], and two sons, working on their car less than 50 feet from where the two women were struck, were unaware of the accident, as were members of the train crew, and the Buffalonian continued to its next stop, the Union station in Albany.  There, horrified spectators on the station platform saw the head of a woman on the pilot.  A work train was hastily requisitioned and sent back over the route of the Buffalonian.  At a road crossing about 17 miles from the Albany station, the decapitated body of Mrs. Sutliff and the body of Mrs. Crandall were found.  A short distance away, Mrs. Sutliff's husband and two sons were still working on the motor of their car, entirely ignorant of the horrible fate which had befallen two members of their family.  Mr. Sutliff and the two boys, Edward and Walter Taylor, sons of Mrs. Sutliff by a former marriage, were so overcome by grief and shock, that reconstruction of the story of the tragedy was difficult.  However, the party suffered motor trouble on a return trip from Saratoga to Norwich, and in addition, lost their way in the storm of Sunday night.  The men pushed the car to the side of the road and the party put up at a tourist cabin for the night.  Monday morning the men arose early and went to work repairing the car.  Mrs. Sutliff and Mrs. Crandall, probably finding time hanging heavily until the repairs were complete, must have decided to go for a walk.  It is said that neither had acute hearing. They could not have heard or seen the express train approaching, for no slightest unusual noise or cry was heard by any member of the party.  The Buffalonian, officially known as train 54, was eastbound from Buffalo to New York.  It was in charge of three Albany men, Engineer Harry Warren, Conductor J.R. Bradt and Fireman George E. Thorne.  The train is due in Albany at 6:06 a.m.  The Sutliff-Taylor family, accompanied by Mrs. Crandall, left their home on upper Silver street, near the Borden plant, at an early hour Sunday for a day's outing. They are little known in the neighborhood, having resided there for only a few months. Another son, Lynn Taylor, resides in King Settlement.  The William Breese company of this city was notified, and left Monday morning for Schenectady for the bodies.

Double funeral service for Mrs. Jennie Crandall and Mrs. Adele Sutliff, sisters, and victims of the accident near Schenectady Monday morning, will be held from the funeral parlors of The William Breese Company Wednesday morning at 10 o'clock.  Burials will be made in the cemetery at Norwich quarter.  Hearses of The William Breese Company arrived in Norwich at 9 o'clock Monday night with the bodies.  Additional details of the accident which cost both women their lives have been received here.  It appears that the party left this city at an early hour Sunday morning for a trip, their destination being Saratoga Springs and Lake George.  On the return trip they lost their way, this during the hard storm which broke at about 5 o'clock Sunday afternoon. To add to their discomfiture the car in which they were riding broke down, and they were obliged to seek shelter in a tourist camp for the night.  The site of the camp was at Wyatt's crossing of the New York Central railroad, a few miles east of Schenectady.  Wesley Sutliff, husband of one of the dead women, and Edward and Walter Taylor, sons of Mrs. Sutliff by a former marriage, arose early for the purpose of completing repairs on the car for the return trip to this city.  Mrs. Sutliff and Mrs. Crandall were also up early and requested Mrs. William Swart nearby to prepare breakfast for the party. The two women then started out for a walk, but did not return for their breakfast. They were hit by the New York Central train 54, only a few minutes before Mrs. Swart announced to the men working on the car that breakfast was ready.  The train, according to the N.Y.C. schedule, is due past Wyatt's at 5:40 a.m., standard time, and in Albany at 6:06.  Yesterday the train was in charge of Harry Warren, engineer George E. Thorne, fireman, and J.R. Bradt, conductor, all of Albany.  A few minutes after 7 o'clock a work train, with a track gang aboard, arrived at the crossing eastbound, and William Carr of Albany, its brakeman, was the first to discover the bodies. That of Mrs. Sutliff had been thrown into the roadbed on the right side of the track, and then hurled 40 feet into a garden patch behind the Swart house.  Mrs. Crandall's body was carried 200 feet along the eastbound passenger track, which is the most southerly of the four, and then thrown in between that and the next one.  At the same time Carr sighted the bodies, the phone in the crossing shanty brought the news of the accident from the mystified yard workers at Albany, and the gruesome discovery of the head of Mrs. Sutliff on the pilot of the locomotive was explained.  Dr. John C. Younie, coroner's physician, who made the investigation on the scene in the absence of Coroner Treder, learned from Sutliff that both women were extremely deaf and said he thought it reasonable to believe that they walked on the tracks, discussing the accident to the car and watching the men and that they failed to hear the approaching train and were struck.  It is full daylight at Wyatt's at 5:430, standard time, Dr. Yonnie said, which prevented the women, both deaf, from being warned by the headlights beams.  In the dark, the locomotive headlight would have warned them of its approach. There is a whistling post 1,500 feet west of the crossing, where eastbound trains whistle, but this would have been useless to Mrs. Crandall and Mrs. Sutliff.  There is a crossing flagman daytimes at Wyatt's but he does not come on duty until 7 a.m.  Dr. Younie said he did not believe there would be an inquest, as there was no witness the authorities could examine.

Death Notices

Chenango Union, December 6, 1894

WHEELER:  Near East Norwich [Chenango Co., NY] at the residence of his sister, Mrs. Henry M. Brown, Nov. 28, 1894, Mr George C. Wheeler, aged 71 years of Sheonk, L.I.

GIBSON:  In South New Berlin [Chenango Co., NY], Nov. 26, 1894, Dr. Stanford C. Gibson aged 84 years 10 months.

THOMAS:  In Bainbridge [Chenango Co., NY], Nov. 22, 1894 Mrs. Sophronia Thomas, widow of Edward Thomas, aged 68 years.

DONAGHE:  In Afton [Chenango Co., NY], Nov. 25, 1894 Mrs. Eliza Donaghe, aged 85 years.

HEADY:  In Newark Valley, N.Y. [Tioga Co., NY] Nov. 22, 1894 Miss Clara Heady, age 90 years, formerly of Norwich, Burial King Settlement [Chenango Co., NY].