Floodwaters Claim Life of Young Boy Near Ritzville
A tragic accident during recent flooding in Adams County leaves a community in mourning after a father and son's buggy is swept away.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
While John Schlieger was en route home, taking his 12-year-old son from school on Tuesday afternoon during the recent flood, his buggy was upset while crossing a coulee and his boy was washed out of the vehicle. After a struggle, the father got to land, but the boy was nowhere to be seen. A searching party was almost twenty-four hours finding the body, which was taken by the swift current one and a half miles. Mr. Schlieger is a German farmer living eighteen miles west of town and is prostrated with grief.
“A searching party was almost twenty-four hours finding the body, which was taken by the swift current one and a half miles.”
Flash flooding in the coulees of Eastern Washington remains a deadly, recurring reality for rural travelers during the spring thaw or heavy rain seasons. This tragic account highlights the vulnerability of early 20th-century families navigating unpaved roads and swollen creeks before modern flood-control infrastructure.
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