Wilhelm (Willie) Theodor Trauernicht

• Death Notes
  • Son of Wilhelm Theodor and Florence Hardwich Trauernicht.
    
    WILLIE TRAUERNICHT, ONLY SON, FOUND IN WATERY GRAVE
    Evidently Drowned Trying to Save Pony
    Little Animal Found with Feet Sticking Above Surface of River Near Buena Vista Road,
    Leading to Recovery of Boy's Body
    
    The body of Willie Trauernicht, the 14-year-old son of Mrs. Florence Trauernicht, of 826 Clay Street, was dragged from the Cumberland River yesterday afternoon in a blackened, swollen condition with the blood oozing from wounds in his face. The lad left home twenty-four hours before, driving the pony, en route to the river and did not return. After spending a sleepless night his mother commenced a search for her boy and traced him to the river bank. His shoes and stockings were found at the water's edge and some distance down stream his drowned pony was found still hitched to the buggy. The search ended shortly after 3 o'clock when the body was dragged from twenty-feet of water by Lafayette Cole.
    
    Saturday afternoon about 4 o'clock the lad hitched his Shetland pony to the buggy and told his mother that he was going to the river to get some horse weeds for feed. He went down the Buena Vista road to the Cumberland, which is about a mile from his home on Clay street, leaving the message that he would return in the course of an hour or so.
    
    Before daylight yesterday morning she started to look for him and asked the neighbors to help her. One of the lad's uncles went down the Buena Vista road to the river. On reaching the river he discovered the tracks of the buggy and the hoofprints of the pony winding around the river road to the water's brink. There near the water's edge were the boy's stockings neatly stuffed in his shoes. Down the stream several yards below he found the pony at the water's edge with its four feet floating above the surface. He knew then that Willie was somewhere in the river.
    
    Burial Plot: Section 4, Lot 39