Above: The Myron Wood family goes to work in the fields in Newark Township in 1903,

Author’s note: Welcome to “Wayback Machine Wednesdays” which will seek to run on (or near) Wednesdays for the remainder of the summer. “Wayback” shares stories that I have wanted to see in print without working off a deadline or assignment. In short, thesse are Gratiot County stories that need to be told.

This is part two of a three-part series on farm accidents and tragedies in Gratiot County.

Farm machinery always had the potential to maim or kill – and it claimed many Gratiot County victims over the years. One of these early tragedies took place in a terrible death in Seville Township in November 1915 when Fred Chapman was hulling beans for a neighbor. Chapman misstepped, and his right foot went into the rear cylinder, nearly tearing off his foot. Rushed to McLaughlin’s sanitarium in Elwell, the doctor quickly decided that the foot had to be amputated. During the operation, the doctor was surprised that Chapman suffered little shock, lost little blood, and appeared to be rallying. However, later in the evening, Chapman suddenly died from an apparent embolism that struck either his heart or pulmonary artery. He left behind a wife and two small children. The doctor and others in the community were dismayed by Chapman’s death since he did so well upon arrival at the sanitarium.

 Clement Bazusky, age 12, of Perrinton, got lucky in August 1921 when his leg and then his arm got entangled in a wagon drawing road gravel. Bazusky looked behind while walking and somehow stumbled. The wagon then knocked the boy down, and one wheel traveled over his foot, then his arm. Although badly mangled, Bazusky suffered no broken bones. It appeared that young Bazusky had gotten lucky and would keep his injured arm, even after suffering such a painful injury.

In January 1927, Virgil Reynolds also paid a high price on his father’s farm in Middleton when he attempted to clear out a jammed corn shredder. He reached down, and his glove quickly became entangled; the machine then took off, smashed, and broke his arm above the elbow. After an amputation at the hospital, Reynolds was left with another arm that had been paralyzed since early childhood because of a bone disease. He was in real straits now, as on top of this, he had been married for only a week.

Mrs. Gerald Koon met death in April 1927 when her tractor turned over on her farm east of St. Louis. Koon took over work for her husband, who had gone into town to get more seed. While dragging near a ditch, the drag became entangled in a hidden fencepost, throwing her from the tractor, which then backed up over her because it had no safety device. During all of this, her five-year-old son watched the tractor crush her. He then ran for help. Once a group of people got there, it took considerable time for them to dig her lifeless body out from under the tractor. Mrs. Koon left five children under the age of ten.

Harzey Fisher of Crystal was working on the Henry Thompson farm northeast of Sumner in November 1940 when the left leg of his coveralls got caught in a corn picker. As the machine slowly seemed to eat away at his clothing, Fisher managed to hold onto a shaft lever until it stopped. However, the machine’s force stripped him of his new coveralls. After collapsing from the ordeal, his family rushed him to a doctor to attend to his badly lacerated leg. In time, Fisher was fortunate and recovered at Edmore Hospital.

Then there were strange farm accidents that just happened when someone got careless. Frank Sabota considered himself fortunate when his runaway tractor took off from him and his trailer. Sabota was hit from behind by a downstate driver on US-27 near Ola Corners in October 1952. After being thrown off the tractor, the machine took off across an unattended field and stopped only when it hit a pair of trees.

Frank Kostal of Newark Township paid a high price when he lost his eye in June 1952 when a piece of steel flew off a bean drill he was repairing. Kostal was rushed to Saginaw’s St. Luke’s Hospital, where they tried to save the eye, but it became infected and had to be removed. As news of this accident reached his neighborhood, ten farmers and tractors from his neighborhood turned out the next day to show support by fitting and drilling 32 acres of navy beans on  Kostal’s farm. In this case, Gratiot farmers again looked out for another injured farmer in Gratiot County.

There were always dangers and consequences of working and living on a Gratiot County farm.

Copyright 2026 James M. Goodspeed