Above: It is work time in 1911 on the Duflo Farm near Middleton.

The following is part three of a three-part series on farming and its dangers in Gratiot County’s past.

When one looks at the dangers involved with farming and farm life, one encounters the bizarre, the strange, and the unexpected. These elements frequently appeared in the lives of ordinary people on Gratiot County farms. Even while farm families tended to their daily routines, danger and death could strike without warning, often in unbelievable ways. To many of us, these events seem unimaginable, yet these tragedies happened here in the county’s history.

Some instances, like tripping or falling on things on the farm, had the capacity to maim both young and old, such as barbed wire or farm equipment. In late August 1912, Howard Pettitt worked to fill in an excavation site on his farm 2 ½ miles northwest of Alma. Pettitt’s seven-year-old son, who was watching his father work, was eager to ride on the tractor back to the house. As the boy ran toward his father’s tractor, he ran directly into a barbed-wire fence which had been set up for a pole trace. The collision resulted in a deep wound across the boy’s face and lip, which required seven stitches to close. Luckily, in the end the Pettitt boy lived with only a minor scar. In another case, A year later, Dewey Parks of Alma fell on a spike tooth drag after hurrying off to keep his horses out of another part of his field. Parks tripped on a lever attached to the drag and landed with such force that he had to be rushed to the doctor. He lived, but because of his injury, he ended up missing much of his remaining fall work.

Children on the farm encountered injury and potential death right around them. Hattie Brzycki, age seven, lived on the old Bentley farm northwest of Perrinton in March 1922. Hattie’s older brother found some dynamite caps on another farm, and his mother told him to throw them away. Hattie later found the discarded caps, picked one up, and took it to the kitchen. With a fire in the kitchen stove, Hattie opened the door and threw the cap inside. In an instant, a large explosion resulted, which took off the girl’s three fingers and the thumb of her right hand, and a piece of the cap landed in her right eye. Although the doctor said she would recover, there was a strong possibility that she would lose the eye. In another case, Little Andy Yencher of Ashley accidentally swallowed sulphuric acid on a Saturday morning while out at the milk station. Yencher, a very smart young boy, believed he was swallowing water and downed the liquid. After being discovered, he was rushed to Dr. Pankhurst’s office in North Star, where he was in serious condition for two days.

Just carrying out the most basic routines of daily life could lead to death in Gratiot County. P.H. Hevel, a well-known farmer who lived 7 ½ miles northeast of St. Louis, was killed during a cave-in at a gravel pit in August 1925. Hevel was working and filling his wagon at the Van Rankin gravel pit, west of the Burlingame School, when a side of gravel collapsed on him while he loaded the wagon.  The cave-in pinned him against his wagon with such pressure that it squashed him and caused internal injuries. Watchers tried to dig Hevel out and then rushed him to a Shepherd doctor, where Hevel, age 65, soon died.  In another case, Archie Dunn and his wife and baby from near Ithaca nearly died from gas fumes while they slept in February 1927. When Dunn failed to show up for chores the next morning, the owner of the farm he lived on went looking for Archie. The owner was shocked when he found Mrs. Dunn collapsed near the door. It also turned out that Archie Dunn had stumbled around the house while trying to light a morning fire. After the owner pulled Mrs. Dunn outside, he then located the husband and child. He quickly opened a window and let in fresh air, which revived all three Dunns. After checking the Dunns’ coal burner, it was discovered that gas was escaping through another opening, and Dunn failed to open his windows that night due to high winds. Luckily, the three Dunns were spared a certain death, thanks to a neighbor who showed up at the right time.

Then there were dangers from unintentional carelessness. In February 1928, the four-year-old boy of Howard Howd, who lived four miles northwest of Breckenridge, was playing with shears and fell on them, landing them in his throat and cutting his jugular vein. The boy bled to death in a matter of minutes. In late June 1929, Paul Hatzke, who lived northeast of Wheeler, died from working with another object when something went wrong. He was attending to an emery wheel and sharpening blades that were driven at high speed by his nearby tractor. As Hatzke smoothed up the wheel, the stone broke, throwing a large piece of it back in his face and crushing his skull, killing him instantly. Two other neighbors witnessed the incident, but it happened so quickly that they could do nothing to save Hatzke.

Sometimes farming ended in the most bizarre tragedies. In October 1931, Elwell farmer Ray Miller, age 40, shot and killed himself by accident when the shotgun he carried on a horse-drawn rake fell to the ground and discharged. Miller was dead instantly. The rake he operated at the time was piling bean pods when the accident occurred. Miller’s body, when found, had been badly mangled as it was caught in the machine as his horses ran wildly around the field because they were scared by the gunshot. On top of all this, Miller’s wife witnessed this entire incident from a distance as it unfolded on the Wickman farm. Another farmer in December 1938 near Bannister, Carl Kellsey, age 59, broke his neck when he went up to the hay mow to bring down feed for his cattle. Somehow, the farmer lost his balance and fell to the barn floor, damaging his head and shoulders. Kellsey lay there paralyzed for over an hour until his wife came looking for him. He lingered for less than a week before he died from complications from a broken neck.

One would not think so, but people could even drown on the farm.  In May 1939, John Linden Hiebert, a 22-month-old boy from Newark Township, died tragically when he fell into a milk cooling tank and drowned. The little boy had been missing for only 15 minutes when an older brother found him that Sunday evening during milking time. John Linden had been sent back to the house by his brothers as milking began, but the little Hiebert turned around and quietly came back to the milk room. Within minutes, the boy slipped into the tank unnoticed while playing in the water. This was the second loss for the Hiebert family as they lost another little boy a few years earlier.  The Hiebert father had also died before the birth of his youngest son. In another instance, a Gratiot child drowned in April 1942 when he fell into his grandparents’ cistern northeast of St. Louis. Wayne Schultheiss, age 2, curiously looked beneath the boards covering the basement cistern when he suddenly fell in and drowned.  After a while, his mother went looking for the missing boy, found him in the cistern, and frantically pulled Wayne out of the water. After getting him out, several people worked on Wayne to try to resuscitate him. Sadly, after two hours of work, their efforts proved ineffective.

Even playing with an innocent rope could result in loss of life. In November 1930, Richard Stoddard, age eleven, was playing with other children in reenacting a Wild West show on his grandparents’ farm north of St. Louis. Stoddard and the other children were playing in the barn, and as the oldest in the group, Richard demonstrated how people were hanged with a rope tied in a slipknot. After getting up on a box and having it give way beneath him, he reached up to grasp the rope for a while but could not untie the knot. As Richard became unconscious, one of the smallest children ran inside to tell what had happened. While the rest of the family initially laughed at the child’s story, the child convinced the adults to come to the barn, where they found a lifeless Richard Stoddard hanging by a rope. After taking Stoddard down, the family called for the doctor and used artificial respiration until he arrived. Fortunately, the boy suffered no broken bones and, in a few days, seemed like his old self.

Who said farming and farm life in Gratiot County was not dangerous?

Copyright 2026 James M. Goodspeed