York Township

~~Tragedies we Faced~~

Clark County, Wisconsin

• June 24, 1881    Accidental Shooting of Ida Turner

Background

Meda

Apparently on Friday, the 24th of June in 1881, Ida Turner was at the residence of Pint Turner's uncle, Samuel Way, located in Pine Valley Township near Staffordville.  Family research indicates that Samuel Way's wife, Angeline, was a sister to Pint Turner's father, Abel.  It was during the evening that Pint's cousin, Seward Way, took two revolvers and pretended to shoot them, presuming that they were both unloaded.  However, one revolver did contain a round and consequently, Seward accidentally shot the round into his cousin's wife, Ida Turner.  Although a doctor attended Ida as soon as possible, her wound still caused her to pass away on Sunday, the 26th of June.

At the same time, the York Center Cemetery near the York Center Methodist Church had just been established.  Therefore, Ida (Lawrence) Turner was the first person buried at that cemetery.

After Ida's death, it is believed that Pint and Ida Turner's infant daughter, Meda, went to live with relatives. Meda passed away as a young woman in 1898.  In 1885, Pint Turner married Ida's cousin, Bessie Livingston.  Ida's mother, Lorinda Lawrence, and Bessie's mother, Esther Livingston, were Windsor sisters.  Pint Turner passed away in 1919.

Seward Way married Amelia Raether.  She passed away in 1905.  Seward lived to be an elderly man and died in 1947 at Watertown, South Dakota.

Compiled by Steven Lavey from Lawrence family records and research.

Republican and Press Article

 (1 July 1881 issue)

The sad story briefly told is this: Mrs. Turner, who is in some way connected with the Way's had been visiting there for several weeks and at the time of the accident was helping to prepare the evening meal. While placing the chairs at the table in the dining room, Seward Way, a boy nineteen years of age, came into the room with a revolver in his hand and taking another from the top of the clock in that room cocked both of them and holding one in each hand, pointing in opposite directions, snapped them, supposing them, as he claims, to be empty. One of them, unfortunately, proved to have been loaded, and the shot took effect in the body of Mrs. Turner, the ball striking her in the left side passing under two ribs an the through the lower lobe of the left lung and coming out, passed around and lodged against the spine.

Dr. Templeton was called and succeeded in finding and removing the ball, but could not stay the hand of Death and on Sunday evening about half past nine o'clock Ida Turner was numbered with the dead. The deceased was twenty years of age and leaves an infant child to miss a mother's care and husband to mourn her death.

An inquest held on the body established the fact that the shooting was not intentional, also that it was the result of carelessness too reckless to be excusable, if it does not deserve to be classed as a crime.