The Kings of Oak Springs - Episode 48 - Kent King’s 16th Birthday Celebration/Tragedy

Kent continued his tradition of inviting the other boys, young men now, in his sophomore school class for a Saturday afternoon of fun and games to celebrate his 16th birthday. His birthday was actually on April 11, but this year they got together to celebrate on Saturday, April 8. It had stopped raining late Friday afternoon, so they hoped the Saturday affair would still go well. Kent’s guests were to be David Wingfield, Jimmie Truesdale, Junior Yokum, and Carl Die. Junior had ridden a mule down the hill, around the west end of the King farm, down the road and across the bridge to get to the gathering at the King farm house. He said this had been scary enough, because the water in the creek was right up close under the bridge, way out of it’s banks on both sides. He couldn’t just come down the hill and cut across the creek, like he usually did… it was running too high.

When the boys had played a couple of indoor games, and eaten some birthday cake, they were ready to go outside and enjoy the spring day on the farm. It was about 45 degrees, and the sun was shining. Naturally, they were drawn to look at the creek running too high, down beyond the barn, as Junior Yokum had pointed out. Junior had seen it enough, so he held back a bit. David and Carl were curious and wanted to see, but were very careful where they walked, where they stood, just like Kent. They just wanted to see, they didn’t want to be involved with the running water in the creek, where tree branches could be seen, bopping up and down, rushing with the muddy water.

Jimmie, on the other hand, wanted to see the fast running water up close. Even though Kent said to stay back, Jimmie wouldn’t listen. He wanted to run along the edge of the water, seeing how fast it was moving. He ran along the water, stopped, returned up stream, and did it again. Each time, Kent could see Jimmie was getting closer, actually splashing in the lapping water at the edge of the running stream. The third time, Kent was about to yell, “Jimmie, don’t!” when Jimmie tripped on something, tumbling headfirst into the rushing stream. He may have hit his head on something, because he didn’t immediate pop back out of the war. Kent said he saw Jimmie’s blue jacket surface, just briefly, as he was swept downstream.

All of the boys were shouting, and Karl joined them shortly. Carl had run down stream, in the field, almost immediately. Karl followed him a couple of hundred feet, where they stopped, realizing Jimmie was gone. Karl trotted back up to the rest of the boys. “David, get on your horse and ride into town, to Orchard’s store. Let Mr. Orchard and Mr. Williams know what happened. We’ll all walk back down the river, hoping we can do something. They can start at Mr. William’s ice house and work back toward us.” David did as he was told. Karl hitched up the buggy and sent Katherine to notify Jimmie’s parents immediately. Then, he and the other boys started back down the edge of the creek, carefully watching for any sign of Jimmie. They each carried a rope that might be useful, if they came across something.

Karl knew that the creek bed widened naturally near the ice house, even when overflowing, and that a body was unlikely to float beyond there without catching on something. He dreaded finding the body, but knew the work had to be done, and done as quickly as possible. They were very methodical as they moved downstream. Karl was somewhat surprised that where North Creek joined Center Creek that North Creek was not out of its banks. They were able to cross it and continue to where the ice house was in view. This was about where Junior Yokum yelled out, “Mr. King, is that Jimmie’s blue jacket?”

The area along this part of the stream they had approached was not actively farmed, and had much more vegetation growing in the water, and the creek bed had begun to widen considerably already. There, about 20 feet out, among some reeds, appeared to be the body wearing the blue jacket Jimmie had been wearing. It was face down. It was hung up by some undergrowth.

About this time, Mr. Williams and three other men approached coming upstream from the ice house. They joined Karl in recovering the body and taking it in to town to be properly cared for. They were met by the grieving parents and many friends and neighbors, including Marshall Fetter and Judge Coffee.

The funeral was held at The Methodist Church building several days later with what seemed to be everyone in the valley in attendance. The death of the elderly was a natural part of life. The death of a teenager seemed like an unnatural event that was nothing short of a tragedy. In earlier days, these happened from time to time. In this ‘modern day’ it was not supposed to happen. Each family was drawn closer together as they were reminded how fragile life really was. Each person, and each family, found a different way to deal with the loss that affected the entire community.

The King family took the death, coming at the event they were hosting, especially hard. They gathered around their family table and consoled each other for an extended period of time. They knew that their lives had been changed forever, but all they could really do was move forward, one day at a time.