Robin "Rob" Samuel Purcell
FATAL ACCIDENT AT SHAWNEE
- Published in the Lusk Standard.
Monday evening about six o'clock, just as he was preparing to quit work, Robert Purcell, a workman on the new elevator at Shawnee fell from the scaffold above the cement pit and broke his neck, causing instant death.
He was a man about 49 years old and it is not known here whether he has relatives in the community or not.
- Published in Lost Spring Times, July 24, 1919
Mr. R. S. Purcell Killed in Accident
Friends were terribly shocked by the accidental death of Rob Purcell at Shawnee, Monday evening. Mr. Purcell was walking over some boards laid loosely over the pit of the elevator at Shawnee where he had been working on that day, when they gave way and he struck his head in such a way that he was probably almost instantly killed.
So sad an accident coming so suddenly presents to us the real seriousness of life and brings one's attention to one that we have loved more than we realized.
Mr. Pucell would have been forty-nine years old the first of this coming Aug. having been born Aug. 1, 1870. His place of birth was Elizabethtown, Ky. His marriage to Miss Lulu Kinkend took place at Wellington, Mo., Aug. 10, 1892. To this union one son Ray Barnard was born, who lives near them south of Shawnee about three miles.
Mr. Purcell was one of a large family of children, six of whom are living Harry Purcell of Independence, Mo., William of St. Louis, Mo., John of Mr. Vernon, MO., D.D. Purcell of Cortez, Colo., Mrs. Kinkead and Mrs. Rogers Wright of Lexington, Mo.
His father, mother, two brothers and two sisters have preceeded him in death.
Mr. Purcell united with the Christian church at Independence in 1893 and was a consistent Christian, a good neighbor and a member of the Odd Fellow, Masons, and Woodmen.
We will remember him as a mighty good neighbor, a church going Christian and a citizen who was a real honor to any community.
The universal word is that he was a good man, one we liked to meet, and liked to live near. Services were conducted Wednesday afternoon at the home by Rev. Thomas and the burial was at Prairie View. The wife so suddenly bereft of a good husband and Roy who mourns so good a father have our tenderest regards in their loss. We want them to know all the affection and sympathy that kind acts and warm hand grasps and tears can express, and are sure that they are acquainted with the Heavenly Father so that they feel they have a right to his comforting presence.
In such a time Christianity pays and these have their great reward for Christian living and in Christian memories that are very comforting.
Note: According to Betty Alberts, Converse County, Wyoming mortuary records show his father as William Purcell, born in Kentucky and mother as Elizabeth Stark, born in Kentucky.