How Could This Have Happened?

The modern view toward the east as you approach the Ainsworth crossing from the north, just after 3 o'clock on a December afternoon. Trees that now line the tracks were not there in 1916. The small depot stood approximately even with that yellow left-curve warning sign, but closer to the tracks.
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Ninety-four years later, a note of perplexity still echoes in the newspaper accounts of the accident — how could this have happened? Eastward of the Grand Trunk crossing at Ainsworth, the track ran straight and level for almost a mile, through open, treeless fields. With no obstruction to the view other than a small depot set well back from the road, anyone approaching the tracks from the north on the Hobart-Ainsworth road (State Road 51) could see a westbound train well before it reached the crossing. Especially on a clear afternoon.

And yet on the afternoon of December 12, 1916, a southbound Ford automobile drove onto the tracks just as a speeding westbound train entered the crossing. The resulting collision killed two young men. And no one had been near enough, had seen enough to understand why it had happened. "The exact cause leading to the accident will never be known," the Gazette said, "and conditions that might have caused it are problematical. Results are sufficiently horrifying."

The two young men killed were Philip Waldeck, 20, and Herbert Peterson, 17. It was Herbert's Ford, and he had been at the wheel. He was the eldest son of Frank and Mabel Peterson, who lived and farmed south of Ainsworth — one of their five children, and a grandson of William Smith. Philip, as we know, was the only child of William and Augusta Waldeck of Deep River.

Herbert and Philip had driven up to Hobart to do some shopping that day. They started home around 3:00, going south on State Road 51. The Grand Trunk express train due through Ainsworth at 2:15 was running about an hour late, and, according to some witnesses, speeding to make up for lost time.

Someone who saw the accident from a distance said that Herbert's Ford was moving south on State Road 51 at a leisurely enough pace, but seemed to speed up as it approached the Grand Trunk tracks. At the same time, the train was flying toward the crossing. When they met, the train caught the car squarely in the middle and carried it about a hundred feet before it fell away to the side. The train took a mile to stop. Dr. C.C. Brink of Hobart was sent for, but there was nothing he could do. Both young men had been killed instantly.

There was nothing anyone else could do, either, but look at each other and helplessly ask: How could this have happened? The theory that the boys had tried to beat the train was supported by the witness who thought Herbert had sped up near the crossing. On the other hand, they would not have been expecting a train — there was none scheduled at that time. A moment's lapse of attention, maybe, or of judgment … just a moment's lapse, but it cost the Peterson family dearly, and it cost the Waldecks their all.

The double funeral was held in the Hobart High School auditorium the afternoon of Friday, December 15. Crowds of mourners filed in, family and friends, young and old, faculty and students. Herbert had attended Hobart High until the middle of his junior year; Philip had graduated the previous spring, and had been planning to attend an alumni party that evening. The girls' quartet from his graduating class sang at the funeral service. The pallbearers were all classmates; among Herbert's was Will Wollenberg, Jr., and among Philip's, Ed Wollenberg and another Ainsworth-area boy, Will Buchfuehrer.

Philip and Herbert were laid to rest in adjacent rows in Crown Hill Cemetery.


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Three months before his death, Herbert Peterson had bought a life insurance policy through John A. McDaniel, local agent for Farmers' National of Indiana. The policy carried a double-indemnity clause in case of accident.


Sources:
♦ "Card of Thanks." Hobart Gazette 22 Dec. 1916.
♦ "Funeral of Herbert Peterson and Philip Waldeck Largely Attended." Hobart News 21 Dec. 1916.
♦ "Herbert Peterson and Philip Waldeck Instantly Killed." Hobart News 14 Dec. 1916.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 15 Dec. 1916.
♦ "Train Kills Two Young Men." Hobart Gazette 15 Dec. 1916.