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Multiple ‘farewell’ and ‘obituary’ articles appeared in the local Indiana newspapers.

[Note 34. b., 24 Oct. 1912, “A Brave Life Ended”, App. C (transcription);

Note 34. c., 25 Oct. 1912, “Came From Alaska To Die”, App. C (transcription), and

Note 34. d., 31 Oct. 1912, “Obituary” “Vern Wilson McAninch”, App. C (transcription)]

The two newspaper accounts on the 24th and 25th refer to “bad beef” and “food poisoning”,

that resulted in a disease of the kidneys, and then the article on the 31st says that “impure food”

“brought on the illness from which he was unable to recover”.

The “Obituary” article printed in the Coatesville Herald on Thursday, 31 Oct. 1912, appears to

best match the information available in Vern’s Army records [Note 15]:

“died . . . of an illness contracted in Alaska while in the service of his country” . . .

and [sent] “to take charge of the wireless office at Fort Gibbons [sic, Fort Gibbon], spending

the succeeding winters of 1910 and 1911 at that place. The extremity of the Northern winters,

and their attendant exposure and hardship, together with the impure food with which they were

forced to maintain life brought on the illness from which he was unable to recover”.

[Newspapers, Note 34. b., c., d., App. C (transcriptions), Note C.3]

The ‘Obituary” article also reports “Those who survive him are his father and mother,

Mr. and Mrs. D. A. McAninch, of this place; his sisters, Mrs. Dora E. Swain, of Terre Haute, Ind.,

[and] Mrs. Maude Bilderbeck, Jonesboro, Ark.; his brother[s], John Freeman and George Daniel

Elwood of Chicago, Ill., William Morton, of Coatesville, and Fred Thomas, of Indianapolis”.

As noted above, Vern Wilson McAninch was buried in a special plot in the Coatesville Cemetery,

south of town, in Clay Township, Hendricks County; the inscription on the marker reads simply

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McAninch Family History NL v.XX n.3 / July 2012 / Frank McAninch, Editor / page 2012-26