Thoughts and wonderment of Speakmans past.....

Since i know very little about the extended side of my Speakman Family. Periodically I do google searches of their names. A few years ago I found the following two obituaries ...


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This was my great uncle


Union City Times-Gazette, Wednesday, October 25, 1939
Winchester cyclist killed as machine collides with truck. - Donald Speakman is dead; companion badly injured.

Donald Speakman, 22, of Winchester, was killed and Frank Mannn, 19, also of Winchester, was badly injured in a motorcycle truck crash on state road 32 west of Parker last evening about 5:30 o'clock.

Speakman died just as the Perry ambulance from Parker arrived at Ball hospital in Muncie. Mann, thought not critically injured, was confined to the hospital.

Investigating officers said that Speakman, operating the machine, and Mann were enroute west to Muncie where they were to begin work on the night shift at Ball Brothers factory.

The cycle collided with an Eavey truck from Richmond, going east, operated by Ralph Green, 1516 North E street, Richmond, the machine striking the truck in rear of the cab. The accident occurred about one and a half miles east of Parker in front of the Joe Reed home.

The truck driver told Sheriff Lester Mann and Deputy Sheriff Kora E. Davis that Speakman and his companion were lighting a cigarette and that sensing an accident he swerved his truck to the side of the highway. The crash came, the truck was overturned and the motorcycle was thrown into a side ditch, a mass of wreckage.

Speakman's leg was torn off as was part of the pelvic bone. His body was on the blacktop highway, his severed leg in the ditch when aid arrived.

Speakman was born September 10, 1917 and was married but had no children. His wife, Mary Louise, is an employee of the Anchor Hocking Glass corporation. Parents are Jerad and Mattie Speakman of Winchester. Lawrence Speakman of Winchester is a brother.

The deceased lived in an apartment above Mary's dress shop on the west side of the courthouse square and just last week had purchased a property on Orange street in Winchester.

The body was prepared for burial at the Perry funeral home in Parker. Funeral arrangement will be completed this morning.

(The funeral was conducted Friday afternoon at 2 o'clock at the home, 137 East Orange street, Winchester, in charge of Rev. Jacob Frazier. The interment place was not named.)

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And THIS was my grandfather

Union City Times-Gazette, Monday, December 18, 1939

Funeral to be this afternoon. - Lawrence Speakman, 29, claimed by death Saturday morning.
Funeral services for Lawrence Speakman, 29, who died at his home, Union and Short streets, in Winchester, Saturday morning, will be conducted this afternoon at 1 o'clock at the residence in charge of Rev. Jacob Frazier. Burial will be made at Upland.

Surviving are the wife, Lucy, three children, Jeanette May, Myrtle Louise and Preston Randolph, all at home, and the parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jared Speakman, of Winchester.

The deceased was a brother of Donald Speakman, who was killed October 24, near Parker, in a motorcycle-truck accident.

The body has been returned to the residence from the Fraze funeral home. Friends are invited to call.

The police docket shows the report that Speakman "died after drinking medicine left for his nerves."

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I have a lot of questions that will probably never be answered....my grandmother Lucy, was pregnant with their 4th child when this incident happened. Was it suicide? or truly an accident? if suicide, why would a man of only 29 with a wife, three kids and one on the way abanadon them in this way? My father never really spoke of it with me, and I never really asked....