Taylor, Wilgus Herman

Picher Oklahoma, May 23 Funeral services for Wilgus Herman Taylor, age 9, third-grade Mineral Heights school pupil who was drowned while swimming in a mill pond near the school Friday, afternoon, May 22, 1953, will be conducted in the Thomas mortuary chapel at Picher, 2:30 Monday. The Rev. W. M. Estes will officiate. Classmates will act as pallbearers. Burial will be in the Ottawa cemetery, east of Miami. The son of Mr. and Mrs. George Taylor of North Century Oklahoma, the boy, and his brother, Walter Lee Taylor, had returned from a school picnic and decided to go swimming.

The boys' mother had let them out at the school to get their bicycles to ride home. Instead of going home the youngsters went for a dip in the pond. According to the victim's brother, Wilgus "dove in and never came up." the body was recovered by Wayne Crockett and Ladell Morgan at 3:20 o'clock and was taken to the Picher hospital at Picher in a Thomas funeral home ambulance. Efforts to revive the boy proved futile. Note: burial in the Ottawa Indian Cemetery, Miami Oklahoma.

Other survivors include another brother, Earl Taylor, and a sister, Judy Kay Taylor, both of the home, and his maternal grandmother, Mrs. Mary Carter of North Century Oklahoma. Stressing the danger of swimming on mining company property, police chief Gene Crockett warned parents not to allow their children to swim in mill ponds. He said that children caught swimming in the ponds would be arrested. "The ponds are company owned and private," the officer said. "Many of the ponds are very deep and contain open drill holes and shafts. The ponds also contain floatation chemicals which are dangerous to the eyes, ears and nose." Leon Testerman, a deputy on sheriff James A. Alleman's staff, and Crockett said that all mill ponds in and around Picher will be patrolled in the future.