Worley, Ralph

Note: Lane Funeral Records indicate that Worley, age 29 was born July 13, 1906 and died Dec 12,1935 in Melrose Kansas. His father James Worley was in born Ohio, and his mother Lula Craig, was born in Kansas. Joplin Missouri. Ralph Worley, 28, a miner living near Hockerville Oklahoma and his cousin, Wilbur Craig, 16, of Montrose Colorado, were killed last night when their car crashed against the concrete abutment of a culvert near Melrose Kansas. Both are believed to have died instantly of fractured skulls. No one witnessed the accident. Worley and the boy had visited Worley's uncle, L. E. Lentz, at Melrose, and were returning to Worley's home. The Craig boy was visiting in the Worley home, having come to Kansas from Colorado a few weeks ago. Worley was unmarried and lived with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. James. Worley.

Funeral services for Ralph Worley, 28 years old, one of the occupants of the car which struck the culvert of a bridge east of Melrose Kansas, Thursday night, killing them, will be held at the Baptist church in Hockerville Oklahoma at 2 o'clock Monday afternoon. The body of the other man killed in the crash, Wilbur Craig, 16 years old, has been sent to Colorado for burial. Worley, who had lived around Hockerville for the last 11 years, was employed by the St. Louis Smelting and Refining Company there as a machinist. He is survived by his father and Mother, Mr. and Mrs. James Worley of near Hockerville, and two sisters, Mrs. Verda Thompson of Texas and Mrs. Sylvia Felzien of St. Francis Kansas. Pallbearers will be Fred Western, Clarence Caskey, Tom Craig, Virgil Pryor, Arthur Haskell, and Edgar Leuty. Burial will be in G.A.R. cemetery at Miami with the Lane funeral home in charge. Additional details of the accident learned yesterday indicated that the two men left Worley's home about 7 o'clock, presumable to visit neighbors. Instead of calling on neighbors, they went to where Worley's uncle, L. E. Lentz, lives in Melrose. They left him at 10 o'clock, and were motoring along near a bridge, which is located one fourth mile west of Keelville. Here the car apparently struck an abutment and was completely demolished in the crash that followed. The wreckage was turned so as to face west, and the motor was hurled approximately 35 feet and landed upright. The front wheel and frame of the car, a Ford V-8, were torn loose. Worley was found lying under the wheel, the right side of his face crushed, his right arm broken, and his right hand badly burned, supposedly owing to a short in the electric wiring. Craig was lying left of the car with his head and chest burned, and his right leg and left arm fractured. The ambulance of the McAuley funeral home of Baxter Springs Kansas was called about 10:50 o'clock.