Jackson County Banner
Brownstown, Indiana
Wednesday, August 23, 1911
Page 1

DROPPED DEAD.

John Blankenship Expires While Hunting - John Blankenship, of Owen township, aged about 53 years, died suddenly last Sunday morning in the woods near his home in the hills about half way between Clearspring and Freetown.

He and his son Purl, aged about twenty-one years, went out about 7:30 that morning to kill a few spuirrels. They had only gone about a hundred yards from the house when they treed a squirrel. The father walked around the tree to scare the squirrel over where the boy might get a shot at it, when suddenly he threw up his hands and fell face downward to the ground. The boy ran to his father'c side and turned him over just as he breathed his last.

Coroner Frank Dowden held and inquest Sunday afternoon and rendered a verdict
 that death was caused from heart failure.

Deceased is survived by his wife and six children, on boy and five girls. The family was not very well known, having moved there from Terre Haute only a few months ago.

Coroner Dowden and his wife, who accompanied him, fount the family in very destitute circumstances, and they and others in the neighborhood contributed financially to their assistance. When the news of their condition was brought here, two boxes of clothing, shoes, etc. was made up and sent to them.