OBIT: Charles LOUSER, 1900, Lebanon, Lebanon County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Abby Bowman

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HORRIBLE FATE OF CHARLES LOUSER

Bursting Emery Wheel Strikes His Head,
Cutting it From Ear to Ear.

DEATH WAS INSTANTANEOUS

Lifeless Body Found by Another Employee
Where It Had Fallen – An Inquest Held By
Coroner Shirt Last Evening.

By the bursting of an emery wheel in the Lebanon Boilerworks, Fourteenth street, 
Charles Louser, an employe [sic] of the place, was instantly killed yesterday 
morning.  At the time of the accident he had been employed in grinding a drill 
on the wheel which bursted and ended his life.  The unfortunate man was a drill 
press operator.  Lousers' head was terribly injured.  His lifeless body was 
found shortly after the accident by John Hanseker, another employee, and Coroner 
Shirk was notified and soon responded.

The accident happened in the southwest corner of the works.  Owing to the noise 
created in the boiler shop by the workingmen and the machinery, the bursting of 
the wheel was not heard, and when the dead body was discovered the sight was 
shocking.  He lay on the right side and the wound across the forehead extended 
almost from ear to ear, and destroying both eyes.

On piece, about half the wheel, was found beside the body and another was picked 
up outside the building, having broken off a piece of the weather boarding.

The wheel is believed to have broken in three pieces and the missing piece is 
imbedded in Louser's brain.  Foreman Tibbetts says the wheel was making about 
2,000 revolutions a minute when it burst.  Coroner Shirk after viewing the body 
gave Superintendent Mader permission to have it removed and he had Undertaker 
Jas. F. McGovern prepare it for burial at his North Ninth street rooms.  The 
jury reviewed the remains at the undertaker's place, and the coroner concluded 
to hold the inquest in the evening at the same place.

Louser was about 43 years old and hails from Jonestown.  For the past nine years 
off and on, he has been employed at the shop and last began work there about six 
months ago.  He was single and boarded at Tenth and Lehman streets.  Two 
sisters, Mrs. Cyrus Karmany, of Independent District, and another at Jonestown, 
where a brother also resides, survive him.  For a time up to six months ago he 
worked for John R. Forney, at the Hartman house.

As the result of the accident operations were yesterday afternoon suspended in 
all departments at the works.

Lebanon Daily Times, March 24, 1900