Walter F. Drum of Flat River, World War veteran and for several years an employee of St. Joseph Lead Company died in Bonne Terre Hospital at 6:20 p.m., Tuesday, October 13, 1936, of injuries received in an accident underground at Federal Mine No. 5, at 11:15 a.m., the same day. He was 42 years old.
Drum was employed as a shovel operator and was helping the locomotive engineer uncouple underground cars. One of the cars jumped the track and Drum's head was crushed between two cars and his skull fractured. He was unconscious when brought to the surface and died a few hours later at the hospital.
Funeral services were held Wednesday morning at ten o'clock at the Free Will Baptist Church in Flat River and burial was in Woodlawn cemetery.
The deceased was married in 1925 to Miss Ethel Johnson, who survives. He also leaves three children, Robertus, Ava Lou and Francis Marie; his father, Marion Drum; five sisters, Mrs. Etta Walker and Mrs. Wm. Martin of Flat River; Mrs. Flora Slinkard of Bessville; Mrs. Dorothy Moyer of Hiram, Mo.; and Mrs. Beulah Thomasson of Perryville; two brothers, William E. Drum of Herculaneum and Paul Drum of Womack. He is also survived by a niece, Mildren Drum, whom he had fathered since she was a small child and whom he loved dearly and was justly proud. His mother, two sisters and a brother preceded him in death.
He was in training during the World War at Zachary Taylor Camp in Kentucky and served fourteen months overseas with the American forces.