Napoleon Youth Dies in Crash Near Florida

Jerry Lee Palmer, 19, of 522 Monroe street, Napoleon, was killed and his companion Richard Bankey, also of Napoleon suffered severe shock Saturday at 6:00 p.m. when Palmer’s automobile rolled over on County Road Z, two miles south of Florida and a half mile east of County Road 16. This was the 11th highway fatality in the county for 1962.

Officers Robert Starkey and Don Mitchell, of the Sheriff’s department, who investigated the accident, say that the car was evidently being driven too fast to make the curve where the driver lost control and hit a telephone pole and rolled over.

Damage to the ’56 Chevrolet convertible was estimated at $600. To the phone pole $100.

Bankey was taken to Heller Memorial Hospital in Napoleon in a Walker ambulance.

The boys were returning from a trip to Defiance when the accident occurred.

The Palmer youth suffered deep face and head lacerations and a depressed skull fracture. Death was almost immediate. He was a 1961 graduate of Napoleon high school and had been employed by the Walters Collision Service.

Surviving are his father, Frank L. Palmer, and stepmother, Mrs. Lorna Palmer; two sisters, Mrs. Ralph Knepley, Findlay, and Mrs. Dennis Roehrig, of Defiance and a brother, James F. Palmer, of Napoleon.

Funeral services will be held from the Walker Mortuary, Napoleon; at 2 p.m. Wednesday, with the Rev. H. A. Meussling, pastor of St. John’s E and R Lutheran Church, officiating. Interment will be in Young Cemetery, Liberty Center.

Friends may call at the Walker Mortuary from 7 to 9 p.m. Monday and from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday.