Chester Gordon Anderson

Chester Gordon Anderson, the youngest child of Augustus A. and Alice Denny Anderson, was born at Tekamah, Nebr., November 3, 1899. Later the family moved to Washington County, Nebraska and in March of this year became residents of this city. Gordon was baptized into membership of the First Baptist Church on Blair on May 20, 1923. He at once became an active member of the church and in the fall of 1923 was elected an usher which position he held until the time of his death.

He came to an untimely death by drowning in Lake Quinnebaugh on the afternoon of July 26, 1925 when he was aged 25 years, 8 months and 23 days.

Published in the Oakland Independent July 31, 1925

Young Man Drowns at Lake Quinnebaugh

Harold Anderson of Blair, a young man of 25, drowned in Lake Quinnebaugh about four o’clock last Sunday afternoon, while bathers were swimming all around him without giving aid. These said afterwards that they thought the young man was only pretending when he called for help.

Being unable to swim, the young man had inflated a tube and wrapped around him. After a while he called out, “The air is going out of my tube and I can’t swim.” This remark the others regarded as a joke. It was said that his brother did go to his aid, but he can swim but little and was almost pulled down also.

It was only when Anderson went down and failed to come up that others began to bestir themselves in his behalf. A boat was run out and with a pole the body was located. A young fellow dived and managed to bring it to the surface. The body had been in the water probably ten or fifteen minutes when recovered. The drowning occurred near the store and dance pavilion on the south side of the lake and less than fifty feet from the shore, near enough so that a rope, had there been one handy, could have been thrown to the drowning man.

Feverish attempts to resuscitate the man were made by Dugan Lewis and others. A doctor was found on the other side of the lake, and Doctor Morrow was summoned from Tekamah, but notwithstanding these efforts it was found impossible to restore breathing.

With the young man at the lake were his father, two brothers and one sister, and naturally they were almost frantic from grief.

Among those who were present when the body was recovered were Victor E. Nelson and family from Oakland. Victor, who removed the tube said that this was wrapped twice about the body.

~~~ Obituary courtesy of the Washington County Genealogical Society. Newspaper clippings on file in the Blair Public Library at Blair, Nebraska.~~~

Note: the Vig files indicate that he was buried in Tekamah

Note: Lake Quinnebaugh is/was in Burt County, Nebraska

Note: many older Tekamah cemetery files were burned in a shed fire

FindaGrave # 204745614