Child Dies, Mother Injured In Accident
La Grande, Aug 21. A broken steering gear, that plunged a car and its occupants over a 100-foot embankment near Palmer Junction yesterday afternoon, is given today as the cause for the death of little Wilberta Emily Dickerson, 3, and serious injuries to her mother, Mrs. W.P. Dickerson. The third occupant of the car, Billie Dickerson, just 14 months old, was thrown clear of the automobile and escaped with slight bruises.
The car plunged over the embankment, turning over and over, and stopped its catapulting course in a stream, little Wilberta being pinned under the machine with a fractured skull. Her death was instantaneous. The mother, with a fractured skull, a broken arm and bruises, was rushed to the Grande Ronde hospital where she is in grave condition. Physicians this afternoon said her condition was fair, but would not say definitely that she would recover.
The accident occurred 14 miles south of Elgin, about a mile from Palmer Junction, Mrs. Dickerson was driving home from a camping trip with her two tiny children when the steering gear broke on a hill. She was unable to control the car and had no time to jump before it went off the road.
Near her in another car was a sister, Gladys Anderson with Mrs. Dickerson’s third child, who is five years old, also returning from the camping trip.
Oregon Trail Weekly
North Powder News
Saturday, August 25, 1928