Saturday, June 28, 1930

We all went in to Waterloo & through Red Bud home this afternoon.  Henry Kammler was to have his dance tonight but it is postponed on account of the deaths of the Gambach’s.  It is in all the paper’s about the accident that happened with the 2 boys.  It was just 43 years ago that George Gambach’s sister got drowned.  Odillo Eichensser & Rudolph Rausch were here this evening & looking for ball grounds.  Rosalia & Bertille & Mamie Eichenseer went over to see Gambach’s this evening.  They sure do look nice.  Mrs. George Gambach takes it awful hard & also Lela Deuker [Denker?].  She was going with Willard.  There were 5 machines, florists that brought flowers.

Friday, June 27, 1930

Hecker baseball team played with Prairie boys last Sunday.  Hecker won 4-11.  Uncle Fred & Aunt Mary came up this afternoon.  Uncle Fred helped Papa fix wire fence.  We finished our dresses this afternoon.  They was here for supper.  Henry & Leona went to Belleville this afternoon.  They left the kids here.  The most terrible thing happened this afternoon about 2 o’clock.  The two Gambach’s Henry & Willard died.  They was trying to clean a well out.  There was some gas got in the well & the water taste, so they got the fellows that put the gas tanks in the ground to come to dig it out to see if it was a leak, but they said none of them had a leak, so they don’t know how the gas got in the well.  Henry went down first to get a bucketful out, and when he came out he said, that his breathe pretty near got taken away from the smell of gas.  But he went down in the well again, but failed to come back up alive.  Then Willard wanted to save Henry’s life, then he too was taken [in] there.  Henry Emery went down, but he couldn’t stand it either.  They had to pull him up with a rope & he also was unconscious. They rolled him around until he got to himself then he was alright.  They sent for men from Belleville but they couldn’t do no good so they full around until they got the rope around him & then pulled him out.  Willard they got out about 1/2 hour but Henry was in almost 2 hours.  Henry was 32 years old.  Willard was to be 27 on July 2.  They took them to the undertaking parlor at Belleville by Gundlach’s and will bring them out Sat. afternoon.  Mrs. George Gambach is so worried, she is some time gone all together.  Uncle Fred, Papa, Aunt Mary, Rosalia all went up to see them pull him out of the well.

Tuesday, May 6, 1930

Today is Uncle Adam’s birthday.  He is going to be 81 years old.  It is raining again a little this morning.  Rosalia went out to Uncle Fred’s this morning and brought Uncle Fred & Aunt Mary along back with her.  They were here for dinner & two lunches.  Henry & family were all here too for dinner and two lunches.  Papa, Uncle Fred, Henry, dug up the sewer this morning.  It was blocked up but it didn’t come through yet, so they will have to work another day if they didn’t get finished today.  Mr. Hill was over a little while.  Rosalia took 4 doz. eggs to the store & got .19¢ a dozen.

Mr. George Heyl got killed this afternoon.  The way we heard Mr. George Heyl had been to the stockyards and when he was coming home he got killed between Smithton and Hecker in that creek bottom by Grohman’s.  He ran out of gas and went to the neighbor’s house to get some, when coming back a machine struck him and killed him.  There is so many tales out, that you don’t know which was the right.  Henry Gambach found him laying on the road when he came back from St. Louis.

Thursday, May 1, 1930

Henry was up this morning.  Rosalia and Bertille washed, ironed, scrubbed the basement today.  Papa worked up at the new school all day.  In the evening Rosalia, Bertille, Aunt Mary went to church.  Joe Grossheim’s have a new chevrolet sedan.  There are a lot of trucks hauling brick for the new school from Red Bud up here.  Those that hauled today were:  Eichenseer’s, Roth’s, Schilling’s, Lorberg’s, Gambach, Pabst, Klein’s, Helfrich’s, Brauns.  Our hens are hatching today.