Tragedy Thursday - The Death of a Father & Son

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FATHER, SON MEET DEATH IN GRAVEL PIT

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Roy, Willard Reusch Suffocated Sunday When Sand Slides

A Valley City father and son, Roy and Willard Reusch had their lives snuffed out, while another member of the same family, Claude Reusch, narrowly escaped a similar fate when a gravel bank in which they were digging slid down on them and their pick up truck at 4 pm Sunday.

Claude Reusch, 58, covered up to his neck in the wet sand, was extricated within a half hour. He was treated by a Valley City physician for shock before being taken to his home. On Monday morning he was taken to Medina Community Hospital for X-Rays.

Members of the Liverpool fire department, the sherriffs office and the state highway patrol worked for an hour and a half before the bodies of Roy 62 and Willard 24, were wrested from the grasp of the wet sand. County Coroner Andrew Karson attributed their deaths to suffocation.

The double tragedy occurred in August Malm's gravel pit on route 252, two miles north of Valley City and a short distance south of the Medina Cuyahoga county line.

Malm, who lives beside the pit, told Deputy Sheriff Steve Helli that the three men had asked permission to obtain a load of gravel from the bank. Although he warned them that it would have been better to wait until the next day, when the sand bank would be dryer, he gave his consent when they insisted that they needed the material yet that day.

Malm said that about 10 minutes after the trio started digging an unidentified woman came to his door and excitedly told him that she had seen the bank cave in on the men and their truck as she drove by the pit. (Appears that there are a few sentences missing here)
.........diggers shoveled out the hold from which the bodies were taken.

The slide which snuffed out the tow men's lives apparently started from the very top of the high gravel bank and caught them before they had a chance to run to safety. With such force did the gravel fall toward the bottom of the pit that the top and body of the pick up truck was badly smashed in.
Roy Reusch's body was recovered at about 5:30 and his son's 15 minutes later as County Coroner Karson and a large crowd looked on.

The bodies were taken to the Bauer funeral home at Valley City, double services having been arranged at Emanuel Reformed Church in that community on Wednesday at 2 p.m. Rev. Daniel Bodor will officiate, and Burial will be in Myrtle Hill Cemetery.

Farmers, the Reusches maintained a common home a short distance southwest of Valley City.
Roy is survived by his wife, Edith; two daughters, Mrs. Lorena Metti of Cleveland and Mrs. Lucille Bargar of Valley City; three grandchildren; his mother, Mrs. Amanda Reusch of Valley City; and two sisters, Mrs. Mabel Krugman of Pontiac Michigan, and Mrs. Blanche Frambaugh of Valley City; three brothers, Claude, Clyde of Sharon Center and Earl of Homersville.

Among Willard's survivors are his wife, Mary Ann, and a five month old son, Robert