He was killed hours after an oxygen explosion destroyed his father's blacksmith shop in Plains, KS. His father had passed away months before and he had returned from KSU in Manhattan to run his father's business. He is son of Orval Robert Click and Jessie Bell (Martin) Click, as per Nick Cannon, June 16, 2011.
On 27-Dec-2011 on ancestry.com message boards a user by the name of maryachtrh, so kindly posted his obituary:
===========================================
Article from The Hutchinson News, Hutchinson, Kansas, Saturday , 4 June 1927
TO BURY EXPLOSION VICTIM AT PARTRIDGE
Funeral services will be held tomorrow afternoon at 2 o'clock at the Partridge Cemetery by Father Nagle for Russell Click, 24, who died from burns at his home in Plains yesterday morning.
Funeral services at Plains were held there this afternoon at 4 o'clock and the body brought here.
Mr. Click was born at Abbyville and lived there for many years. He is survived by his mother, Mrs. O. R. Click and three sisters, Dorothea, Kitty and Marguerite. Miss Josephine Martin of 16 West 11th Street is his aunt.
Mr. Click was welding at a garage at Plains Thursday night about 9 o'clock and had inserted a new point in his machine. No sooner did he start to work with the machine, than an explosion occurred starting flames all over the shop. Click was so terribly burned that he died the next morning at 3 o'clock.
===========================================
Note: I wanted to make a few comments about his death from the stories my grandma told me over the years about this:
1) His Dad has passed away on 10-Oct-1926 which was less than 8 months before Russell died on 2-June-1927. The story goes that the grave was so soft, that the grave digger almost got burried alive when he dug Russell's grave next to his dad's grave.
2) The obituary said he lived in Abbyville for many years. That is incorrect. Yes he was born there, but then they moved to Gray County. My grandma born two years latter (1904) was born around where present day Montezuma, Gray County, Kansas is located. Russell's parents met in Abbyville, his maternal grandfather (John Martin) lived there. I'm sure the family went back plenty of times to visit grandpa Martin and the rest of the family, but they never went back there to live.
3) Many in Plains knew about the explosion, not only because news travels fast, and it was an explosion, but also because many were downtown that night. An old-timer told me that the movie house across the street from our family's blacksmith shop was playing a movie that night. The family had a blacksmith shop in two different locations. One was just across the street (to the south) from where the Plains Methodist Church now stands. It is now a little park with a gazebo. The other location was right across from the post office. It is now the location of the Plains State Bank. Since I was told the post office used to be the movie house, where the bank is now is probably where the blacksmith shop was located. All we have left of that shop is that grandma had a piece of concrete sidewalk from that shop placed near a lilac bush that her mother Jessie Bell had planted.
4) After the explosion, they brought Russell from downtown Plains back to the home which just across the street from the Plains Catholic Church (St Patrick's). They put Russell in his bed. His room was the back bedroom -- off the kitchen.
5) The obituary states that he was badly burned. According to Grandma, he had very few external burns. Mainly his hands. Unfortunately, the fire/explosion severely damaged his lungs.
6) Russell requested that his favorite records be played on his Victrola. Grandma's sister Marguerite did so for him. Grandma told me that she couldn't bare to see him in the backroom. She was really close since they were only two years apart in age. Marguerite was seven years younger than Russell. Kittie Helen was two years older than Russell, but she kept to herself. She had left the home soon after she graduated from high school.
Like Russell, Grandma also enjoyed sports such as basketball, so grandma Dorothy and Russell were close.
7) It is interesting to note that the officiating minister was a priest. My family had converted to Catholicism, but I never knew exactly when. I always figured it was later than when Russell died.
On 27-Dec-2011 on ancestry.com message boards a user by the name of maryachtrh, so kindly posted his obituary:
===========================================
Article from The Hutchinson News, Hutchinson, Kansas, Saturday , 4 June 1927
TO BURY EXPLOSION VICTIM AT PARTRIDGE
Funeral services will be held tomorrow afternoon at 2 o'clock at the Partridge Cemetery by Father Nagle for Russell Click, 24, who died from burns at his home in Plains yesterday morning.
Funeral services at Plains were held there this afternoon at 4 o'clock and the body brought here.
Mr. Click was born at Abbyville and lived there for many years. He is survived by his mother, Mrs. O. R. Click and three sisters, Dorothea, Kitty and Marguerite. Miss Josephine Martin of 16 West 11th Street is his aunt.
Mr. Click was welding at a garage at Plains Thursday night about 9 o'clock and had inserted a new point in his machine. No sooner did he start to work with the machine, than an explosion occurred starting flames all over the shop. Click was so terribly burned that he died the next morning at 3 o'clock.
===========================================
Note: I wanted to make a few comments about his death from the stories my grandma told me over the years about this:
1) His Dad has passed away on 10-Oct-1926 which was less than 8 months before Russell died on 2-June-1927. The story goes that the grave was so soft, that the grave digger almost got burried alive when he dug Russell's grave next to his dad's grave.
2) The obituary said he lived in Abbyville for many years. That is incorrect. Yes he was born there, but then they moved to Gray County. My grandma born two years latter (1904) was born around where present day Montezuma, Gray County, Kansas is located. Russell's parents met in Abbyville, his maternal grandfather (John Martin) lived there. I'm sure the family went back plenty of times to visit grandpa Martin and the rest of the family, but they never went back there to live.
3) Many in Plains knew about the explosion, not only because news travels fast, and it was an explosion, but also because many were downtown that night. An old-timer told me that the movie house across the street from our family's blacksmith shop was playing a movie that night. The family had a blacksmith shop in two different locations. One was just across the street (to the south) from where the Plains Methodist Church now stands. It is now a little park with a gazebo. The other location was right across from the post office. It is now the location of the Plains State Bank. Since I was told the post office used to be the movie house, where the bank is now is probably where the blacksmith shop was located. All we have left of that shop is that grandma had a piece of concrete sidewalk from that shop placed near a lilac bush that her mother Jessie Bell had planted.
4) After the explosion, they brought Russell from downtown Plains back to the home which just across the street from the Plains Catholic Church (St Patrick's). They put Russell in his bed. His room was the back bedroom -- off the kitchen.
5) The obituary states that he was badly burned. According to Grandma, he had very few external burns. Mainly his hands. Unfortunately, the fire/explosion severely damaged his lungs.
6) Russell requested that his favorite records be played on his Victrola. Grandma's sister Marguerite did so for him. Grandma told me that she couldn't bare to see him in the backroom. She was really close since they were only two years apart in age. Marguerite was seven years younger than Russell. Kittie Helen was two years older than Russell, but she kept to herself. She had left the home soon after she graduated from high school.
Like Russell, Grandma also enjoyed sports such as basketball, so grandma Dorothy and Russell were close.
7) It is interesting to note that the officiating minister was a priest. My family had converted to Catholicism, but I never knew exactly when. I always figured it was later than when Russell died.
He was killed hours after an oxygen explosion destroyed his father's blacksmith shop in Plains, KS. His father had passed away months before and he had returned from KSU in Manhattan to run his father's business. He is son of Orval Robert Click and Jessie Bell (Martin) Click, as per Nick Cannon, June 16, 2011.
On 27-Dec-2011 on ancestry.com message boards a user by the name of maryachtrh, so kindly posted his obituary:
===========================================
Article from The Hutchinson News, Hutchinson, Kansas, Saturday , 4 June 1927
TO BURY EXPLOSION VICTIM AT PARTRIDGE
Funeral services will be held tomorrow afternoon at 2 o'clock at the Partridge Cemetery by Father Nagle for Russell Click, 24, who died from burns at his home in Plains yesterday morning.
Funeral services at Plains were held there this afternoon at 4 o'clock and the body brought here.
Mr. Click was born at Abbyville and lived there for many years. He is survived by his mother, Mrs. O. R. Click and three sisters, Dorothea, Kitty and Marguerite. Miss Josephine Martin of 16 West 11th Street is his aunt.
Mr. Click was welding at a garage at Plains Thursday night about 9 o'clock and had inserted a new point in his machine. No sooner did he start to work with the machine, than an explosion occurred starting flames all over the shop. Click was so terribly burned that he died the next morning at 3 o'clock.
===========================================
Note: I wanted to make a few comments about his death from the stories my grandma told me over the years about this:
1) His Dad has passed away on 10-Oct-1926 which was less than 8 months before Russell died on 2-June-1927. The story goes that the grave was so soft, that the grave digger almost got burried alive when he dug Russell's grave next to his dad's grave.
2) The obituary said he lived in Abbyville for many years. That is incorrect. Yes he was born there, but then they moved to Gray County. My grandma born two years latter (1904) was born around where present day Montezuma, Gray County, Kansas is located. Russell's parents met in Abbyville, his maternal grandfather (John Martin) lived there. I'm sure the family went back plenty of times to visit grandpa Martin and the rest of the family, but they never went back there to live.
3) Many in Plains knew about the explosion, not only because news travels fast, and it was an explosion, but also because many were downtown that night. An old-timer told me that the movie house across the street from our family's blacksmith shop was playing a movie that night. The family had a blacksmith shop in two different locations. One was just across the street (to the south) from where the Plains Methodist Church now stands. It is now a little park with a gazebo. The other location was right across from the post office. It is now the location of the Plains State Bank. Since I was told the post office used to be the movie house, where the bank is now is probably where the blacksmith shop was located. All we have left of that shop is that grandma had a piece of concrete sidewalk from that shop placed near a lilac bush that her mother Jessie Bell had planted.
4) After the explosion, they brought Russell from downtown Plains back to the home which just across the street from the Plains Catholic Church (St Patrick's). They put Russell in his bed. His room was the back bedroom -- off the kitchen.
5) The obituary states that he was badly burned. According to Grandma, he had very few external burns. Mainly his hands. Unfortunately, the fire/explosion severely damaged his lungs.
6) Russell requested that his favorite records be played on his Victrola. Grandma's sister Marguerite did so for him. Grandma told me that she couldn't bare to see him in the backroom. She was really close since they were only two years apart in age. Marguerite was seven years younger than Russell. Kittie Helen was two years older than Russell, but she kept to herself. She had left the home soon after she graduated from high school.
Like Russell, Grandma also enjoyed sports such as basketball, so grandma Dorothy and Russell were close.
7) It is interesting to note that the officiating minister was a priest. My family had converted to Catholicism, but I never knew exactly when. I always figured it was later than when Russell died.
On 27-Dec-2011 on ancestry.com message boards a user by the name of maryachtrh, so kindly posted his obituary:
===========================================
Article from The Hutchinson News, Hutchinson, Kansas, Saturday , 4 June 1927
TO BURY EXPLOSION VICTIM AT PARTRIDGE
Funeral services will be held tomorrow afternoon at 2 o'clock at the Partridge Cemetery by Father Nagle for Russell Click, 24, who died from burns at his home in Plains yesterday morning.
Funeral services at Plains were held there this afternoon at 4 o'clock and the body brought here.
Mr. Click was born at Abbyville and lived there for many years. He is survived by his mother, Mrs. O. R. Click and three sisters, Dorothea, Kitty and Marguerite. Miss Josephine Martin of 16 West 11th Street is his aunt.
Mr. Click was welding at a garage at Plains Thursday night about 9 o'clock and had inserted a new point in his machine. No sooner did he start to work with the machine, than an explosion occurred starting flames all over the shop. Click was so terribly burned that he died the next morning at 3 o'clock.
===========================================
Note: I wanted to make a few comments about his death from the stories my grandma told me over the years about this:
1) His Dad has passed away on 10-Oct-1926 which was less than 8 months before Russell died on 2-June-1927. The story goes that the grave was so soft, that the grave digger almost got burried alive when he dug Russell's grave next to his dad's grave.
2) The obituary said he lived in Abbyville for many years. That is incorrect. Yes he was born there, but then they moved to Gray County. My grandma born two years latter (1904) was born around where present day Montezuma, Gray County, Kansas is located. Russell's parents met in Abbyville, his maternal grandfather (John Martin) lived there. I'm sure the family went back plenty of times to visit grandpa Martin and the rest of the family, but they never went back there to live.
3) Many in Plains knew about the explosion, not only because news travels fast, and it was an explosion, but also because many were downtown that night. An old-timer told me that the movie house across the street from our family's blacksmith shop was playing a movie that night. The family had a blacksmith shop in two different locations. One was just across the street (to the south) from where the Plains Methodist Church now stands. It is now a little park with a gazebo. The other location was right across from the post office. It is now the location of the Plains State Bank. Since I was told the post office used to be the movie house, where the bank is now is probably where the blacksmith shop was located. All we have left of that shop is that grandma had a piece of concrete sidewalk from that shop placed near a lilac bush that her mother Jessie Bell had planted.
4) After the explosion, they brought Russell from downtown Plains back to the home which just across the street from the Plains Catholic Church (St Patrick's). They put Russell in his bed. His room was the back bedroom -- off the kitchen.
5) The obituary states that he was badly burned. According to Grandma, he had very few external burns. Mainly his hands. Unfortunately, the fire/explosion severely damaged his lungs.
6) Russell requested that his favorite records be played on his Victrola. Grandma's sister Marguerite did so for him. Grandma told me that she couldn't bare to see him in the backroom. She was really close since they were only two years apart in age. Marguerite was seven years younger than Russell. Kittie Helen was two years older than Russell, but she kept to herself. She had left the home soon after she graduated from high school.
Like Russell, Grandma also enjoyed sports such as basketball, so grandma Dorothy and Russell were close.
7) It is interesting to note that the officiating minister was a priest. My family had converted to Catholicism, but I never knew exactly when. I always figured it was later than when Russell died.
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