"Paul Laverne Pope, 25-year-old resident of Fly Creek died en route to Bassett Hospital, Cooperstown, at about nine o'clock Saturday night, after having suffered a fractured skull when the automobile on the running board of which he was riding crashed into the highway guard rail on the Springfield Center-Cooperstown road at a point a short distance south of Spaulding's. Coroner Harrie V. Frink of Richfield Springs was called to the spot by Sgt. Cunningham of the State Police and gave permission for the removal of the body to the Ingalls Funeral Home in Cooperstown. Coroner Frink will hold an inquest today. Pope was one of six men who filled a silo at the Clifford Drake farm at Six Mile Point Saturday. Finishing the job they lunched at the Lakeside roadstand at Seven Mile Point. Then Pope together with William Layman, driver of the ill-fated Dodge coupe, Walter Dekanek and Francis Drake, started north on the Otsego Lake road for another Drake farm where they were to do the chores. Pope was riding on the running board, the other three being inside the coupe. The story told was that Pope, on the running board, was seized with a sneezing spell, causing him to raise his arm to his face. In raising his arm he obstructed the view of the driver, Layman, who lost control of his car. Clifford Drake and other workers following in a truck, came upon the wrecked coupe. They rushed Pope to the hospital in the truck. Paul L. Pope was born in the Fly Creek Valley Jan 17, 1917, a son of Schuyler and Eloise (Jarvis) Pope, and had always lived in that locality. He was not married. Surviving are his parents, two brothers, R. Jarvis Pope and Robert Pope, both at home; three sisters, Mrs. Rufus Rhyde and Mrs. Antone Hribar, both of Fly Creek Valley, and Mrs. Harold Vibbard, Richfield Springs ... and interment was made in Fly Creek cemetery." ["Richfield Springs Mercury" (Richfield Springs, NY), Thurs., Oct. 8, 1942, p. 1]
submitted by Fag member Kathryn Hill