Ice Boat Death January 1956  

1956 - 18 January --- Tragedy on Lake Mars Weekend -- Lake Maxinkuckee was the scene Saturday afternoon of another tragedy in the Culver Community. James Lee Grubbs, age 23, of Mishawaka drowned when the motor propelled ice boat in which he was riding struck an open place in the ice drowning him into the lake where the water was 0 or 60 feet deep.

Mr. Grubbs with his companion, Wilfred J. Richards, of Elkhart had been ice sledding and skating most of the day. Richards was on his skates at the time of the accident and Grubbs was ridding in the ice boat belonging to Ray Kline of Culver when he hit a spot where the ice was only one half inch thick throwing him about 20 feet clear of the boat into the water.

His cries for help were heard by Kenneth Kemple, Culver ; who was fishing through the ice about 150 yards from the place where Grubbs went into the water. Walker Winslow and Jerome Zechiel Jr. both of Culver who were in ice sail boats, tried to help. Mr. Winslow broke through the ice in his boat which floated until Mr. Zechiel helped get him back on the ice.

Meanwhile, the Culver Fire Department was called and obtaining a boat, oars, ropes and hooks from the Allen Boat House, fire Chief David Burns, with firemen Oscar Booker and Eugene A. Black, got in the boat on the ice. Other men pushed the boat so that it slid into the opening. By this time Mr. Grubbs had gone down and all hopes of recovering him alive ha passed.

The firemen in the boat began dragging for his body as Mr. Kemple broke more ice to make the opening larger. Firemen Irwin Hatten, Donovan Overmyer, and Verl McFeely remained on the ice and as the men in the boat dropped the hooks then the men on the ice p ulled the ropes to which the hooks were attached. One the fourth attempt they were able to recover the body.

To get the boat back on the ice, a roper was fastened to the front while the men remained in the back of the boat so the front would be tilted up. The men who were 100 feet back on solid ice p ulled the boat back to safety.

Great dexterity and bravery were shown by the firemen who, without any thought of their own safety, risk their lives to help someone in trouble. All the men concerned are worthy of great praise for the skillf unless and rapidity with which they where able to recover the drowned man's body under such hazardous conditions.

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1956 - Jan 16 - MAN DIES IN LAKE

Culver , Ind. (INS) — A 23-year old Mishawaka man died in an unusual wintertime accident.

The victim was James Lee Grubbs. who rode a motorized ice sled to his death near the center of Lake Maxinkuckee Saturday.

Efforts of witnesses to save Grubbs after the sled had crashed through the ice caused the neardrowning of a would-be rescuer Walker Winslow, whose sail-powered ice boat also went through the ice.

Winslow was saved from the icy water. The body of Grubbs was recovered an hour after he drowned. - Tipton Tribune - 16 Jan 1956