Looking back: Couple killed days before wedding and detectives rescue Thanksgiving dinner ‘about to fly away’

IDAHO FALLS — EastIdahoNews.com is looking back at what life was like during the week of Nov. 18 to Nov. 24 in east Idaho history.

1900-1925

BLACKFOOT — A local woman and her fiancé were killed days before their wedding, The Blackfoot Optimist reported on Nov. 18, 1915.

Edward H. Davies, of Sacramento, California, and Gladys Mitchell, of Riverside, which is near Blackfoot, died after being struck by a vehicle “as they stepped from a street car.”

The driver who hit the couple was Jesse Gesas. It’s not clear if the incident happened Saturday or Sunday night at 11 p.m. — both days are referenced in the article — but it took police “several hours” before they could identify the pair because neither of them had anything to identify them in their possession.

Captain Roberts and Detectives Frank Glenn and W.C. Brown went to the scene of the accident and “began a systematic search of the neighborhood.” People were woken up “in every house and inquiry made, the description of the girl being given.”

They ended up at the girl’s uncle’s house, B.W. Maycock. Roberts described the girl and asked if she lived there.

“Why, yes, but she is in bed, I think,” Maycock stated.

“Better look and see,” an officer advised.

“When it was found that she had not yet returned from the theatre, Mr. Maycock hastened to the emergency hospital with the officers and immediately identified the girl and her fiancé,” the paper reads.

Davies, 23, was “almost instantly killed.” The impact broke the man’s neck, caved in the walls of his cheek, fractured each leg in three places, broke an ankle, broke bones in his chest and bruised his body in “many places.” Davies’ body was taken to the police station in the car that struck them.

Mitchell, 21, was unconscious when she was taken to the station in Gesas’s car and carried inside on a “patrol wagon stretcher.” Witnesses said the girl was “hurled 150 feet through the air and fell to the pavement with a concussion that crushed her skull and rendered her unconscious.”

She had two severe fractures at the base of her skull and both arms were broken. She never regained consciousness and ended up dying.

“Miss Mitchell came to this city about a week ago,” the paper explained. “She was to have been married to Davies this week (in the Salt Lake Temple). They were to go to Sacramento, where the young man’s parents reside.”

The article reads, “Jesse Gesas, who was the cause of her death and the death of her lover, was charged with manslaughter and admitted to bail in the sum of $1,000.”

1926-1950

RIGBY– An Idaho Falls man miraculously survived after his vehicle crashed into the side of a Union Pacific locomotive, the Idaho Falls Post Register reported on Nov. 20, 1938.

The incident happened on Yellowstone Highway at Haywood Corner. As “trainmen hurried back to the scene,” W.H. Pound, 46, extricated himself from the wreckage of his car.

His injuries were confined to a sprained wrist, according to Sheriff E.T. Fillmore.

“The accident occurred as the train headed out on the sugar plant spur track just north of Rigby,” the Post Register said. “Mr. Pound veered his car sharply just before the impact and averted a head-on collision.”

1951-1975

POCATELLO — Two Pocatello detectives “rescued a Thanksgiving dinner that was about to fly away,” the Idaho State Journal reported on Nov. 21, 1951.

Detectives John Perkins and Herb Williams were “cruising in the neighborhood” of 11 Avenue and Benton Street when they saw a group of people surrounding a tree.

“A 12-pound turkey, the bands around its legs cut by some children, had taken refuge on a high branch,” the Journal wrote.

It continued, “A frantic owner asked permission to use a shotgun before the dinner flew into the sagebrush hills. An ordinance allowed only authorized persons to discharge guns in the city.”

Perkins returned to the station and grabbed a .22 caliber riffle.

“With one shot, Perkins polished off the turkey — through the neck,” the paper reads.

1976-2000

POCATELLO — Nearly 100 tons of saltine crackers were being stored at the Bannock County Fairgrounds and were going to be sold as feed for stock, the Idaho State Journal reported on Nov. 22, 1977.

“Under the supervision of Bert Marley, the county’s weed containment supervisor, a crew of workers has been making the rounds of the 140 Civil Defense bomb shelters in Bannock County during the past few weeks and removing the crackers, more commonly known as ‘survival biscuits,'” the article states.

The “vintage wafers,” many of which were placed in the various shelters in 1962 and 1963, were no longer “fit for human consumption,” according to Marley. The county was hoping to make money on the crackers by selling them to stockmen for feed.

“It was either that or taking them all out to a landfill and dumping them,” Marley explained.

The saltines were enclosed in vacuum-packed containers and then packed into cardboard cartons weighing between 36 and 63 pounds each.

“Seeing all of those tons of crackers stacked to the ceiling is quite a sight,” Marley said.