Looking back: Man crushed to death by falling piano and child saved from drowning after canal break leads to flooding
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IDAHO FALLS — EastIdahoNews.com is looking back at what life was like during the week of July 1 to July 7 in east Idaho history.
1900-1925
UCON — A Ucon man was crushed to death by a falling piano, The Bingham County News reported on July 1, 1912.
David Jones, about 35 years old, was killed instantly when the piano fell from a wagon, crushing his skull. Jones was with other people who were helping him load the piano into the wagon to take it to his home.
“He was standing in the wagon behind the piano, when the team started, throwing him to the ground, with the piano on top of him,” the local paper wrote. “Help was summoned at once but the man was beyond aid.”
Jones was married and reportedly involved in the restaurant business in Ucon.
1926-1950
IDAHO FALLS — A local baby who once was the “tiniest baby born in Bonneville County” made headlines once she turned 10 months old, The Post-Register reported on July 5, 1940.
Margarite Kellar weighed 23 ounces when she was born in the Idaho Falls LDS Hospital. At 10 months old, she weighed 11 pounds 10 ounces.
“Eastern Idaho’s tiniest baby is growing into a great big girl,” the paper said.
It continued, “Her daily diet (is) five ounces of milk formula per feeding every three hours, juice from one medium sized orange, three teaspoons of strained vegetables, cod liver oil and two tablespoons of pablum.”
1951-1975
BLACKFOOT — Law enforcement was searching for a “young man” who was missing from Blackfoot, the Idaho State Journal reported on July 1, 1958.
John Bardowitz, who was in his 20s, was employed and drove a van for Mark Owens and Sons Potato Chip Company. The man reportedly drove away in the van, which may have had between $1,200 to $1,500 in cash from route sales in it.
He stayed in an American Falls motel Thursday night and on Friday morning, the van was abandoned in Twin Falls. Twin Falls Police reported the driver then rented a blue four-door Chevrolet sedan.
Bardowitz’s wife, Karen, is a cousin of “escaped wife-slayer” Reed M. Hopla.
“Police here and in Blackfoot today still had no trace of Hopla, who fled about 6 p.m. Saturday from the state penitentiary at Boise,” the paper mentioned.
It’s unclear if Bardowitz and Hopla’s situations were connected.
1976-2000
POCATELLO — A four-foot wall of water poured from a break in the Hiline Canal in Pocatello causing serious damage, the Idaho State Journal reported on July 1, 1977.
The flooding lifted mobile homes off their block foundations and sent “gobs” of mud into front yards and basements along East Quinn Road.
“No injuries were reported, although witnesses said one resident saved a life when he pulled a small child from a ditch which had filled with water,” the Journal stated.
The break happened around noon on Thursday and water flowed for about two hours. Around 12:15 p.m., the embankment gave way. Fifteen mobile homes and four foundation homes sustained mud and water damage.
“Under several of the mobile homes, block rests were pushed over from the water’s force,” the Journal said. “The result was that one side slipped toward the ground in some cases crunching utility connections.”
The “path of the cave-ins” followed the line of a trench filled by the city a month prior to the flooding after a water main was installed.
“The 18-inch line was to connect a city well in NOP Park … with a pump house on a hill above the canal. The line was laid six feet under the canal, right under the gap caused by the collapsed embankment.”
“We sat out here and watched them cover that trench with sand,” Gary Crane, a resident in the area told the Journal. “He said he remembers thinking, ‘That canal is going to break and we’re going to get flooded.”
