Born 4/19/1929
Died 1/8/1944
Son of Albert Johnson and
Hazel (Hourigan) Hourigan, Sr.
YOUTH, 14, DIES IN CAR CRASH CURTIS HOURIGAN
LEBANON STUDENT, IS VICTIM OF COLLISION SATURDAY.
THREE OTHERS INJURED---One person was killed instantly, another is in a serious condition at the J.A.Baute Memorial Hospital and two more suffered painful injuries in a motor collision which occurred Saturday night shortly after 6 o'clock on the Danville Highway in front of the property of Charles Robertson about three miles from this city. Both cars involved in the accident were virtually demolished. Charles Curtis Hourigan, 14 year old son of Mrs. Hazel Hourigan of Riley, and a Freshman at the Lebanon High School suffered a crushed skull, a severed jugular vein and fractures of both legs. He was dead when extricated from the wreckage.
SISTER'S LEG FRACTURED---His sister, Miss Anna Lou Hourigan, 17, sustained a broken right leg between the hip and knee and was lacerated about the face and chest. She is at the J.A.Baute Memorial Hospital where her condition is reported serious, but improved. J.P. Hourigan, 19, brother of the dead youth, was admitted to the hospital for treatment of a dislocated hip and minor cuts and bruises. Although he is still under a doctor's care he was able to return to his home Wednesday. He was driving the Nash two-door sedan in which the two other members of the family were passengers.
BLAND SUFFERS CONCUSSION.---Edgar Bland, Gravel Switch, driver of the other automobile, a Plymouth convertible coupe, was also brought to the hospital here following the crash but was returned to his home the same night after undergoing treatment for a concussion and for lacerations and bruises about his head and face. He lives on the farm of Sam Isaacs at Gravel Switch. The collision occurred a short while after night had fallen on a straight section of the road, the Hourigan car reportedly coming toward Lebanon and the Bland coupe going toward Gravel Switch. J.P. Hourigan allegedly said that he was driving his sedan at a moderate rate of speed, not over 35 miles an hour, when the other car approached. Believing from the position of the oncoming lights that the Bland car was going to strike him, he is said to have pulled sharply to the left in a vain attempt to avert the accident.
CARS BADLY DAMAGED---City Officers James W. Phillips and Robert Gordon and State Highway Patrolman James Campbell went to the scene but the dead youth and the three injured persons had already been brought to Lebanon. Mr. Phillips said that the rear of the Hourigan car was in the ditch on the right side of the road as one faces east, and that the front end was on the highway. The Bland coupe was on the opposite side of the road, its back end toward Lebanon and the front end, with the wheels wheels crushed under it, in the ditch. The surface of the highway was not slick, police said. The fronts of both automobiles were partially telescoped and the right side of the Hourigan car was bashed in by the impact. Mr. Phillips stated that Oliver Lewis of Gravel Switch, a passing motorist, claimed to be the first to arrive at the accident scene and extricated the injured girl and the two men from their vehicles. He reported that Curtis Hourian was dead in the sedan and that the body was almost covered by the rear seat, which had apparently been ripped loose. An ambulance was summoned at once.
DECEASED STUDENT POPULAR--The deceased student was born in the eastern part of this county on April 19, 1929, and had attended the Lebanon schools for several years, although he made his home at Riley. He was very popular with his teachers and his classmates, alike. His older brother, who was driving the ill-fated car, was graduated from the Lebanon High School with the class of 1942 and had recently been given a medical discharge from the Army Air Corps into which he was inducted some time ago. Surviving the youth, other than his brother, sister and mother, are another brother, Air Cadet A.J. Hourigan, Jr., stationed at Pensacola, Fla., and two sisters, Misses Alberta Hourigan, of Riley and Marie Hourigan of Louisville. His father, Albert J. Hourigan, for many years L&N agent and telegraph operator at Riley, died approximately two years ago. Funeral services were conducted from the Bosley Funeral Home Tuesday afternoon at 2:30 o'clock by the Rev. T.J. Porter, pastor of the Baptist Church, and the body was taken to the Haysville Cemetery for burial. Pallbearers, four classmates, were Billy Hourigan, Charles Campbell, Marcus Clark and Charles Roberts.
