From The Daily News
Huntingdon, Pennsylvania
4 May, 1931

UNION FURNACE ACCIDENT FATAL 
TO 12-YEAR-OLD BOY
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Francis B. Gilliland Dies in Altoona Hospital
Yesterday -- Suffered Injuries April 19
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LOCAL OFFICERS HEAD INQUIRY
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   Francis Burdette Gilliland, 12-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Francis B. Gilliland, of 1202 Third street, Juniata, Blair County, died in the Altoona hospital yesterday forenoon at 11:45 o’clock, of injuries which he sustained in an automobile accident at Union Furnace, Huntingdon county, Sunday night, April 19th. The lad’s condition was critical at the time of his admittance to the hospital, and showed no improvement until death ensued.
   Francis was an occupant of an automobile operated by Robert Knepp, of Toledo, Ohio. It was traveling west on the highway between Waterstreet and Tyrone. Another car, operated by Herman Marshall, of Altoona, was traveling in the same direction. Marshall attempted to pass the Knepp car, and it is alleged, cut in too soon, causing a collision and Knepp lost control of the car. The car swerved to the side of the road and upset. One of the boy’s legs was caught in the wreckage. The muscles and tendons of the leg were badly torn. The boy’s mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Gilliland, who was riding in the rumble seat, was hurled from the car and suffered a serious injury to her shoulder. Knepp escaped uninjured.
   Patrolmen from the Huntingdon sub-station investigated the accident. Coroner Chester C. Rothrock, of Blair county, viewed the body at the morgue yesterday. He immediately began an investigation. Local motor patrolmen will confer with the coroner today on the advisability of an inquest.
   Francis Gilliland was a son of Francis B. and Elizabeth McElhone Gilliland and was born at Newton Hamilton, April 9, 1919. He was a pupil in the sixth grade of the Noble school, Juniata, and was a member of the First Methodist Episcopal church and Sunday school of Juniata.
   Surviving are his parents  and one brother, Theodore, at home. Funeral service will be held at the home at 12:30 Wednesday. The cortege will then go to Newton Hamilton, where further services will be held in the Methodist Episcopal church there. The Rev. W. W. Banks will officiate. Interment will follow in the church cemetery, at Newton Hamilton.

-- transcription by Kate Maynard, 2010