Farm life has always carried its own brand of danger, and the risks our great-grandparents faced out in the fields weren’t all that different from what farmers wrestle with today.
Back in 1906, one Iowa farmer’s routine chore of tracking down a missing cow ended in a brutal, heartbreaking discovery. The following report, published at the time, lays out the grim details of a community shaken by the loss of a well-known neighbor.
Met Awful Death
News has been received of the death of K. Kueny, the father of F.M. Kueny, who is the foreman of the lacquer room at the Simmons Manufacturing Company’s plant. Kueny lost his life by being trampled to death by cattle at his home near Mapleton, Iowa.
The remains of the aged man were found in a corn field near his farm home by a party of 50 men who had been searching for Kueny for more than 20 hours.
It was thought that he had wandered away from home, and as he was a great favorite in the neighborhood the farmers had organized a searching party to locate him. The party had searched about the county and finally began to search the corn fields near the house. Kueny had left his home in search of a lost cow and had gone directly to the field where he met his death. All about the body was a pool of blood and the men who found the body believe that Kueny was either trampled to death by his herd of cattle or gored to death by a bull. The body was badly mutilated, but it was impossible to tell by the wounds the exact cause of death.
Kueny was a wealthy farmer and had lived near Mapleton for many years. He was 75 years of age, but vigorous and had insisted on personally looking after the work about his farm.
Source: The Telegraph-Courier. Kenosha, Wis. January 4, 1906.
