Obituary of Graham Thornton Colehour
Newspaper: Sterling Daily Gazette (IL)Published Date: 16 Aug 1963
Mount Carroll Man Is Crushed Fatally Under Radio Tower
FREEPORT - Graham Thorne Colehour, 29, Mount Carroll, father of four children, died Thursday of crushing injuries suffered when a 30 foot radio tower toppled onto him while he was erecting it here.
Colehour, a radio and television salesman and repairman, was on top of the tower when a guy wire clamp slipped free and the tower began to fall.
A second Mount Carroll man, Larry Roberts, standing at the foot of the tower, said he yelled a warning and Colehour began to slide down. The tower, however, caught him before he reached the roof and crushed him.
Colehour, according to Roberts, was at the tip section of the tower with his safety belt on when the accident occurred. The tower was being installed by the men on the roof of the old Keen Canning Co. building, Montery St.
Hook and ladder equipment was used by firemen to tie the injured man to a stretcher and lower him on a ladder from the roof of the building. He was taken to Freeport Memorial Hospital in an ambulance. He died at the hospital an hour after his accident, at 5:15 p.m.
Colehour and Roberts were employed by the J and M Electronics, Freeport, to install the tower. It was reportedly a two-way radio system.
Gene Burke, Stephenson County Coroner said death apparently was caused by crushing injuries to the chest and head. The inquest has been continued.
Included among his survivors are his widow, Mary; two sons, Michael and John, and two daughters, Mary Jane and Patricia, all at home: his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Colehour, Mount Carroll; and one brother, Theodore, Mount Carroll.
Funeral services will be conducted at 2 p.m. Saturday in the Frank Funeral Home with the Rev. Wilbur Fogg, of the Savanna Episcopal Church, officiating. Burial will be in Oak Hill Cemetery, Mount Carroll. There will be no visitation.
Graham Thorne Colehour was born Nov. 24, 1933 in Freeport and married Mary McCombie on Dec. 16, 1951.
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