File:1968 - Jaus - Grewe- Friedriche Car Crash (3).jpg

Five Gibbon people killed in head-on car accident

Funerals for victims Saturday

Funeral services will be held Saturday for the accident victims.

Last rites for Mrs. Emma Grewe will be held at 10:30 a.m. at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Gibbon with Rev. L.A. Hohenstein officiating. Interment will be in St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Moltke Township, where Mr. Grewe is buried.

Visitation at Minnesota Valley Funeral Home in Gibbon will be Friday, from 3:00 to 9:00 p.m. for all the victims.

Combined services for Mr. and Mrs. Friedrichs and Mr. and Mrs. Jaus will be at 1:30 p.m. at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in Moltke, with interment in the church cemetery. Rev. Paul G. Porisch will officiate at the last rites.

The Gibbon community was saddened Tuesday by the death of five people in a tragic two-car head-on collision at 3:45 p.m. December 31, 1968, which claimed the lives of five occupants of a car driven by Mr. William Friedrichs.

Dead at the scene of the accident were:

• William F. Friedrichs, 71.
• Mrs. William (Agnes) Friedrichs, 70.
• Mrs. Otto (Emma Grewe), 72.
• Mr. Otto John Jaus, 81.

Transferred to Gaylord Hospital was Mrs. Otto (Anna) Jaus, 69, who died the following morning, January 1, 1969, at 2:32 a.m.

The lone occupant in the other car involved in the crash was Mr. Jacob Julius Burk, 35, of Pipestone, MN, who was transferred to Gaylord Hospital and is still listed in critical condition.

The two couples and Mrs. Grewe were related. Mr. Friedrichs and Mrs. Jaus were brother and sister, and Mrs. Friedrichs and Mrs. Grewe were sisters.

They had attended the funeral that afternoon at Gaylord of Mrs. Anna Maass, 95, Gaylord’s oldest resident, which was held at Immanuel Lutheran Church at Gaylord. They apparently were on their way home from the funeral, heading west on Highway 19, when the 1962 Ford driven by Mr. Friedrichs was struck head-on at the intersection of County Road 4 (Bernadotte road) three miles east of Winthrop. Mrs. Maass was an aunt of Mr. Friedrichs and Mrs. Jaus.

According to Mr. Herman Schulte, Sibley County Sheriff, blowing and drifting snow obscured the driver’s vision and probably was the cause of the accident. Tire break marks on the pavement indicated that the cars saw each other prior to the crash. An eye witness following the Friedrichs car reported the speed just prior to the mishap at 40 m.p.h.

The death raised the Minnesota traffic count to a record 1,032, which surpassed the 1966 record of 983.

source:Myrtle Jaus Meyer collection.