St. Clair County

Obituaries & Death Notices

Aged Father of Blast Victim
Mourns His Son

JOHN W. BUCKNER, the aged father of
THOMAS BUCKNER, deckhand, who lost his
life in the explosion that wrecked the
Omar D. Conger, was a marine engineer for
almost 40 years. Nearly all of that time
was spent on the lakes on vessels of the
old Thompson line.

His wife died only last December. "We were
together 55 years," he said, "and we reared
nine children. Only three of them are left
now." When he spoke of the son who will be
buried at St. Clair Wednesday afternoon, his
dim old eyes filled with tears which he tried
to brush away with a gnarled old hand.

MR. BUCKNER, who is 75 years old, makes his
home with one of his three daughters in Armada.
He came to Port Huron Monday morning. "I near
perished with the cold," he said, in speaking
of the long auto trip.

He wears the visored cap of a marine man, and
he has the strange fatality of those who "go
down to the sea in ships."

He was asked: "As a marine engineer, what do
you think really caused the explosion?"

"If 'twas from within," he said, with no display
of criticism, "it was carelessness. But I don't
know; maybe it was from the outside."

The body of THOMAS BUCKNER, which is at the
B. J. Karrer undertaking parlors, will be
taken to St. Clair Wednesday noon, and the
funeral will be conducted from the home of
MRS. JAMES BOND, the dead man's sister.

THOMAS BUCKNER was born in Petrolia, Ontario,
in 1882. He was married. His wife and son re-
side in the west.

He also leaves three sisters: MRS. WILLIAM
MITCHELL, Amadore; MRS. REUBEN BRINES, Detroit,
and MRS. JAMES BOND, St. Clair.

Port Huron Times-Herald, 28 March 1922