Everett Benjamin Thackara

What was reported

Sidebottom saw the body while retrieving junk near dumping grounds beside the creek. Police checked a report that Thackara carried $200, but learned that the day before he disappeared he had borrowed one dollar from a friend to buy food. Coroner James J. Toomes certified accidental drowning.

Earlier traffic report

A second clipping, apparently about two years earlier, says an Everett Thackara, 51 and apparently of Medford, suffered a broken nose and rib in a nighttime collision near Columbus. He drove the car; Clifford Nay drove the truck. Columbus state police accused both of careless driving before Justice of the Peace Ham in Vincentown. Damaged OCR obscures some details, so the identification needs checking. His birth year on the burial record (1887–1888) is consistent with age 51 in that report and 53 at his 1941 disappearance.

Family and burial record

A Find a Grave memorial for Everett Benjamin Thackara, maintained independently of this newspaper record, identifies him as the son of Walter S. Thackara (1857–1939) and Almira W. Cline Thackara (1870–1952), with a sister, Sarah Florence Thackara (1893–1966). It gives his birth as November 1, 1887, in Medford (his grave marker instead reads 1888), describes him as single and working as a farm laborer, and records his death as drowning in Haines Creek on October 29, 1941 — the same date he was reported missing, rather than the November 19 date his body was recovered. He is buried at Park View Cemetery in Medford. The memorial cites no source, but its own account — a drowning in Haines Creek near Medford on the date the newspapers give for his disappearance — matches this case closely. The identification is nonetheless an inference, since nothing on the memorial refers to the newspaper reports.