Extracted from The Fresno Bee (Fresno, CA)
Tuesday, May 7, 1940

Baby Is Drowned In Porterville Irrigation Ditch

PORTERVILLE (Tulare Co.), May 7. -- Danny Leon Winter, 18 month old son of Mr. and Mrs. Emmett Winter, who reside five miles west of here on the West Olive highway, was drowned about 6 o'clock last evening in a community irrigation ditch on Henderson Road near the Rockford Bridge.

The boy, an only child, was visiting with his parents at the home of his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Roy R. Kirksey, on Henderson Road.

Three workers employed on a ranch in the vicinity discovered the body lodged in a culvert as they were driving by, just as the baby's uncle, Boyce Kirksey, arrived on the scene.

The body was rushed to a Porterville hospital and Fire Chief Ross Gardner and Dr. P. S. Barber resorted in artificial respiration in a futile effort to revive him. It is their belief the child had been in the water more than half an hour before it was discovered. The body had floated in the ditch for a quarter of a mile.

The parents have been residents of this district for the past fifteen years. Winter was born in Oklahoma and his wife in Texas.

Funeral services will be held tomorrow afternoon at 2:30 o'clock in the Church of Christ and burial will be in Hillcrest Memorial Park.