Extracted from The Monroe Morning World (Monroe, LA)
Sunday, April 13, 1952

FUNERAL RITES FOR VICTIMS OF CRASH SET

FERRIDAY, La., April 12 -- Services will be held Sunday morning at ten o'clock at the Sandy Lake Pentecostal Church with Reverend Ernest Hooter, pastor officiating for Mr. and Mrs. Sherman Ford, of Wallace Ridge, who were killed in a three-truck accident at the railroad crossing about a mile west of Vidalia on the Ferriday highway Friday afternoon.

Sheriff Hartwell Love said he is holding in the Concordia parish jail at Vidalia, two Alexandria men, Walter B. Brodnax, 27, and Manuel Anthony Mayeux, 24, both drivers of trucks for the same soft drink bottling concern in Alexandria.

Love said that Brodnax is booked on a charge of operating a motor vehicle in a careless manner under the influence of intoxicating liquor, and causing the death of two persons. Mayeux, the sheriff said, is charged with operating a motor vehicle in a careless manner under the influence of intoxicants.

He said that witnesses reported the two soft drink trucks were headed toward Vidalia and that one driven by Brodnax struck the pickup truck in which the Ford family was riding, knocking it into a light post and into a ditch.

He added that Mrs. Ford was knocked about 30 feet from the truck and lived only a few moments after the accident. The body of her husband was found in front of the truck. He apparently was killed instantly.

The bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Ford were taken to the Comer Funeral Home in Ferriday, and the three children were brought to a hospital in Natchez, Miss., for treatment. They were two-month old Dolores, who received severe head injuries, and her two brothers, Kennet, two and Douglas, 5, who were not seriously injured.

Interment for Mr. and Mrs. Ford follows in the Heard Cemetery with the Comer Funeral Home of Ferriday in charge of the arrangements.

Ford's surviving relatives include his parents, Mr. and Mrs. B. E. Ford of Sandy Lake; and several brothers and sisters, Mrs. Ruth Bass, Mrs. Audie Brown, Mrs. Velma Lee, Albert, Alvin, John and Wannie Ford.

Mrs. Ford is survived by her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jesse L. Jones of Natchez, Miss.; and by six brothers, Lucious, Arthur, Otho, Carl, Hollis, and Jesse H. Jones, of Natchez and Catahoula parish.