Emerson Cole

Notes:

"Elizabethton Star," Thursday, February 14, 1935
EMERSON COLE KILLED; RITES FRIDAY AT TEN
Hit-Run Auto Strikes Employee of Local Rayon Mills
Emerson Cole, 26, a resident of the Gap Creek section, was killed last night when he was struck by a hit-run driver, on the Glanzstorff highway near Rio Vista. Butler Wilson, 28, of Rio Vista, who was with Cole, was also struck by the first auto. He suffered a fracture in the right temple, lacerations over the face and small lacerations on the hands. He was treated at the hospital and released.
Cole was hit the second time by an unidentified black sedan as he lay on the highway after Jesse L. Bowery, who first hit him, had gone to call an ambulance. Bowery, driving a couple toward Elizabethton, attempted to halt the hit-run car but was unable to do so.
Cole, an employee of the North American Rayon Corporation, died in a local hospital less than an hour after the unusual accident. He never regained consciousness.
Bowery, who called an ambulance and aided officers in investigating the case, said he struck Cole and Wilson when they were scuffling in the middle of the highway. He said the blinding lights of an approaching auto made it impossible for him to see the young men until it was too late.
C. E. Phillips, proprietor of a nearby filling station, who witnessed the accident, said the two men, had been scuffling in the road for several minutes.
Bowery halted his machine and rushed back to where Cole lay. Wilson was sitting on a bank, Bowery said, and seemed to be dazed. "I then jumped in the car went to the filling station to get aid and call and ambulance. When I got back I saw a car approach and hit Cole. It never stopped," said Bowery.
Lonnie Cole, a brother, said they had been waiting for Emerson to return home from work since three o'clock. Johnson City and Carter County officers and a state highway patrolman have been searching for the driver of the hit-run car.
Cole's injuries consisted of a fractured skull and internal injuries.
He is survived by his father, Frank Cole; his mother; four brothers, Lonnie, Lawrence, Paul, and David; and three sisters, Annie, Vada, and Eva. Funeral services will be conducted tomorrow morning at ten o'clock at the Union Cemetery on the Cherokee Road near Johnson City. The Rev. Elijah Plaster will officiate.