100 years ago in The Saratogian

Sunday, Dec. 2, 1917

A quick-thinking local youth most likely saves his older brother’s leg after an accidental shooting on a hunting trip this afternoon.

Charles Kihlmire, now recovering at Saratoga Hospital, has had a hard-luck autumn. On October 13 he was thrown from a friend’s car when it hit a trolley in downtown Saratoga Springs. On that occasion Kihlmire, a fullback for the Saratoga Springs High School football team, escaped with only minor cuts and bruises.

Today, Kihlmire is out with his brother John and his friend Edward W. Viele inspecting traps Viele set near an old stone quarry. On their way home Viele stops to clean his shotgun, not realizing that he’s left a shell in the barrel. The gun goes off, hitting Charles between his left knee and hip. “The force of the shot threw him to the ground and over an embankment,” The Saratogian reports.

Probably mindful of a shotgun accident involving local teens just one week ago, Viele and the Kihlmires are prepared for an emergency.

“With remarkable presence of mind, John Kihlmire knotted a bandana handkerchief he was wearing, an tying it around his brother’s leg, twisted it with an axe handle, stopping the flow of blood. He then picked out all the shot he could find, using a jackknife, and finally, after bandaging the wound from a first aid kit which the boys carried, ran to this city and secured a rig to bring the injured boy home.”

The rig takes Charles to the office of Dr. A. E. Palmer, who sends him to the hospital. A family physician, Dr. G. S. Towne, supervises Charles’s treatment.

‘Absent brothers’ honored

“Just why the founders of our order placed Memorial Day at this time of the year has never been explicable to me,” Thomas S. Kneil tells members of the Saratoga Lodge of Elks this afternoon, “unless it was to call our attention to the fact that only a little while and the earth shall spring forth in newness of life.”

Kniel is the orator of the day for the annual Elks Memorial service at the Woodlawn Avenue clubhouse. The service honors two local Elks, Herman L. Waterbury and George W. Winship, who passed away in 1917.

“Perhaps next year when we meet it will be to mourn the death of others … who will by then have fallen in the great world’s struggle,” Kneil says, “But such going forth will be in compliance with the teachings of the B.P.O.E., which teaches us that the best is not too much to pay as a price for human freedom.”