Chester Clark, Former Alcona Boy, Meets Death in Soo River
Rogers City, Nov. 17--Chester Clark, age 28, and Robert Radka, 42, well known residents of this city, were drowned in Lake Huron, near the shore of Drummond Island, last Friday night, presumably when their boat overturned as they were carrying the bodies of five deer from the point where they had been killed down the shore to the camp occupied by a party of Rogers men with whom Clark and Radka had been hunting the previous week. The bodies have not yet been recovered. Radka leaves a widow and two small children. Clark was a son of Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Clark of Rogers.
A party of Rogers City men including Radka, Clark, H. H. Lehndorf, Wm. Radka, Paul Wenzel, C. A. Vogelheim, Chas. Hornbocker, Hal Whitely and John Hilla, left for a deer hunt on Drummond Island. They had been very successful and were planning to return home last week end. About 7 o'clock Friday night, Radka and Clark left camp in a sixteen foot boat with an overboard motor, to go to a point three miles up the shore from the camp, which was on the northeastern shore of the island, to bring back the carcasses of five deer which had been killed and hauled out to an accessible point on the shore. The lake was calm as a mill pond and a bright moon shone. It was expected that the trip would consume not more than two hours. When 11 o'clock came and the two men were still missing, their companions organized for a search.
They hunted all throughout the night and at daybreak found the overturned boat a little distance from shore with one of the deer still fastened to it. The other deer were found on the beach. No trace of the bodies were found.
At 10 a. m. Saturday, Whitely, Lehndorf and William Radka left the party for Johns Wood, Drummond Island, from where word of the tragedy was wired home. The three men went to the mainland and drove home, reaching Rogers City at 4 o'clock Sunday morning.
Monday morning, Capt. Trapp of the Hammond Bay Coast Guard station, three of his men and William Clark, father of one of the lost men, left on the Tug Keller for Drummond Island where Capt. Trapp was to take charge of the search for the bodies.
Radka and Clark were men of the highest standing in their community and a pall of sorrow has been thrown over Rogers City by their tragic deaths.