John Boma
1882 – 1908
John was born on June 20, 1882 only five months after Jacob and Caroline lost three of their children to diphtheria.
John lived at home with his parents and older brother Frank until he purchased the brick yard from his uncle Dominick in 1906. That same month on April 23 he was married to Emma Stahl, daughter of Joseph Stahl of La Crosse. They moved into the two story brick house at the end of Boma Road. The following two years they became the parents of John Jr. and Bernetta.
On Labor Day of 1908, John and his brother-in-law Emil North left early to go duck hunting on Rice Lake, near French Island. They spent most of the morning hunting when Emil elected to walk along the shore of the lake to scare up ducks and John was going to wait in the hunting skiff. John stepped into the boat, pulling his shot gun with him when the hammer caught on the edge of the boat and the gun went off – hitting him in the chest. Emil heard the shot and could hear him groaning. By the time he reached John, he was in pretty bad shape. John died soon after at age 26. Following service at Holy Trinity Church his funeral cortege was more than six blocks long.
John left a young wife, a son not yet two years old and a six week old baby. Before his death, John had dismantled the brick works and Emma sold the property in 1910 to Louis J. Prucha.
Emma, too, was to live a short life. She died at the age of 30 only ten years after her husband.
Orphaned, the children went to live in Minnesota with the Stahl relation. (Outside of the fact John Jr. is deceased, the family has lost track of this branch of the Boma family.)
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SHOT GUN DISCHARGE AS HE STEPS INTO BOAT
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CHARGE ENTERED NEAR HEART
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Injured Man Was Dying When Companions Reached Him, and Body is Conveyed to the City
John Boma, aged 28, proprietor of the brick yard on the State Road Coulee, while stepping into a hunting skiff at Rick Lake Sunday morning, was shot and killed by his own gun. The exact details of the accident are lacking but it is thought probable that Boma was entering the skiff and in pulling his gun towards him the hammer caught on the edge of the boat and in this way was discharged. The charge of shot entered just below the heart and when others who had been attracted by the explosion and seeing him fall, had reached the place, they found him dead.
In company with his brother-in-law Emil North, a resident of this city, Mr. Boma had gone to Rice Lake early in the morning for a day of duck shooting and had spend the greater portion of the forenoon hunting. Just before the accident the two separated, Mr. North going up the shore of the lake and Mr. Boma stepping into a hunting skiff. Several hunters were in the vicinity and say Mr. Boma fell following the discharge of the gun. They ran to him only to find him lying in the boat with blood oozing from a fearful would just below the heart. That death was instantaneous was evident. The weapon was a repeating Winchester shotgun.
The body was conveyed to the lower end of the lake and Miler brothers, undertakers were summoned. The body was brought to this city. A widow and two children survive Mr. Boma and they are heartbroken over his untimely and horrible death.
Funeral arrangements will be announced later.