Brian Keeley Wood ¹⁶⁰⁵

   Cause of his death was due to a car accident.

State Legislator's son dies in car accident
Brian Wood services to be Saturday
Joliet Herald News
Friday, November 27, 1964

Funeral services will be held Saturday for Brian K. Wood, 22, who was killed Wednesday in an accident near Dwight while enroute home from college to spend Thanksgiving with his parents, State Rep., Warren L. and Janet Wood, 736 Bartlett St., Plainfield.

The man, a junior at Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, was driving the car of his friend, James Colwell, 22 of 2414 Commonwealth Ave., Crystal Lawns. The collision occurred with a mobile crane at the south exit of Dwight where a side road (old U.S. 66) crosses the median-divided Interstate 55 (new U.S. 66).

The truck driver, Clifford Downs, 45, of 104 Maple St., Butler, Mo., was ticketed by Pontiac district state police on a charge of failure to yeild to oncoming traffic at a stop sign controlled intersection.

Colwell, a student at Joliet Junior College, who had driven to Bloomington to provide transportation home for his friend, was reported in fair condition today. Colwell was to be transferred by private ambulance this afternoon from the Veterans Administration Hospital in Dwight to Saint Joseph Hospital here.

The Rev. Milton Heitzman, a Congregational minister who formerly was in Plainfield, and a longtime friend of the Wood family, will oficiate at Saturday's services at 2 p.m. in the Overman chapel.

Burial will be in Plainfield Cemetery. Visitation will be at the funeral home this evening. Memorials may be made to the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity at Illinois Wesleyan, of which Wood was a member.

The accident at 6 p.m. Wednesday was the first traffic death of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in Illinois. Through noon today the Illinois toll was five.

The news of young Wood's death came as a shock to the Plainfield area. Friends and neighbors described him as an "all around young man" and one of the most popular persons in the community. His father, a vice president of the Union National Bank and Trust Co. in Joliet has served in the Illinois House of Representatives for almost 30 years. He was speaker of the house for a number of years.

Brian, a native of Plainfield, was a grandson of a former Joliet mayor, Harvey E. Wood, and a Plainfield postmaster, Louis Keeley. Both preceded him in death.

Besides his parents, he is survived by his maternal grandmother, Mrs. Edith Keeley of Plainfield, and paternal grandmother, Mrs. Harvey E. Wood of Joliet; and an aunt, Mrs. Monty (Frances) Irving of Joliet.

Livingston County Deputy Coroner Keith Von Qualen, who pronounced Wood dead at the scene, said that he had suffered multiple crushing injuries to the chest when he hit the steering column. He said that the car was equiped with seat belts, but the youths apparently were not using them. Colwell was hurled out of the right front side of the vehicle onto the pavement. The car was imbedded in the left rear tandem of wheels of the crane.

The inquest is pending.

Downs is scheduled to appear before the chief magistrate of Livingston County within 30 days. The hearing date was not set by police who issued the ticket to the truck driver.

According to the report, the truck was westbound off the Dwight Road exit and the cab almost had reached the cross-over point dividing the two lanes.

Keith Von Qualen said that the driver apparently misjudged the speed of the approaching car. He said that traffic on the highway was extremely heavy. "It was one of the worst traffic situations in years," he added.

The truck driver was transporting the crane for the Charles D. Kelly road contractors, headquartered in St. Louis, Mo. He was going to St. Louis from New York. He stopped in Dwight at a service station and was trying to cross back over the northbound lanes to reach the southbound lanes, Von Qualen said.

  Events

• He was educated at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Mclean County, Illinois.

• His Social Security Number was 343-34-8448.

• He was a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity.

• His funeral was held at at Overman chapel with Rev. Milton Heitzman officiating 28 November 1964 in Plainfield, Will County, Illinois.

• He was buried at Plainfield Cemetery in Plainfield, Will County, Illinois.