Obituary

After almost 50 years, nobody knows why a 1958 Buick and a 1959 Chevrolet ran into each other on Dec. 10, 1965.

It happened about 1:15 p.m. on a sunny Friday afternoon over an open straight-away stretch of dry pavement on Texas 194 about 1 1/2 miles east of Edmonson (11 miles northwest of Plainview).

But they did, and the resulting crash claimed the lives of seven ? including all five members of one family ? and left four others seriously injured.

The horrendous crash stands as one of the most deadly in local history.
Hours after he left the scene of the carnage, veteran highway patrolman Curtis Pray simply said, ?It was terrible. I?m still a little sick.?

The dead, who were traveling together in the Chevrolet, included Anastacio Gauna, 28, his wife, Francisca Cordova Gauna, 27; their three children, Ramiro Guana, 7; Sylvia Gauna, 6; and Rey Gauna, 4 months; the children?s grandfather, Melecio Cordova Martinez, 57; and their aunt, Anita Cordova, 19.

The adult members of the family, according to reporter L.D. Brown?s account of the crash, were employed on the Lorenzo Lee farm at Hart.

The injured, traveling together in the Buick, were driver Rodolfo Rangel, 19, of Edmonson; Antonio O. Oliverez, 16, Edmonson; Marcelino Gonzalez, 21, Plainview; and Martha Cortez, 18, Plainview.

Martinez, driving the Chevrolet, was headed east while Rangel?s auto was westbound.

Martin Garza of Lubbock, who was building cabinets at a house about 200 yards away from the crash, told the Herald that he saw the two cars collide and immediately ran to the scene.

Edmonson farmer Levi Dickerson also was among the first to reach the wreckage. He was driving a few hundred feet behind the Martinez car. He said the Chevrolet had just passed him on the highway. He was looking away when the two cars collided, and only realized the wreck had occurred when he saw a cloud of dust and twisted hunks of metal as the two cars slid to a stop.

Instead of stopping, Dickerson hurried to a nearby farmhouse to telephone for an ambulance and police. He then returned to the scene.

Because of the violent impact, neither car could be towed from the scene, Brown reported. Both had to be loaded onto trailers and hauled away. And several of the victims were thrown from the two cars upon impact.
DPS Patrol Sgt. Thurman Keffer said when officers arrived they found Rangel in the floorboard of his Buick. The three other occupants in that car were in the back seat, with a blanket entirely covering one of the victims. The car?s motor had been pressed into a space about half its normal size, and the back rest of the front seat was bent in a ?V? from the rear.

The crash left the right side of the Martinez Chevrolet a jumbled mass of torn and pressed metal, Brown wrote. The front seat was jammed against the backseat and one of the wheels was twisted up near the dash.
Intermingled with the wreckage were an unbroken and partially filled baby bottle, shoes and personal belongings.

Pray said neither driver applied their brakes before the crash. The impact of the Rangel vehicle was at an angling broadside from the driver?s side.

It took investigators more than four hours to determine the names and personal information on all the victims. That was partially due to the fact that some Hispanics sometimes add their mother?s name to the family name.
For instance, the driver of the Chevrolet had a driver?s license listing him as Melecio C. Martinez, but the car was registered in the name of Melecio Cordova. His daughters were Anita Cordova and Francisca Cordova Guana.

Hale County Deputy Sheriff Joe Alfaro proved invaluable during the investigation, Brown said, ?by interpreting for officers, ambulance personnel and news reporters.?

With such a large number of dead and injured, Keffer sent out a call for all available ambulances.

Brown reported that Barrett Ambulance Service of Plainview and Wood-Dunning Funeral Home each made two trips to area hospitals with the dead and injured. Hale Center Funeral Home also sent an ambulance which took two of the dead children to Hale Center before later taking the bodies to Lemons Funeral Home.

Justice of the Peace J.C. Lewis was among the first officials at the scene, and he conducted the formal inquest into the deaths.

Just three days after the crash, on the following Monday, a joint funeral service was held for all seven of the dead.

That service was held in Lemons Memorial Chapel with the Rev. Lupe Munoz, pastor of the Spanish Pentecostal Church, officiating. Burial was in Plainview Cemetery.