01-27-03: Fort Recovery passenger dies in crash

01-27-03: Fort Recovery passenger dies in crash

By MARGIE WUEBKER
The Daily Standard

    A Fort Recovery woman became Mercer County's second traffic fatality of the year shortly before noon Sunday. The accident occurred on Ohio 119 near her Recovery Township home.
    Marcella S. "Sally" Eifert, 82, 1801 Ohio 119, was dead when emergency medical personnel and deputies arrived on the scene.
    Eifert was a backseat passenger in a 1991 Buick driven by Adrian Kaup, 76, 1717 Ohio 119, Fort Recovery. Kaup and his wife, Bernie, had taken her to Sunday morning Mass at the St. Joseph Catholic Church and were en route home at the time.
    On their way to Eifert's home, the Kaups noticed a son's van in their driveway. Adrian Kaup pulled over and left his wife off at the residence before continuing to the Eifert home.
    Kaup turned left into a private drive, apparently failing to see a westbound 1999 Dodge pickup truck driven by Andy Wenning, 18, 4120 Ohio 118, Coldwater, according to the Mercer County Sheriff's Office. The pickup truck struck the car broadside, pushing it off the road. The accident remains under investigation. Both heavily damaged vehicles were towed from the scene.
    Kaup was taken by ambulance to Community Hospital, Coldwater, and later transferred to Miami Valley Hospital, Dayton, where his condition was listed as fair this morning.
    Wenning and a passenger, 45-year-old Joseph Wenning, also of 4120 Ohio 118, Coldwater, declined treatment at the scene.
    Eifert was a member of the St. Joe church and took an active role in preparations for the church festival each fall.
    "We knew not to call her from Thursday on the week of the festival," daughter Connie Buschur told The Daily Standard this morning. "She was too busy baking pies and cakes."
    She loved to quilt and had made 35 to 40 quilts, many of which were gifts for her children and grandchildren.
    A diehard Fort Recovery Indians fan, she especially looked forward to attending basketball and baseball games. She frequently drove there with the Kaups or one of her children.
    "She didn't follow football like basketball and baseball," her daughter added. "Maybe she thought it was too cold to sit out there in the stands."
    Eifert also enjoyed Cincinnati Reds baseball games. If they weren't televised, she turned on the radio to listen to the play-by-play commentary.
    Buschur chuckled lightly recalling her mother never got too excited if the opposing team put more runs on the scoreboard. She always figured the Reds would rally. Sometimes the philosophy worked and other times it didn't. She duly recorded winning and losing scores in a notebook.
    Eifert used to tend a large garden, but decided to scale back such activities several years ago. For years she kept the family supplied with her prized ketchup.
    "Mom never had trouble keeping busy," Buschur says. "She wasn't the kind of person who could sit still and do nothing. She left us with some wonderful memories."
    Six-year-old Adam Harner, 7701 Mercer Road, Mendon, became Mercer County's first fatality of 2003 on Jan. 15. The car in which he was riding slid out of control on snow-covered pavement and struck a utility pole along Mercer Road, not far from his Union Township home.
    Mercer County recorded two traffic fatalities in 2002. Ironically, Eifert's son was involved in one of those crashes. A Defiance woman pulled from a stop sign into the path of his pickup truck at the intersection of Ohio 119 and Burkettsville-St. Henry Road, west of St. Henry. She was pronounced dead at the scene of the Sept. 14 crash.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE DAILY STANDARD

Phone: (419)586-2371, Fax: (419)586-6271
All content copyright 2003
The Standard Printing Company
P.O. Box 140, Celina, OH 45822