Fall Fatal to WPA Relief Worker While Building Purdue Golf Course

Joe Egan, Jr. in front of Carmen's Grocery Store, Wabash Avenue in Lafayette, IN

Joseph Egan, Jr.,was six years old when his father was tragically killed in a train accident in 1901. The
son of an Irish immigrant, he was forced to navigate life without a father for most of his life. The loss of his father forced the Irish family into poverty. Many unemployed workers found relief through a federal program, known as the Works Project Administration (WPA), during the Great Depression years.

Joseph Egan, Jr., found relief through this program and went to work building the golf course at Purdue University. While riding on the back of a truck in 1939, he lost his footing and fell, breaking his neck in the process. Egan died six days later at St. Elizabeth Hospital, leaving a widow and three children. One of those children was this writer's grandmother, Lorraine Egan Hanthorn. She was twenty years old and a mother to two small children. Just as she never knew her grandfather due to a tragic train accident that occurred in 1901, her children would suffer the same fate.

Prior to working for the WPA, Joe Egan, Jr. was a store clerk at Carman's Store located at the corner of Smith and Wabash Streets. He was well-known in the community and never knew a stranger.

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