Dora West Drowned 1927

GIRL DROWNED DESPITE FIGHT TO RESCUE HER

Dora West Sinks After Friends Tries to Save Her at Sandy Hill

WAS MEMBER OF DELMAR PARTY

SALISBURY. Md., July 5  - A gay holiday party at Sandy Hill, a bathing resort eighteen miles from here, came to a tragic end yesterday when an eighteen-year-old girl drowned as two companions struggled desperately to save her.

The dead girl is Dora West, of Delmar road, Salisbury

With Hazel Ellis, nineteen, of Salisbury; Herman West, twenty-four, her cousin, of Delmar, Del., and Samuel Beacham, twenty-three, also of Delmar, Dora was wading in shallow water about fifty yards from shore.

Venturing farther out than the others, the girl stepped from a ledge into deep water. Attracted by her screams, West and Beacham swam toward the spot where she disappeared. West was the first to reach the girl and succeeded in taking hold of her when she came to the surface.

In her fright Dora clung desperately to him, and he was forced to relinquish his hold.   Beacham also succeeded in grasping the girl's clothing, but she broke away from him and sank.

Other members of the party, who watched the struggle from the shore, launched a canoe and went to the rescue, Beachman and West, after diving several time without success in an effort to locate the girl, were taken ashore.

The body was recovered about three-quarters of an hour later by State police from Salisbury. Attempts at resuscitation were futile.

Above from the Wilmington Evening Journal 05 July 1927

Dora Anabelle West was the daughter of Joseph Harlan West and Mary Amy Nichols West.  She had a sister Nina West who would marry Paul M Harrington.