Student Killed by Auto in Plunge Off Road; Farmers Save Friend Pinned Fast for Hours

The New York Times
December 2, 1922

Special to The New York Times.

PRINCETON, N. J., Dec. 1.—Returning from the Penn-Cornell football game early this morning, Reece Decourse Allen, 21, of Wichita Falls, Texas, a senior at Princeton University, was instantly killed when the automobile in which he was riding, overturned on the road between Monmouth Junction and Kingston, about four miles from here.  The car, which belonged to Allen, was driven by Ralph B. Stichter of Dallas, Texas, a student in Syracuse University, who escaped uninjured.

The two young men left Philadelphia about 3 o'clock this morning for Princeton.  Allen was in the tonneau, while Stichter drove.  About a mile outside Kingston the concrete road ended and the car struck the soft dirt road, skidded over an embankment and turned upside down, crushing Allen and pinning Stichter under the front seat.

Stichter fought desperately for his life and after about an hour's work managed to open the front door, making an opening large enough to get his head out.  The rest of his body was wedged tightly under the car.  His cries were not heard until 7 o'clock when a man passing, called several farmers, who pried up the car so that Stichter could be released and the body of young Allen taken out.

Allen was the son of Reece A. Allen, an oil man, and was a popular student at Princeton.  He was a member of the business boards of The Princeton Tiger and The Princeton Pictorial Review, and a member of the Ivy Club.  He was a member of the Beta Theta Pi at Cornell.

Allen's father, who was in Philadelphia, hurried to Princeton and left this afternoon for Texas with his son's body.