Louis Phelisa "Lewis" Lanctot was born on 17 Sep 1888 in
Mead, Saunders, Nebraska.[1] [2] [3] [4] He
was the third of eight children born to Zenophile
Lanctot and Eliza Bourke. He lived in Charles Mix County,
South Dakota with his family[5] until
the early 1900s when he moved to Nebraska.[6] He
married Mary Alice Schneider in Yankton, South Dakota on
15 July 1913.[7] He
met Mary Alice when he was employed to drill a well on her parent's
farm in 1913. In 1917 he was an Independent Well Driller working in
Converse, Wyoming,[8],
but living in Yankton, South Dakota[9] and
also drilled wells in Cedar Co., Nebraska and Yankton Co., South
Dakota. He employed his brother-in-law Charles
Schneider as a well driller.
The couple had four
children; Marie, Josephine, James,
and Edward.[10]
He died on 21 October 1922 due to "fracture at base of skull
caused by truck overturning."[11] A
heavy truck loaded with lumber turned over and pinned him
underneath at the age of 34 in Casper, Wyoming.
Before her death in 2009, Josephine wrote this
about her father's death: "Was killed when a truck loaded with
lumber turned over and pinned him underneath. The truck belonged to
a neighboring homesteader in Casper, Wyoming. They were hauling
lumber to build the homestead for his mother, as time was running
out to get her house built to secure the homestead claim. It is
unclear that they ever told her that it was her lumber. The truck
came around a curve and met another vehicle with bright lights,
which blinded the driver. Louis was in the back of the truck (the
cabs weren't big enough for 3 in those days). They thought Louis
had tried to jump out of the truck, but his coattail caught on the
lumber and it threw him under the truck. His neck was broken and
the hub of the wheel rested on his temple."
Louis Lanctot, death certificate 1922-1666 (21 October 1922),
Bureau of VItal Statistics, Wyoming State Archives, Cheyenne,
Wyoming.