John was a laborer from St. Lawrence, Pa. He was killed a few months after his wedding when he was struck by a locomotive on the Pennsylvania Railroad line near Gallitzin, Pa., where he was employed as a trackman.

Mary was raised in Carrolltown and in White Township, Cambria County, Pa. She and John Krise lived in Patton, Pa.

Mary was struck and killed by a truck while walking to Mass at St. George's Church in Patton. Her death certificate elaborates that she had a crushed right chest and other internal injuries when pinned against a fence by a truck at 7:30 a.m, on Route 36 in Patton, leading to Chest Springs. Newspaper accounts confirmed that she was walking to church, adding that the truck skidded while rounding a curve and crushed her against a highway guardrail, breaking her back, crushing the right side of her body and causing internal injuries.

The driver, Michael Wertz of Cresson, stopped his truck and assisted in removing Mrs. Krise to the office of a local physician, where she was declared to be dead on arrival. Within the hour after the accident, a truck driven by John A. Cook of Canan Station skidded at the same location and struck the Wertz vehicle, causing considerable damage to both.

A coroner’s jury concluded that that the State Highway Dept. failed to cinder the icy pavement, a charge that was denied by superintendent Paul Coveny, who attributed the accident to the motorist’s need to use caution when there is “fuzzy ice.” He also claimed that the road was actually cindered less than 10 hours prior to he accident but that passing cars and the wind swept the ashes away. Michael Wertz was found to be driving with reasonable care and was exonerated. The jury recommended construction of a sidewalk and concluded that Mary’s instant death while going for morning devotions at St. George’s Church could have been avoided. Mary had been engaged as a housekeeper about a mile from the church, at the farm of her brother Theophilus.