Deanna L. “Dee Dee” Gooding, 12, of Maquon, died Tuesday, July 15, 1980, in St. Francis Hospital in Peoria of injuries sustained in a minibike-pickup truck collision in Delong.
The girl was riding the bike along an unnamed street in DeLong when she went through an intersection with Knox County Highway 5 and struck the side of a pickup truck. The girl was traveling south and the pickup east.
She was trying out the bike, when it’s believed she may have tried to apply the brakes, but accelerated, causing her to go forward rather than stop. Knox County officers investigated.
She was first taken to St. Mary’s Hospital in Galesburg after the crash, then transferred to St. Francis Hospital, where she died at 4:50 p.m. Tuesday, according to Bob Anderson, Peoria County deputy coroner. Coroner Herbert Buzbee will conduct an inquest.
She was born in Galesburg on June 22, 1968, a daughter of Stanley and Fairy (Stambaugh) Gooding. They survive.
Other survivors are two brothers, Mark and Scottie, both at home; and her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Ervin Stambaugh of near Abingdon and Mr. and Mrs. Lee Gooding of Maquon.
She would have been a seventh grade student at Spoon River Valley High School at London Mills this fall.
Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Friday in the United Methodist Church in Maquon of which she was a member. Rev. Norman Kao and Rev. Carroll Ochsner will officiate and burial will be in the Maquon Cemetery.
Visitation will be in Root Funeral Home in Maquon after 6 p.m. Thursday.
The Stambaughs have several relatives in the Astoria and Bader area.
Current Obituaries in the Astoria South Fulton Argus