The family lore was tragic. The truth was too.

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My mother told me recently about a family member, Mary Pencek, who died in a Dunkirk accident on Jan. 20, 1918. That’s 60 years to the day before I was born.

Mom said Mary was just three when she was killed. A horse-drawn ambulance ran her over when she accidentally slid into the street while playing. She was killed instantly.

It happened not too far from Third Street, where my great-grandparents lived. At the time, the nearby railroad tracks were street-level. Most of the buildings on the north side of Third Street got demolished when the railroad raised the tracks in 1940.

My grandfather was born later but Mary Pencek was his sister. Her story was haunting enough, but so was this: Someone took a photograph of Mary in her coffin, a not-uncommon thing to do at the time. The picture was part of a treasure trove of old family photos.

For reasons no one can figure out, my mother’s cousin disposed of them all.

All that was left to me of my relative was a sad story. And just a story, too. Who knew for sure how much of it was true?

However, I had an exact date for the accident: Jan. 20, 1918. I also know that the Dunkirk Free Library has very old copies of the OBSERVER on rolls of microfiche, and a brand-new, state-of-the-art, fully computerized microfilm machine.

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I figured there would be a news story, an obituary, or both, about Mary’s passing. I also figured it would have been in the newspaper within a few days of the accident.

The friendly and helpful librarians gave me a microfilm of papers ranging from Dec. 1917 to Feb. 1918. They set me up on the microfilm machine, whose use demands a little training, but it’s worth it. I didn’t find it too hard to pick up.

Figuring the accident would not have made that day’s edition, I started my search on the Jan. 21, 1918 paper. Nothing there about Mary.

Feeling slightly defeated, I looked ahead to the next day. There was nothing about the accident on the first four pages. I was beginning to wonder if I missed it in the many narrow columns of type.

Then, I looked at Page 5 and let out an expletive. It drew a cluck from a hen on a public computer behind me. I apologized and explained myself.

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Atop Page 5 was the headline, “POLICE AMBULANCE KILLS LITTLE GIRL.”

Mary Pencek was six when she was killed, not three. The part about her playing with friends and falling into the street was true. Mary slid down an embankment into the path of an ambulance.

However, it was not horse-drawn, it was an early automobile.

The police department had an ambulance then, and Officer Emil Nieder was driving the vehicle that killed Mary.

The OBSERVER said that he was only driving about 14 miles per hour on a 4:15 p.m. call to Brooks Locomotive Works, when Mary suddenly slid down an incline into his path, near the corner of Gazelle and Second streets.

Nieder said he swerved onto the curb to avoid running her over, but her head struck either a tire or a mud guard on his ambulance.

Mary didn’t die immediately. She was taken to a hospital — in the same ambulance that hit her — and lingered into the early morning hours of Jan. 21. She never regained consciousness.

I printed off the article and left the library, a bit stunned by what I found. Here was family lore made real.

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My mother was saddened by what I found, yet thrilled, in a way. So was I. She plans to distribute the article around the family.

Instead of rumors, now we have answers.