Riding those coat tails

A few weeks ago we were watching "The Incredibles" again. One of the repeating gags in the movie is that long capes are an occupational hazard. Capes get caught in sinister machinery, leading to bad times for the superheroes wearing them.

Imagine my surprise when I found the following story in my family history research just a few nights later:

"Francis Marion Cook [...] was visiting Ann and Lincoln in Aurora, MO. He had married his daughter Melvina. Two months later he was walking down town. He was looking at a big engine. He was dressed in his preacher suit (He was a Baptist minister) with long coat tails. The tails got caught in the big flywheel. Messed him up so bad they could not ship him back, so he is buried there."

It's hard to write fiction without a grain of truth (however unlikely) creeping in.