Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 265, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 November 1912 — CARNEGIE PENSION FOR HERO’S WIFE [ARTICLE]

CARNEGIE PENSION FOR HERO’S WIFE

Widow of Man Who Gave Life in Attempt to Rescue Drowning Persons to Receive $55 a Month. Readers of The Republican will recall the drowning that. occurred last July at Kankakee, 111., when George Burkhalter and Walter Webster, of Hammond, lost their lives in the Kankakee riveT while trying to rescue Mrs. E. Mastellar and Miss Veda Hemstock from drowning. The young women had gone out into the stream too far and were suddenly swept down by the current. The men were standing a short distance downstream and both jumped in and were drowned while trying to help the women to safety. Attorney W. J. McAleer and Rev. F. H. Adams, of Hammond, interceded in their behalf before the Carnegie hero fund commission and Mrs. Burkhalter has just been awarded a medal and a pension of $55 per month for herself and $5 iper month for each of her two children until they reach the ages of 16 years. The widow and her children were in straightened circumstances and the benefaction comes as a godsend to them. In fact, the liberality of the commission is said to have been prompted because of the very needy circumstances in which the widow was left. The case of Webster is still undei investigation. (His heroism was equal to that of Burkhalter but he was unmarried and his widowed mother is in fairly good circumstances.