Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 6 August 1950 — Page 21
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Editorials
World Report
a g Er aR A year ago the "most cr
SET Li on a rock at
polio- stri }
a .
2 bai] Mothers who suffered together in ‘49 talk of life in ‘50.
Many Youngsters Are Winning
‘By VICTOR PET TER SUNLIGHT slashed at the «
in Anderson. Some knifed through
Battle Against Severe Paralysis
N, Times City Editor 'of trees in Shadyside Park leafy ceiling over plente
tables and play areas to cut a dappled pattern. EB were. signs slung: betwee
verywhere' to family reunions.
And the youngsters ran and screamed; parents sat and talked A sss it.
and laughed,
One group of 40 or 50 had no sign. There was little running, not much screaming. About the adults clung an air of humility and deep thanksgiving: This was a grown not hound by blood but by tragedy which welded them more soldily than relationship.
A year ago right now the parents paced or sat in sorrow at Riley Hospital in Indian-
n trees calling attentiofi =
apolis. Upstairs in deadly silent rooms and wards their children fought for life, most of them gasping for precious air, aided by fron lungs.
THE MOST sereve polio epldemic in Indiana's history was sweeping the state ltke a prairie fire. Not since 1040 had the diseases struck with such numbing impact in family circles,
a
“SUNDAY, AUGUST 0 1950
Te,
Sandra tussles with Pat Harringtor.
The parents and the children came in an ever increasing flow to Riley from Hoosier cities,
hamiets and farms. The disease respected no family and no one within a family,
Okinawa's Hoosier Boss Is Tops ©
By GALVY GORDON Times Staff Writer
BRAZIL, Ind., Aug. 5—"Sure
I know him. He's a swell guy. Comes in here every so often and drinks- a tall frosty at that bar there.” : ~The. “swell. guy”. applied to Maj. Gen. Ralph Francis Stearley, new commander of the U. 8. Air Forces on strategie’ Okinawa, !
hind the counter, The bar “he referred to is a milk bar.
Up and down the street you
get the same enthusfastic commerits of General Stearley’s name. Most of his friends, and they're all his friends, describe him as “every inch a soldier, tall, swarthy and loquacious.” 8 #4 8 THE GENERAL, who cele~ brated his 52d birthday just last week, was to have come back to his pleasant home on the National Road here last Monday. He and his wife had planned a leisurely existence for at least & month. The man who has gone farther in the Army than any other Brazil High School graduate was looking forward to lazing on the 16-acre farm rounds, tinkering around the use, visiting his cronies and
friends up town. It's easy to °
contact when a fellow has to be away so much. His mother and sister were ng the first reunion at day last year when another Brazil boy, George Craig, was elected national commander of the American Legion and was given a gigan=
* Ltic victory party.
- Instead, time was running out in Washington and in Korea. A man who could handle men and ‘planes and materiel was needed and needed badly to take over command of the Air Force at Okinawa, suddenly . strategie again in this
tag--was..
a Brasil Li “Horie town boy Who made good, Speaking wad Stanley Xéilér, son of the founder of this lively town’s first drug store and hims _ Self a veteran of 35 years be-.'
“Heh Was “How one friend ex:
Gen. Ralph Francis Steariey « « + 32 years to major general,
ley. So instead of the leisurely trip home, Gen, Stearley and his wife, the former Mildred Voland of Washington, clambered aboard an Air Force transport and winged west from their former station at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia. There he commanded the 14th Air Force, os ® ” THE GENERAL'S widowed mother, Ella, doesn't like war and doesn’t like to see another of her sons in the Far Eastern theater. Two of her sons fought In
World War I, and of the three
who fought in the last war,
“only two came back.
Sgt. Everett W. Stearley, brother of the general, was
famous Bataan Death March." Torn and bleeding, shoeless, sufferiig from m a | nutrition, Everett died in
is changing world. . Joint Chiefs of Staff had only mind-—Gen. Stear~
One man in.
ander often tothe gold star
lor. And she is afraid.
Dad Stearley would -have
been -equally proud. A retired blacksmith, William Stearley died 10 years ago. He “roughplanked” the floor and walls of the log cabin home in which
the general and most of the
other six children were born, eight miles south of Brazil in the hamlet of Stearieyville, “Just plain pioneer dogged-
plained the generals rise to the top ranks. 8» FOLLOWING Brazil High, Gen. Stearley went to West Point, was graduated with a
bachelor of science degree and second lieutenant’s bar in 1918, Transfer to the Afr Force from the Cavalry came in 1927, cap-
taincy in 1935, permanent ma«
jor in’ 1940, colonel in 1942, and his first star in 1943. He was upped to major general
in- 1949. Highlights of his lengthy
- militar, career include flying
provided by the Army, recei
ing the Distinguished Service:
Medal, the Legion of Merit; and presidential citations, At one: time he served as chief of the Air Group in the War Department General Staff
Intelligence Section, Washington. He became director of Air
Support, Army Air Forces at Washington in January, 1943 and the following May assumed
command of Morris Field, N. C.,"
a critical support cog to a beeaguered nation in the early days of the second World War. The Legion of Merit citation read by the late Gen. H. H.
(Hap) Arnold, commander of U. 8. Air Forces, when he presented this Hoosier general with the honor, sets forth in
part that “Gen. Stearley has re-
flected the liighest credit upon himself and the armed forces of the United States.” It's easy to understand why Brazil boasts of this native son. ‘
A publy- Identified
GIVING
_year, the “Board of Health counted 1 cases of polio with 118 deaths. Ot every 100,000 people in the state, 34 contracted the disease.
“Twenty to 100,000 is considered
epidemic; seven to 100,000 a normal incidence. Riley Hospital, the most modern for treatment of the disease in Indiana, became a focal point for critical cases. And ghe parents worried and paced and lent their strength to others. In it they founded the
. Critical Parents Club, believed
to be the only such club in existence. » ” o INTO THE fold came the folks of two youngsters not battling polio. They were Mr.
urg my died of leukemia and Mrs.
Philomena Weintraut, St.
Paul, -whose son, Danny, won over lockjaw. There were 12 families in the original group, and three of them experienced death's strike. With a haunting fear their child or children had not progressed as well as others, but with a natural desire to see those who shared those critical days, the group decided to meet in Anderson last Bunday. Sixtéen families made the trip; And hearts welled with
_ Joy, eyes with tears of happi-
ness. For the most part, recov-
World Report ear = Amusements iene 24, 3 i Stop Killing Yourself ++: 28
Polio Stricken E Sula: Hold ‘Year After’ Reunion
a 8 8 : THREE YOUNGSTERS were .
on crutches, two in whee! chairs,
one in & walker. Some limped
a bit, a couple showed slight paralysis of facial or shoulder muscles. But all were alive and full of lite. A year ago they were fighting for that very life they now enjoy. Attending were Mr, and Mrs. Louis Hitchcock and Ellen, Anderson; Mr. and Mrs. Jerome Grady and Jerry, Red Key; Mr, and Mrs, Charles Sellers and Linda, Marion; Mr. and Mrs. Surber whose son died; Mrs. Weintraut and Danny; Mr. and Mrs. Marion Ayers and Ellen,
son; Mr. and Mrs.
Newell Mag-
gart and Judy, Lapel, and Mr,
and Mrs. Robert J and Dianne, Pennville
First St AVivarsary of Indiana Bus Fire Killing 16 aves |
By DONNA MIKELS A YEAR AGO this week, a sleek Greyhound bus careened off a bridge abutment outside Bloomington and exploded into a flaming funeral pyre for 16 persons. +In-the year that has passed; grass has grown again on the scorched earth along the winding old Ind. 37. The passage of time has dulled the sharp edge of the tragedy,
But ‘the year has not seen |
the solution to the mystery that grew out of the crash—the mystery of one body too many, one body too few,
NO ONE. bas claimed the body buried as “John Doe” in a simple mound in a Bloomington cemetery. No one has cleared away the question mark that hangs over a dBubly-identified body in a Bedford cemetery, This strange paradox had its start when the big Indianap-olis-bound® Greyhound crashed into - the bridge over Muddy Fork Creek, five miles north of Bloomington, on the morning of Aug. 10. The bodies which were later pulled from the white-hot wreckage were charred beyond the worst fears of heart-sick rescue parties; “unrecognizable” was a kind word. But one by one the bodies were parcelled out. ' Griefstricken families who looked for
-and--{elled—-10--find-- names--of
known passengers on the survivor’s list went to the Bloomington Armory to claim their dead. One of these families was that of a Bedford man, Vernon Ray Trisler. His survivors were among the last to go to the Armory, turned morgue. On Aug. 13 the Trisler family claimed what it believed was the body of its son. That left only one unclaimed body, that of the man later. buried as “John Doe.”
» » ” ON AUG. 17 Mrs. Elsie Adamson returned to her flat ih Bedford from a vacation in Illinois to find her husband, Maurice,
24, missing.- Her worst fears °
were confirmed." In the box of
ystery Surroundi
oneé
”
"Maurice Adamson.
relics at the Bloomington Armory she found a key which unlocked the door to their apartment, It was soon established that her husband had undoubtedly perished in the crash. But here the trail ended. The body that
remained-~that of a man 50 to
70 years old with a completes
set of false dentures—was obv-
iously not her hiisband. It was when she described the clothing he was probably wearing authorities got their first clue. Her description of the pattern of his shorts matched perfectly remnants of cloth which had been clinging to the body released as Vernon Ray In rapid-fire order these confirming details developed: Dental charts of Mr. Adamson matched those of Corpse No. 11, which was released to the Trisler family. : Finger-print records from two fingers of Corpse No. 11's
= clenched hand checked posi-
tively. with Mr. Adamson’s; they did not compare with Mr. Trisler’s. A Bloomington dentist, Dr. Charles Wylie, sald that during initial identification efforts he had ruled that Corpse No. 11 could not be Mr. Trisler,
(if his army dentist record was
“anywhere near Soret.”
* ® A
»
Ree
ng
rectify what he now
The disputed grave. nét R.E. Lyons to demand he
retriéve the apparently misidentified body. The Coroner, however, found he could not believed to be a mistake. His power ended at the Monroe County line. The body was buried in Lawrence County.
—ebhat. was the way the case closed—two families claiming
one body and an unclaimed body ultimately buried as John Doe.
The case has been taken to
court in Bedford, and is still
pending. Many doubt the strange paradox ever will be settled.
But officials who worked on the case believe they know the answer -to the riddle of “one body too many, one body ‘too few.” They believe there not one but two. mis-identified bodies. They say the body buried as
With these proots, Vernon Ray Trisler
Trisler. tamly aszived,
Two Bodies Unsolved .
Vernon Ray Trisler.
But because of the complexe
ities of exhuming and attempte
ing reidentification at this late date, they doubt that the miss take will ever be corrected.
” . » THEY THINK that in years to come the mystery will bes
come part of the lore of Ameris
can tragedies, like “Little Miss 1565” in the tragie Hartford, Conn. circus fire of 1944.
that of
One hundred fifty-nine pere
sons died in that 10-minute
flash fire and six bodies were never claimed. In five cases
were charred beyond
But the sixth unclaimed body was that of a little blue-eyed blouds girl with shoulders curls scarcely touched by flames. Her picture was circus |
finally “Little Miss 1565,” the number of the cemetery plot in Hart. | ford, an after-tragedy of tragie fire, bak Because