News From Home Ohio - Wyoming
11 Aug 1944 Down Under Edition
OHIO
Judge Alexander of the Domestic Relations Court in Toledo announced that Lucas County would join other Ohio counties in refusing to grant divorces to the wives of Ohio soldiers and sailors overseas or serving in other states until the defendants were able to appear in court in person. As a part of a juvenile-recreation program young anglers in Columbus were trying to hook a few of the two tons of catfish dumped in lakes in Linden, Schiller, Westgate, Goodale, Franklin and Lincoln Parks by the State Conservation Division. Four gunmen got more than $4,000 in a hold-up of players at an open-air dice game in Brooklyn Village, Cleveland. Cincinnati's Ely Wittstein Legion Post bought a dwelling at Reading Road and Dana Avenue as a veterans home.
OKLAHOMA
Two interurban cars crashed between Oklahoma City and Norman killing six passengers, including two Waves, and injuring 17 others. Tulsa's Mayor Flynn named a Negro civic committee to hold weekly conferences with him on matters affecting residents of the Negro district. Grain-elevator operators at Enid appealed to the U.S. Employment Service for an adequate labor supply to keep the elevators operating at capacity during the harvest season. A southbound Santa Fe passenger train struck a butane truck near Pauls Valley, killing T. Sykes of Cleburne, Tex., the engineer and John Kerr, of Allen the truck driver.
OREGON
Declaring that those necessities of life on which there, are no ceiling prices cost 20 to 35 percent more in Portland than in nearby cities, shipyard workers began a crusade for a reduction of living costs in the Portland area. Many of the first 1,000 Oregon servicemen to be discharged have applied for vocational training; about 25 percent of the men were on the fighting fronts. An opening-night betting record was set at the Gresham Fairgrounds when 4,000 race fans placed $32,843 on their favorite horses. Fire destroyed the Dant & Russell planning mill at Redmond. Sheriff Fred Reaksecker paid the fines of three overseas veterans haled into an Oregon City court for fishing without a license.
PENNSYLVANIA
After complaints from baseball fans at Philadelphia's Shibe Park that bet taking interfered with their enjoyment of the game, five men were fined from $25 to $100 for wagering during one game. Indiana began a drive for $5,000 to construct an alabaster marble arch over Philadelphia Street as a welcome-home tribute to veterans of this war. At Philadelphia, the old Phillies ball park at Broad Street and Lehigh Avenue was sold to a group of businessmen who plan to build stores costing 1 ½ million dollars after the war. More than 400 high-school graduates in Lackawanna County, mostly girls, had applied to the Scranton office of the USES for jobs.
TENNESSEE
Bus and trolley service in Memphis was reduced an estimated 10 percent after operators refused to do further overtime work in protest against the War Labor Board's failure to approve new overtime rates and wage increases. The state formally accepted the 1,300-acre Shelby Forest State Park from the National Forest Service and began preparing it for recreation purposes. The Dixie Spinners, Chattanooga baseball champs, completed the first half of the City League schedule undefeated by beating Cecil King's Bakers 6-3.
TEXAS
Four men perished in a fire that destroyed the tugboat “Gypsum Prince” at Galveston. George Fairtrace succeeded Garland Franks as city manager at Wichita Falls. Forty passengers on a Fort Worth interurban bus, many of them war workers at the Consolidated Vultee Aircraft plant, were injured when the bus skidded during a rainstorm and plunged down the bank of the west fork of Trinity River. Ross Jarrell, USN, of Olney gave the Houston Zoo an Alaska black bear that had been at several outposts in the Aleutian Islands as mascot of the 7th Battalion.
VERMONT
The State Guard held maneuvers on the old fairgrounds in South Wallingford. Springfield won the scholastic baseball title of southern Vermont by walloping Vergennes 15-3 at Rutland; Orleans won the northern title by edging Winooski 1-0 at Newport. Because of the demand by Navy trainees in Camp MacDonough at Plattsburgh," N. Y., for service to Burlington, the steamer Ticonderoga began operation on Lake Champlain a month earlier than last year. Fire destroyed 150 used truck tires in a building of Gay's Express Company in North Westminster.
WASHINGTON
To mark the opening of the Fifth War Loan Drive, Francis Butler threw a baseball from the top of Grand Coulee Dam to Charles Zack on the transfer deck, a distance 300 feet out and 300 feet down. Ronald Smith, 16 years old, sported green-tinted fingernails to match those of his bride when he married Mrs. Mary Breon, 37-year-old mother of two children, at Vancouver. Rain delayed strawberry picking in the Bellingham area. Mearns Gates of Pomeroy was elected president of the U. S. Junior Chamber of Commerce at a session in Omaha, Nebr.
WEST VIRGINIA
Dr. Charles Lawall, president of West Virginia University at Morgantown, was ousted by the board of governors; the students charged the board with playing politics and announced they would continue their fight to retain their proxy. Policeman E. R. Kerns was dismissed from the Bluefield force after a mob marched on the City Hall and threatened to lynch him for allegedly
beating up a soldier. J. E. Orr was elected mayor of Mullens. Fire destroyed the community building at Eleanor in Putnam County.
WYOMING
A bread-and-water diet was prescribed for 94 German prisoners of war who refused to work in the beet fields because there were no benches in the trucks that carried them to work. Cheyenne was bombarded by a 20-minute hailstorm that caused thousands of dollars' damage. Two 6-year-old Cheyenne boys, Dale Forbis and Jimmy VedinJ drowned in Minnehaha lagoon at Holliday Park when they apparently fell from a bridge while fishing for crawdads. Fifty-four Converse County wool growers had deposited clips totaling 246,736 pounds in the Douglas wool warehouse.
YANK 11 Aug 1944 Down Under Edition