She Died a Heroine

New York, 1895

A Young Girl Sacrifices Her Life in Saving Two Children.

Lillian McMullen, a fifteen-year-old orphan employed at the stock farm owned by Joseph Fahy, the watch case manufacturer at Sag Harbor, was drowned Monday afternoon while crossing Peconic Bay on the ice between North Haven and Shelter Island. Since the recent blizzard the people of North Haven who go to Shelter Island to do their trading have been obliged to walk over on the ice or remain at home, as the ferryboats were frozen in. During the mild weather of Saturday and Sunday the ice became thin in places where the tide runs swiftly. On Monday Lillian, whose relatives live in New York, lost her life while making the trip, but she died a heroine. With her when she set out upon her journey were ten and eight-year-old daughters of Superintendent Gordon of the stock farm. The three were trudging merrily along on their way home from the island, having crossed the bay in safety a few hours before. When half way between the island and North Haven Lillian stepped in an air hole, which was covered with snow and a thin coating of ice.

The two children hastened to her assistance and they, too, fell through. Lillian, instead of trying to get out herself, gave her attention to the little ones. She bravely grasped the rough edges of the ice and held on until the children climbed to her shoulders and thence on the ice. Then she warned them not to come near her again.

Lillian had become chilled and was hardly able to move after she had placed the children in safety. She struggled to pull herself out, but her strength soon failed her and she sank out of sight. The body was probably carried out to Gardiner's Bay by the strong current.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, Feb. 22, 1895, p. 1.

He's Willing Now

1920

But Champion Is a Late Late, Says Georgia Poet.

The following was received by the sporting editor of The Saturday Blade from Atlanta, Ga.:

Our Champion.

He's willing to fight in France, they say,
For half a million or so;
But he passed up a chance at a buck a day
When they called on us all to go.

I think I speak for a million chaps
Who went to France with a vim,
Ready for anything — death perhaps —
So —
Hope Georges whales hell out of him.

—Jack Converse.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 10.

Note: This poem concerns Jack Dempsey, whose reputation was tainted when it was alleged he was a draft dodger during World War I. There's some details at this link. "Georges" was Georges Carpentier, a French war hero. Dempsey had a match against him in 1921, called the "Battle of the Century."


Canadian Boxer Challenges

1920

Brousseau Wants to Meet Carpentier In Montreal.

The Canadian Hockey Club has cabled a challenge to Georges Carpentier's manager in London for the French boxer to meet Eugene Brousseau, Dominion's middleweight champion, in a boxing exhibition in Montreal, July 1, Dominion day, at one of the race tracks.

Brousseau has recovered from a slight attack of paralysis, which followed his bout with Chip, in Portland.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 10.

Faithful Shepherd Dogs

1901

A cold spell in Montana killed a sheep herder in the Great Falls district. Two feet of snow covered the range in places, and the thermometer indicated 40 degrees below zero. The herder was frozen to death on the prairies while caring for the sheep, and it was three days before his fate was known to his employers.

Two shepherd dogs were with him when he died, and one of these stayed with his body while the other attended to the sheep, just as though the herder had been with him. The dog drove them out on the range in the morning and back again at night, guarding them from wolves and preventing them from straying off.

Neither dog had anything to eat during the three days' vigil, so far as could be ascertained, but the 2,500 sheep thrived as well apparently as though directed by human agency. The singular fact about the matter is that these faithful creatures would have starved to death rather than harm one of the sheep left in their charge. — Portland Oregonian.

Johnny Poe of the Black Watch

1915

Killed in the Fighting Near Ypres, Sept. 25, 1915

(Lines by a Princeton Classmate)

JOHNNY POE;
Stocky little chap, you know,
He'd no call to take in slack!
'Most too small for quarter back,
Made it somehow — played it, tho;
Johnny Poe.

Johnny Poe
More than twenty years ago —
Wasn't he a ghastly sight
When we'd fought the snowball fight?
Hardly had a face to show,
Johnny Poe.

Johnny Poe;
Freshman president? That's so;
Homely face and ready grin —
Lord — the veil of years grows thin!
Dead "somewhere in Flanders?" No!
Johnny Poe?

Johnny Poe.
Well, that's how he'd like to go.
Scrapper he was, first and last,
Never let a fight get past,
Hunted 'em through Mexico;
Johnny Poe.

Johnny Poe;
That's the Celtic strain, you know.
Soldier, miner, ranchman, he;
Trailed the land from sea to sea.
Couldn't let things get too slow;
Johnny Poe.

Johnny Poe
Dead in battle, laid so low,
Bearing in your burial place
Tartan of your Celtic race,
Bless you, Johnny, rest you so;
Johnny Poe!

— E. Sutton.

— Saturday Blade, Chicago, Dec. 18, 1915, p. 2.

The Hero of the Brazos

1899

Near the city of Hempstead, in Texas, there lives a farm-hand who has proved himself a hero of peace, and whose name should be remembered by the people of his country with all the gratitude they willingly bestow upon the heroes of our armies.

One of the great rivers of Texas is the Brazos, a stream subject to vast floods, which often rise so suddenly that the people living near it have no time to escape the rush of the waters.

In early times a colony of Franciscan friars established a mission on a mound near the bank of the river. They built a church and a village, and taught the neighboring Indians. A hostile tribe, however, swept over the country, ravaging and burning, and there seemed to be no salvation for the friars and their converts behind the feeble defences of their mound. But of a sudden the waters of the river rose, and terrible floods swept away the savages and saved the little garrison.

Then the friars, so the story goes, saw plainly the working of the Lord, and they called the river which had enveloped them Los Brazos de Dios — The Arms of God.

But the Brazos is not always merciful. During the recent floods in Texas its waters played a mighty part in the destruction of life and property. One night, as the flood was beginning to overspread the farming lands, a young man named Fritz McGee was wakened by the distant roar. He rose, hurried out, and after some difficulty, secured a single frail rowboat and started alone on the work of rescue.

All through that terrible night be worked among the negro cabins scattered over the flooded bottoms, and before morning he had rescued seventy-five human beings, men, women and children, and had conveyed them to high and safe ground.

It is doubtful whether a single man ever before saved so many lives, one by one, in so short a time. Fritz McGee, farm-hand, rowing his fragile skiff through the darkness over the turbulent water, is a figure to stir the noblest feelings. — Youth's Companion.

Froze To Death Before A Crowd

Printed Jan. 1908

Friends Unable To Give Aid

Providence, Rhode Island — In view of 200 persons who were powerless to extend aid, Alfred Jackson, aged 22, a Providence clerk, was frozen to death while his right foot was imprisoned by a rock on which he was standing under the falls of the Pawtucket river, in Pawtucket, the other afternoon.

Jackson, his brother Arthur, aged 20, and Earl T. Mathewson, aged 19, of East Providence, left the Pawtucket Canoe clubhouse about three o'clock and paddled slowly down stream. When just above the falls they allowed the canoe to drift too near the edge and were carried over. All were thrown into the water. Alfred Jackson was able to reach a half-submerged rock at the foot of the falls, grasped his brother Arthur, and kept him from drowning, although the water from the falls fell on them.

Finally persons on shore threw a line. Alfred caught it and fastened it around his brother, Arthur, who, shorter than himself, was gasping in water that was up to his chin. Arthur was pulled ashore and so was Mathewson, who had floated down stream.

They were removed to the Rhode Island hospital in a critical condition from exposure.

Alfred Jackson in the meanwhile remained standing up to his waist in water close under the falls, and when the rescuers threw a line to him expecting to pull him to a place of safety, they found they were unable to move him.

In the roar of the cataract his shouts could not be heard, but it was evident that his feet had been caught under water.

Several attempts were made to rescue him. Adelard Potvin, the strongest man in the village, popularly known as "Nervy Nat," risked his own life by climbing out hand over hand on a slender rope to the side of the drowning man. When he reached Alfred Jackson's side he used all of his great strength in a useless attempt to release the captive foot from the treacherous crevice, but, chilled to the marrow, he was forced to give up the attempt, crying like a baby when he realized that his work had resulted in nothing.

Dr. Clinton Westcott attempted to reach the perishing lad, and almost lost his life by a boat upsetting.

For two hours the rescuers worked hard and valiantly, Jackson standing calmly under the fall up to his armpits in water and the spray breaking over him, awaiting his doom bravely and uncomplainingly.

Finally, frozen stiff, the unconscious body sunk in the foamy waters, only a white life-buoy bobbing up and down in the water marking the place where he had gone down.

Loses Life But Saves Hundreds

Printed Jan. 1908

Tunnel Track Walker Wins Glory In His Death

New York. — A few laboring men dropped around to Tommy Ryan's house on West Forty-ninth street "to help pack up and move." They took their hats off in the dark hall below and walked up the stairs with muffled feet. In the front room a neighbor's daughter was trying to amuse two pretty babies, one four and the other two years old.

Tom Ryan, big, hearty, good-natured Tom, who loved his wife and children, was not there. He was buried and his two babies were cared for at the home of a neighbor while his friends followed him to the grave. The children do not know he is dead. Neither does his wife, who is sick unto death in a hospital where for four weeks she has been battling with typhoid fever. She thinks that she is so sick that the nurses will not let her see even her husband. And no one, not even the hospital physicians, have yet dared take the responsibility of letting her know the truth.

This story should interest those persons who took the 9 p.m. local train for Westchester county from the Grand Central. Their train went safely through the tunnel, carrying them to their waiting families in the suburbs, but they never knew why. They didn't even know that as they passed the signal lamp at Eighty-sixth street in safety their train had swept over the body of the man who had saved them.

Thomas Ryan had been married about a dozen years. His oldest child had died and six months ago, to give his wife and the remaining children the home he wished, he took the hazardous position of lamp man in the New York Central tunnel. He was a sober, industrious man, six feet in his stockings and perfectly healthy. His day began at 6 p.m. and ended at 7 a.m., and it was his duty to patrol the tunnel and keep the lamps burning on the signal towers.

Two weeks ago his wife was taken ill with typhoid fever, and grew rapidly worse. He told his fellow-workers he feared his wife would die before morning. Nevertheless, he set about his task of seeing that the lamps were all right so that the passengers hurrying home would pass in safety. At 9 p.m. he saw that the distance signal lamp on the outbound track three was smoky. He remembered that several accidents costing human live had happened because of smoky lamps.

He ran across the tracks, dodging a down train and reached up for the signal lamp. With his pocket handkerchief he rubbed the chimney bright and turned down the wick a little. As he did this the lamp swung around in answer to the signal tower man, cautioning the up train to go slow. A down train came tearing through the tunnel, making a great noise and drowning the noise of the approach of a train in the opposite direction. Then he stepped down on the track, conscious that he had probably saved an accident — and the next instant the train hit him.

"The engineer, with his eyes on the signal — as was his duty — did not see the shadow that flickered for an instant under the forward wheels. But the track-walkers, passing a few moments after, found the crumpled mass under the light of their lanterns. They found the handkerchief with the lampblack on it, and saw the finger-marks of the man on the signal lamp chimney, and they understood. The case was reported to the police and entered on the station house blotter.

But it was "just a man killed in the tunnel — a trackwalker or a lampman." It was not till days after that a stray word dropped by a trackwalker revealed that big Tom Ryan had given his life to send a trainload of commuters home in safety.

Natural Act For Mother

1910

Women Understand That Not Heroism but Simply Love Prompted Self Sacrifice

A few days ago, in a somewhat squalid neighborhood, a house caught fire. The flames shot quickly through the litter on the floor and the untidy array of clothing on the walls. A woman talking with a neighbor ran screaming to the house and without an instant's hesitation sprang through the smoking doorway into what already seemed an inferno. A moment later she staggered out, her hands and face blackened and blistered and her clothing on fire. In her arms she bore her baby, safe from harm.

The afternoon papers came out with the story, printed under headlines extolling this mother's heroism. Men read it on street cars, and as their eyes gleamed with the stirring of the spirit which leaps to greet noble deeds they said: "That woman dared to do what most men would be afraid to do." But the mothers who read it at home did not think that way. Perhaps the danger to the baby, the wrecking of the home and the burns the woman suffered brought moisture to their eyes, but to them the act was not one of heroism — it was simply what any natural mother, no matter how timid, would do under the same circumstances. — Cleveland Leader.


Lengthening Her Stay

Little May wanted permission to go somewhere, and her mother asked her if she would slay just a little while. May replied: "I'll stay two whiles, mamma."

Memorial to Henry Clay Twice Struck by Lightning

1910

At Lexington, Kentucky, Shattered by Electric Bolts

Lexington, Ky. — It is a singular coincidence that lightning twice in succession has destroyed the statue erected in the cemetery here to the memory of Henry Clay. Years ago the people of Kentucky, proud of the greatness of Henry Clay and his distinguished public services, erected a handsome memorial to him in the cemetery where his ashes repose. In 1903 lightning shattered the statue crowning this memorial and steps were soon taken to repair the statue. A new one was placed in position the past summer. Before it could be dedicated lightning again destroyed it.

This elemental action seems typical of the life of Clay himself. He was one of the commanding figures of his time, distinguished as a statesman, orator and diplomat and greatly admired by millions of Americans. His one great ambition was to be president of the United States, but his prospects, even when most promising, were always shattered, just like the statue on the top of the imposing shaft, which a grateful state has erected in his memory.


Boastful Men

Men are inclined to boast, yet, according to statistics, three out of four are buried at somebody else's expense.


Heroes

Hero worship cannot be eradicated from humanity. It is well that it is so. It is a splendid thing to have heroes in history as definable ideals. It is a great thing to have also some living heroes as great ideals of our dally lives. But, above all, it is supremely important for us to keep before our minds the divine Master as a perpetual ideal. Looking up to him we grow toward God. — Rev. Oliver Huckel, Congregationalist, Baltimore.

Doctors Locate Bullet By Phone

1915

London Surgeons Have New Method of Discovering Presence of Foreign Body

London. — One of the romantic touches in modern surgery which the exigencies of the present war have introduced is a method of detecting bullets and fragments of shell in the human body by means of a telephone. This method is employed in special cases in one of the large London hospitals.

To a telephone receiver two short lengths of wire are attached. One of these ends in a small piece of platinum; this is placed upon any part of the patient's skin which has been moistened with salt water. The other end of the wire terminates in a thread of antiseptic silver, and this is bound around the surgeon's probe or lancet or other instrument. The surgeon then places the receiver to his ear and makes the incision.

The instant the instrument touches the bullet a very distinct rattle is heard, quite different from the faint murmur audible as the instrument merely cuts through the flesh, and in this way when X-rays fail, as they sometimes do, the foreign substance is located.


He Is a War Hero At 13

Youngest Noncommissioned Officer in the French Army

Paris. — The youngest noncommissioned officer in the French army is Marcel Vernier, who is thirteen years and seven mouths old. He followed the artillery as a kitchen helper at the opening of the war and learned to ride a horse and was quickly promoted to be a corporal. He has been named adjutant sergeant major and his name has been proposed for the military medal for valor in action. He was recently wounded and was brought to a Paris hospital.

Vernier is an orphan and is one of a large family of young brothers and sisters.

The Burning of Joan of Arc (poetry)

1874

The Burning of Joan of Arc

They've bound her to the iron stake,
That fierce and haughty soul!
Oh! mistress of the hearts of France,
Is this the conq'ror's goal?
The flashing fire is round her now,
And mocking lips are near;
But scorching flame and mocking lips
Can wake from her no tear.

Oh! France, where is thy chivalry,
Where, where thy crowned king.
That he can suffer death like this
To claim so fair a thing!
Shame's clouds are o'er thy sunny hills,
The siroc breath of shame
Hath blotted out from valor's list
The records of thy fame.

Where are the friends of early youth?
Forsaken, France, for thee!
The martyr in this awful hour
Is one that made thee free.
Where are the battle hosts she led
To vict'ry and renown,
O'er fields of shiver'd spears and helms
Her arm had stricken down.

Come, come, ye men of iron souls,
Behold your leader die;
Your eyes may see no quiv'ring lip,
Your ears hear ne'er a sigh.
Is there no sword in mighty France
To save her from the tomb?
And England's chivalry, can they
Be witness of her doom?

God! there is none; it is no dream!
There is the stake, the fire,
The sparks, the smoke, the trumpet tone,
By Rouen's market spire.
Joanne of Arc, on! can it be
Thine is the felon's doom,
And thine the quiv'ring, withered form
Within the smoke-clouds' gloom?

One cry -- a gasp, but not of fear,
Springs from the sea of flame,
And France, th' Recording Angel stands
To chronicle thy shame.
Bear forth the tale on eagle's wings,
Joan, of France, the pride,
Hath, like a felon at the stake,
Ignobly, basely died.

—Printed in The Indiana Progress, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Jan. 15, 1874, p. 2.

Custer's Father and The Horse Presented to Him

1878

Mrs. Custer has a room at Lansing full of relics of her late husband. His pet, a Scotch hound — a great creature into whose eyes he used to look and say to his wife that no one could doubt that animals had souls — is in possession of a Cleveland lady, but the other animal, who traveled with him always by flood and field, sometimes across the saddle and sometimes put into a box and forwarded from station to station, is in his father's possession, as is also the horse which he rode up to the time of his death and which carried him to the very scene of slaughter.

The horse was purchased by some of Custer's brother officers and presented to Mrs. Custer, who gave it to her husband's aged father. The elder Custer is a feeble old man with snow-white hair, but not a day passes but that he mounts his "Artie's" steed — (Custer's middle name was Armstrong, abbreviated into "Artie") and takes a gallop along the road.

He talks of his dead son continually: "All my boys were good boys to me, but you know 'Artie' was my baby," he will say piteously. A great friend of Mrs. Custer, who brought her late husband's aged father from his Western home to West Point, to attend the burial, saw a pathetic little sight that will show how much the poor old man — old enough to have been Custer's grandfather — thinks of his dead hero.

One day she sought Mr. Custer in the barn, she found him in the stall devoted to his son's steed. He had come in from a ride, and having fed the animal, had gone to sleep with his arm thrown over the horse's neck, and his white, hair streaming over its glossy coat. There were tears, too, on his withered cheeks.