Forum Flashbacks: May 9-15
MARYVILLE DAILY FORUM, MAY 14, 1999
25 YEARS AGO: Principal’s Book Club – Nodaway-Holt elementary students, from left, Tiffany Nielson, Hailey Newton, Marc Rosenbohm and Adrian Brown join forces to figure out how to use the equipment at Beal Park. They were among 24 students who made the Principal’s Book Club for the number of books they read. As a reward, the students ate lunch out and spent the day at the park. Altogether, students in the school read more than 5,000 books.
50 years ago
Maryville Daily Forum, May 11, 1974
She drank 36 glasses of milk a day, bathed in commercial bleach, met an astronaut and didn’t see herself in a mirror for six weeks.
This strange regimen is not, as it might sound, a fraternity initiation. It was life for Natalie White, 14, Quitman, while she was being treated at the Shriners Burn Institute, Galveston, Texas, for burns she received March 12 when a can of lighter fluid exploded near the fireplace of her home.
Natalie, the daughter of Mrs. Mary Regan, received third degree burns on 30 per cent of her body, second degree burns on 35 per cent and some first degree burns. She was flown to Galveston through the efforts of J. Harold Holt and other local Shriners.
“I hated milk before I went there,” Natalie said, discussing the 36 glasses a day which she and the other patients had to drink to ward off ulcers so common in burn patients. “I still do.”
Most of the patients are between 5 and 12 years of age, and Natalie was the oldest patient while she was there. Most, she said, had received burns from some type of gasoline-related accident.
“Going to the tub” was the worst part of the stay in the hospital, she said. Patients were required to bathe at least once a day in a whirlpool bath of a commercial bleaching agent. “That hurt!” she said.
But what hurt the most was the doctors’ taking off what dead skin they could when Natalie entered the hospital. “That’s when I passed out,” she recalled. She was not given any pain killers, because, her mother explained, burn treatment is such a long, drawn-out process that the doctors are afraid their patients will become drug addicts.”
Miss White had only one operation (some of the patients had three or more while she was there) and skin from the top of her right leg was grafted onto the burn sores. …
Natalie was not bored while she was there “mainly because when Mom wasn’t there, the other Moms ‘mothered’ me,” she said. “It all seems like one big family. Some of the little kids got so attached to me that they wanted to take me home with them as a babysitter.”
She was able to keep up with her school work reasonably well with the staff teachers and audio-visual aids.
While she was at the hospital, a former burn patient, astronaut Fred Haise, came to the hospital to autograph pictures for the patients. Natalie had her picture taken with Haise and it was the first time she had seen herself since she entered the hospital.
“I was a little shocked. They won’t let you see a mirror all the time you are there,” she said.
Mrs. Regan was very impressed with the hospital and was thankful to them for their informational procedure.
“The minute we arrived, a social worker prepared me for what I would see. She led me around (I was still a little in shock), showed me pictures of progress of other patients, gave me a parents’ manual and explained certain behavioral patterns to me and said ‘this is normal in a burn patient,’” said Mrs. Regan. “But it almost takes your stomach away.” …
Now at home, Mrs. Regan has had to use some of the skills she was taught in Galveston about caring for Natalie.
“She soaks in a tub with dish soap for 20 minutes, then I have to clip away all the scar tissue which has formed that day. You’d be surprised how fast it builds up in just one day,” she said. “The scar tissue keeps the sore from healing so you have to clip it away. When they showed me how to do it in Galveston, I just about didn’t bring her home!”
Natalie still wears the elastic bandages and exercises to keep her muscles from contracting. She wears a brace on her left leg at night to help straighten it.
“I can barely run or jump and they told me I couldn’t play basketball next year,” Natalie said, adding that the psychiatrist told her to return to school immediately, which she did. “But the coach said I could be manager of the team next year.” She attends West Nodaway R-I High School.
100 years ago
Maryville Tribune, May 15, 1924
ALEY IS CAPTAIN OF TRACK SQUAD
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George Aley, Maryville High School sprinter, was elected captain of the High School track team for 1925, by the members of the this year’s squad at a dinner given last night for the team by the high school coach, Harold Ebert at the Pennington Cafe. Aley has made a good showing on the cinder path both this year and last.
The dinner last night was held as a wind up to one of the most successful years in track the local school had for several seasons. Although the local team did not attend many meets this year, they gave a good account of themselves wherever they went, and have won a large number of cups.
The official end to all athletic activities of the High School was made this morning when William Gaugh, president of the student body of the High School presented thirteen boys and twenty-four girls with “M’s” which they have won in the track activities during the year. Due to a delay in the shipment of the emblems the letters were not given this morning, but will be given to the athletes as soon as they arrive.
The boys who have won their letters in the local school this year are:
Lavelle Smith, Vodre Willoughby, Homer Ogden, Morris Chick, Paul Kissinger, Felix Brown, Jarvis Bush, Baublitts Wright, Harold Miller, Porterfield Cockayne, George Aley, Lavern Robey, and Carl King.
Twelve of the twenty-four girls who were awarded letters have won the right to wear the green “M’s” in basketball and track, while the others have won theirs as members of the hiking club. The requirements for the hiking club letter is to walk 25 miles during the year, not going over four miles on any one trip. There must not be more than four girls on any one of these trips.
The girls who received the letters for basketball and track are:
Fern Murray, Mildred New, Dorothy Dow, Laura Margaret Raines, Marie Chandler, Merea Williams, Kathryn Kapler, Hazel Frede, Opal Hantze, Ruth England, Lucile Snyder, Beatrice Puckett.
The girls who received hiking club letters:
Genevieve Todd, Mary Todd, Eva Margaret Frank, Bernice Howard, Beryl Blauvelt, Cleo Dawson, Alice Nelson, Mildred Wiles, Virginia Curfman, Lafe Stark, Gladys Ross and Beatrice Hansen.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The 50-year and 100-year flashbacks are courtesy of the Missouri Digital Newspaper Project from the State Historical Society of Missouri, accessible at shsmo.newspapers.com.
