Florida Today from Cocoa, Florida • Page 1D

People WyVBTMilM.11 vwm Weekend yNows at Section Friday, March lj 1974 Clark TV 4D' Dear Abby itv3aa WfT WVmazrlL TODAY Mma i Harry James To Appear ijLixiUiLtm mmiMimjimAjvmjmrmifiiisiminimrvazracBTzxn Sam Blankfield ofMcrritt Island, set up telegraph gommunications "Anhestrains of "You Made Me Love You" Wafted sweetly out of the trumpet of Harry James in 1941, the nation suddenly had a new musical hero. The flip side'of that instant hit was "A Sinner Kissed an Angel" with Dick Haymes doing the vocalizing. In 1941, James married the. nation's number one pin up girl Betty Grable, the girl with the million dollar legs. ft Does all this bring back warm memories of the good old days at least to those who can remember the 40s? Whether you remember or not is of no importance to whether you can enjoy Harry James' music and jf ybu're in the mood for an evening of his music, then mark a circle around March 13 on your calendar.

Harry James is on the road again and will be stopping by Cocoa Beach for a concert that evening. The concert sponsored by the Cocoa Beach Womans's Club will be held at the Atlantis Beach Lodge that evening. Tickets are $5.50, per person in advance or the door. You can get your tickets at Stfeeps Music," Keller Music, and Music, the Cocoa Village Country Store, Pedro's Restaurant and Nice House of Music, all Cocoa Beach. Proceeds go towards the club's community improvement project.

Laubach Volunteers A recent workshop in Titusvllle to teach adults how to tutor adult illiterates was quite a success. Nineteen men and womeh attended including a nfinister, an engineer, an electronics technician, several housewives, student, a nun and a retired teacher. The workshop, sponsored by the Brevard Adult Literacy Volunteers, featured the Laubach method. Mrs. Paul Cochran of Titusville, president of the Brevard volunteers, was in charge of arranging the workshop.

Helping her were Mrs. Donald Buchanan, Mrs. Joseph Samacb, Mrs. Carl Threlkeld Mrs. Don Browning and.

Mrs. Kirby Key. Instructing the day's seminar was Mrs. Dot Heinrlch of Jacksonville under the supervision of Mrs. Bert Roper, master trainer, or the Orlando Literacy League.

Name Dropping The Fails Gaffneys of Melbourne will host a cocktail party for 33 couples Saturday night before the Melbourne Junior Woman's Club's annual benefit ball. The group will go on to the Melbourne Civio Auditorium from the Gaffneys. Mrs. Uatfney and most of the, guests are members of the club and their husbands. Three Central Brevard physicians have been named diplomats of the American Board ofTamily Practice after passing a certification examination offered by that association.

They are Dr. Marling L. Abel, Dr. Benjamin F. Knotts Jr.

and Dr. Albert Stratum Jr. An artsumd crafts show and sale, will be held Saturday at J.M. Fields Plaza, Merritt. Island from 9 a.m.

til 9 p.n. There'll be all kinds of crafts and handiwork, painting, sculpture, pottery, crocheting, knitting, tie tying and leatherwork. Ifyou'd like to enter the show, contact Gene Hummel of Merrijt Island. The public Is Invited" for nation's press during the tragic 1932 kidnap murder of Charles A. Lindbergh the baby son of America's aviation heroBlankfield, right, displays memorabilia from his 23 year career a telegrapher.

TODAY Ho PhM. W.lt J.H.M. Lindbergh Tragedy Revisited By CHRIS SCHAUSEIL TOOAT tl.lt Wrltar Forty two years ago today, Samuel Blankfield, troubleshobter Tor the Postal Telegraph and Cable rushed Hopewell, N.J., "to set up immediate telegraph communications for the prtss. Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. had just been kidnapped.

The kidnapers were asking $50,000 ransom for the blond, blue eyes, 20 month oJd baby. Nothing quite like it had ever happened before not in the country and certainly not in Hopewell, N.J. ''Middle class and rural typical farm country," was how Phi ladelphian Sam Blankfield sized up. the town on his arrival the afteTnoon of March 1, Blankfield, npw 75, retired and living in Merritt Island, still vividly recalls that afternoon and the weary weeks that' were to follow the kldnaping murder that rocked a nation. The short mustachioed man, known as Sam Blank to his friends which meant everybody for Sam was a familiar sight to reporters.

AS THE Postal Telegraph Company's public relations man, Sam was paid to hustle to the scene jol a IvllllllfliilllHIIlflrflrlrVMVJfiif BRUNO RICHARD Hauptmann (rlght) confers with his attorney Egbert Rosecrams (left) before taking witness stand Jan. 25, 1935, Hauptmann Insisted he was Innocent of the murder and kidnaping of the Lindbergh baby even up to his execution more than one war later. breaking national news story, set up telegraph communications, and then bend over backwards to accommodate the press with snap service. Since most news copy was transmitted to newspapers by Morse code in those days, Sam's company and its, arch rival Western Unjon, always vied aggressively for press patronage. Western Union would eventually swallow Postal Telegraph in 1941 But the day of the Lindbergh kidnaping, Sam won out.

By the time he and (oor assistant telegraphers arrived in Hopewell in Sam's old Buick, the news had 'reached the townfolk.putthe streets 'were practically deserted, and no knew much of anything. mood was one 'of frustration," Sarrf recalled. "Look, Buddy, all I can tell you is what you already know," the owner of Gebhart's restaurant on Main Street finally told Sam. Less than two miles away, the Lindberghs paced the rooms in the mansion of their estate, nestled In the Sourland Mountains overlooking Hopewell. A ransom note lying on the radiator of the child's nursery said in two to four days they would be told where to drop the ransom money.

A broken, badly built ladder was found crumpled beneath the child's second story window. FIVE YEARS before, Charles A. Lindbergh had made aviation history with his dramatic trans Atlantic, solo flight to Paris in a single engine Elane. The ordeal, which lasted 33 ours, 29 minutes and 30 seconds, won him permanent fame and fortune in fact, too much for his liking. The Lindberghs had sought refuge from the public eye in their mountain estate "They rarely mingled with the townspeople," recalled Sam.

only sign of life in the small town. "I ordered my company toset up telegraphic Jines right there at the restaurant, on the tables," Sam said. "Whoever was going to come to Hopewell was stuck at the restaurant. There was nowhere else to go, and Gebhart was tickled to deaths" That afternoon 48 trunklines had been moved in. Western Union, which had no office or lines nearby, was stuck with headquarters at the.

railroad station several miles away, Sam recalled, smiling at the thought even today. By the evening of March 1, more than 200 reporters representing every principal city in the U.S., were jamming Gebhart's. But very little news copy was leaving. "There was nothing to do. Even falter Winchell filed only 200 words" said Sam.

NO NEWS was bad news' in. the telegraph business, so that fejsty, clever man coiled for action that first week. "I had to promote something," confessed Sam. So he singled out a young, ridiculously tall reporter from a Philadelphia scandal tabloid, and dressed him in a messenger boy's uniform the only sight allowed past the circle of police surrounding the Lindberghs' estate; for telegrams were pouring in from all over the world. The reporter then crouched on the road to the estate, meticulously copying every license number that came and left, recalled Blank.

"Soon the great Walter Winchell could only sit and wait with the others, while the reporter filed 7,000 words daily on famous visitors, for the three weeks I was there," said Sam triumphantly. By late afternoon about 200 newspaper reporters found their way Gebhajts' restaurant the jsxBCsaaaaaraBasaaimJSBtujatUiJC "srr terminal Food Is a Bad Trip Meanwhile, days stretched into weeks and weeks into months for the young couple, Several, almost illiterate messages from the unknown 4 kidnaper were published in the newspapers. Ana me unaoergns published replies, pleas and messages. By PATSY PALMER Ailltl.nl M.lr. Miter In, their heyday, railroads offered passengers the finest gourmet fare, served on linen tablecloths by white Jacketedxwf er.

Airline stewardesses whisked steaming trays of specially concoctedconcocted though mass produced food to theps of high flyers. And car drivers chose anything from a hamburger on the run to five course meals at resultants aloflg yeU traV "eled But chances are good that' long distance bus passengers munch peanut butter crackers while the bus is in motion or gobble predictably bland Florida Qdyssfey 1 Xg). terminal fare during hurried layovers. "Let's Just say It Isn't quire up to 'the quality of food I've been used to in other places," said one, woman, grimacing but polite over her alphabet soup. After almost two months Crosscountry by bus, one elderly couple from Washington state has.

started tucking' ap plesjnto their hand luggage. "Sometimes we think we Just, can't face another packaged, sandwich!" sighed the wpm'an. "They handy, too, when we're too busy changing buses to get to the She had, to talk fast bus was stopped in Daytona Beach for. 15 just enough time for a hotdog and a package of Twinkles from the food line. Short hop riders such as the workman who commutes about 40 miles each 'day by bus, don't gripe much about the food.

If he skips breakfast, he usually sustains himself on icotfMtmeal' cakes (IS cents, t1ease) and a wild cherry soda wlthout'a whimper. After all, Is just up he road and there's a restaurant It's the passengers who ride for days, weeks, or even months who give liule sighs of resignation, when another Post House looms Into sight. A Greyhound" subsidiary, Pqst House, provides cajeterla seryice In large terminals. Jacksonville's fare was Continued on Next Page A go between finally was agreed upon and on April 2, the $50,000 ransom, was passed over a cemetery wall in Hopewell to an anonymous recipient. There were other messages, and false leads after that, but it all was in vain; Seventy two days 'after the search for the Lindbergh baby, its body was found In the woods not more than two miles from the estate.

Death by. violence, said the doctors. Its skull had been fractured. The baby had been dead for atleast two months, they said. The nation was outraged.

And it vontinuea on Next rage.