Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 3

Found at last, the ccrfect corrputer. You just feed in your prob'ems and they never come back. City News Desk 222-6600 To Place Wants Ads 222-6800 Insurance Dept. 222-6470 For Home Delivery 222-6500 Ail Other Calls 222-6400 "'w -r -r Section Page 3 SECOND FRONT PAGE Monday, April 9, 1979 t. it Undertaker, grief laid to rest be- ji GEM bought the elegant, columned mansion on Tamarack Street from a copper mining magnate and turned it into a funeral parlor.

At one time, Jackman recalled, the house had "a great big ballroom on the third floor, servants' quarters, butler's pantries and a livery stable." IN 1941, Hurlburt married the boss' daughter, Jane, whose first marriage had ended in divorce. Hurlburt adopted her three children. Tommy Burns was the son of her daughter. Hurlburt's friends say Tommy was "dumped on Hurlburt" when his parents, who were living in Uganda, split up. His mother moved to England and refused to let her son come live with her.

Tommy's third grade teacher remembered that he took the desertion very hard. "This poor little boy was retreating more and more from reality with all these rejections," said Mrs. Kathy Norden. "I don't think I called all the parents combined as See UNDERTAKER, Page 17A town will tell you that Hurlburt's business was flagging while his medical bills were skyrocketing. His wife, for years an alcoholic, was also an invalid.

His grandson, who lived with Hurlburt, nearly burned to death two years ago and had been a problem child ever since he was abandoned by his parents at the age of six. THE LAST STRAW came when Hurlburt learned he needed to undergo heart surgery. Friends said he wondered how his family would be cared for if he didn't survive. Jackman said Hurlburt did all the cooking oj his bedridden wife, and regularly drove Tommy 550 miles to Ann Arbor for plastic surgery at the University Hospital burn center. His friends said Hurlburt never raised his voice, never swore, never went to bars and never once complained about his problems.

"He was a walking saint," said Nick Rajacic, a retired car salesman who had known the undertaker since Hurlburt arrived in Laurium in 1939 in need of a job. He went to work for James Thomas, who By JENNIFER HOLMES Free Press Staff Writer LAURIUM, Mich. The funeral for Maynard and Jane Hurlburt and their grandson, Tommy Burns, was held here Saturday at Hurlburt's own funeral home. Only relatives were allowed inside the huge pink and white mansion, where three.days earlier Hurlburt, 65, killed his 64-year-old wife and 15-year-old grandson, selected their coffins, hung up their burial clothes, signed their death certificates and finally took his own life. FRIENDS SAID this gruesome, seemingly deranged behavior was really more representative of Hurlburt's merciful, self-sacrificing nature.

The problems of all three family members were so overwhelming, they said, that Hurlburt saw murder-suicide as the only solution. "Maynard figured that the best way was to take them with him," said John Jackman, Hurlburt's caretaker for the past 20 years. "He figured he'd just clean up the slate right there." Almost everyone in this Keweenaw Peninsula Will Photo courtesy Tne Dany Mining Gaieue The Thomas Funeral Home in Laurium where Maynard Hurlburt had worked since 1939 and where the funeral was held Saturday. Truck Tieup Threatens ed Cross Blood Bank Free Press Photos by TARO YAMASAKI Gity care starts with more aid Conyers Rep. John Conyers, addressing a national conference on the urban environment, plugged a plan to take $15 billion from a proposed $33 billion U.S.

defense budget increase and put it into programs to aid the poor, the elderly and minorities. The Detroit Democrat addressed the delegates to the City Care Conference that began Sunday and will run through Wednesday. Conyers' reference to a government proposal to deregulate domestic oil as "their newest fantasy" met with applause. "Have you ever heard of an energy policy where they've effectuated conservation by pricing the poor out of the market?" Conyers said, NOTING THAT "10 times; more trees" could not replace jobs and food for the hungry, Conyers urged the assembled environmentalists and urban leaders to tackle the problems of unemployment, mass transit, housing and urban redlining along with concerns about the effects of nuclear energy and natural conservation. "We must answer these questions with specifics," he said.

"We don't need to reinvent the wheel. We don't need to fix what's not broken 1 "How do we create 1 1 million jobs? We have to be moving toward a full employment economy (or) the urban environment is meaningless. Smelling flowers all day because you don't have a gig to go to is no replacement for being able to buy a flower," he said. Conyers said all the nation's cities are in the "same fix" and that the problems were the problems of everyone. "I'm not talking just as a member of Congress," Conyers said, "but as a humanist as a redistributionist.

Either you're here to redistribute the resources and the opportunities in this country or you're here to do another papering job." By GREGORY SKWIRA Free Press Staff Writer The week-old national trucking shutdown could result in a serious shortage of blood at Detroit area hospitals, local Red Cross officials said Sunday. Dr. A. William Shafer, director of blood services for the organization's Southeastern Michigan chapter, said blood collections are expected to drop 20 percent this week as an indirect effect of the shutdown. While there's no immediate problem, he said, blood inventories could soon fall to dangerously low levels.

"By the middle or end of the week we could see some difficulties," he said. Supply shipments to hospitals are continuing uninterrupted during the combination strike and lockout, which has idled 320,000 drivers and warehouse workers nationwide. But the ripple effects of the shutdown particularly heavy auto industry layoffs could prevent the Red Cross from replenishing blood supplies as they're used. Shafer said bloodmobiles provide about 75 percent of the 5,000 pints of blood collected locally each week. Auto plant layoffs are expected to reduce bloodmobile collections by about 1,000 pints next week, he said.

The organization, which supplies blood to 75 hospitals in Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, St. Clair and Washtenaw counties, is appealing to potential blood donors to visit Red Cross centers this week to help make up the expected shortfall. All seven centers will be open extra hours this week, a Red Cross spokeswoman said. She said donors may call 833-4440 during business hours to learn the hours and the location of the center nearest them. "If people don't come to our centers in the next few days, we're going to have problems," she said.

The biggest Impact this week, she said, will come from the cancellation of a four-day blood drive at General Motors Pontiac complex, where more than 5,000 workers are 0 Palm Sunday and daisies Sunday was Palm Sunday, the beginning of the Christian Holy Week, marking Jesus Christ's entry into Jerusalem, his crucifixion on Good Friday and resurrection on Easter. Faithful at Christ Lutheran Church at Philadelphia and Third received a daisy with the traditional palm fronds, above. At Metropolitan United Methodist, 8000 Woodward, at left a more traditional Palm Sunday included a processional with about 50 choir members walking down the church aisle with their palms. Oscar fan has his own Testy Muggeridge proves charmer on Detroit visit By JOHN ASKINS Free Press Staff Writer "At the best," protested Malcolm Muggeridge after a fulsome introduction at Metropolitan United Methodist Church, "I'm only an old journalist who has made his way as best he might through the pilgrimage of this life." Me sounaea more like an old preacher, delivering a Palm Sunday sermon on faith to a large congregation at the Woodward Avenue church. And he shook hands with most after the rA' Ai I Rf ty riJ'-1 service like an old politician.

By SANDY McCLURE Free Press Staff Writer Ted Petok is a movie fan, who like millions more will be glued to his TV Monday night to watch the 51st presentation of the Academy Awards (10 p.m. on Channel 7 in Detroit). Unlike most other fans, Petok has an Academy Award of his own a gold-plated Oscar on the mantel above the fireplace in the den of his West Bloomfield home. IN 1972, Liza Minnelli was winning an Oscar for "Cabaret" and an American Indian was booed as she spoke after accepting Marlon Brando's award for "The Godfather." Petok was there too, backstage at the Academy Awards theater, surrounded by news-people asking how it felt to be a Detroiter who just won an Oscar of his own for "The Crunch Bird," an animated feature. -i "Brando? I don't remem- See CRUNCH, Page 13A on indefinite layoff.

Shafer said the Red Cross ships about 5,000 pints of blood to hospitals each week, roughly equal to the amount it collects. Current inventories stand at about 8,000 pints, or about normal. "We won't see a serious problem this week," Shafer said. "Our serious problems are a week or so down the pike." The spokeswoman said the problem could be compounded by the coming Easter holiday. Blood collections usually show a marked drop during a holiday week, she said.

Meanwhile, talks between the Teamsters Union and the trucking industry remain recessed until 2 p.m. Monday. The dispute has so' far resulted in indefinite layoffs for about 124,000 auto workers. Another 80,000 worked shortened schedules Friday. Channel 56 auction sels a record Detroit's public television station, Channel 56, raised a record $676,609 in programming funds in its 11th annual on-air auction.

The 100-hour event, which ended at 2 a.m. Sunday, netted the station some $38,000 more than last year's but fell short of the $700,000 goal. Station officials said the Wednesday night storm which damaged a Detroit Edison substation and knocked WTVS off the air. for about two hours lost the auction about $25,000. About 8,200 items were donated for the auction by area businesses and station supporters.

In truth, Muggeridge, 76, has been so many things author, playwright, lecturer, journalist, teacher, television interviewer, intelligence agent in World War II, and former editor of "Punch," the British satirical magazine that he could probably handje any role with panache. HE HAS a fearsome reputation as a man with a razor-sharp mind and a tongue to match, but In Detroit Sunday he proved surprisingly gracious and charming, autographing his many religious books, "in love, Malcolm Muggeridge," kissing children and putting nervous people like one woman who actually knelt before him as he was shaking her hand at the communion rail at their ease with a kindly smile. His sermon was extraordinary only for its graceful phrasing. "Faith is a cable bridge between the earthly city and the city of God," he said, "very fragile and swinging in the wind, but a cable bridge that bears our weight." He was applauded both before and after the sermon. A bit See MUGGERIDGE, Page 18A THE FOUR-DAY conference on urban environmental factors was sponsored jointly by the Sierra Club, the National Urban League and the Urban Environment Conference and Foundation.

About 700 people were expected to attend the confer- See CONYERS, Page 13A Free Press Photo by IRA ROSENBERG Ted Petok and his "Crunch Bird" Oscar, on which the gold plate is peeling around the knees. foUowup tipoff Mayor YOUng and some other pals of Ed Robinson are passing the hat for the former state senator who has a fraud conviction hanging over his lemindei Your income tax filing deadline comes in one week. The usual d-day, April 15, falls on a Sunday this year, so federal and state tax returns must be postmarked before midnight April 16.. Project Pride, Detroit's nine-year-old award-winning community cleanup, gets under way May 5 on the east side and May 12 on the west side. Community groups should register for trash bags and pickups at neighborhood city halls or at the Greater Detroit Chamber of Commerce at 150 Michigan.

Call the chamber at 964-4000 extension PRIDE between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. weekdays. Deadline is April 20. A record 48 cases of Reye Syndrome have been reported this year, state officials say.

The outbreak appears at an end, but the disease is being blamed for six deaths in Michigan. Reye's is a viral complication, usually striking children, that can follow the flu or chicken pox. It attacks liver cells, allowing impurities to filter into the blood. When the infection reaches the brain, it can lead to coma, retardation or death. The 48 cases are two more than the number reported In the first three months of 1974, the previous worst period.

President Carter's green- and-white campaign buttons have become hot items among some Detroit cops. The Detroit Police Officers Association purchased 10,000 buttons and passed them out last week at a DPOA meeting. It's not that the people in blue are Carter boosters; the buttons, which carry only the message "80," are being used to show the cops are thinking tough about the year bargaining starts on their next contract. The button gambit comes while union and city await a court ruling on money matters from the current contract. Towing and tickets are Wayne State University's latest weapons in its never-ending war against illegal parking.

WSU has. bought a $8,542 tow truck that is already on the prowl around the crowded campus. Starting May 1, the school will issue its own parking tickets. If the tickets aren't paid within 30 days, WSU will forward them to the City of Detroit. Given Detroit's poor record in collecting from its thousands of parking ticket scofflaws, WSU parking czar Walter Smith was asked if he expects to do any better.

"No, not really," he said. head. The friends will gather at the Summit Lounge on Michigan Avenue Tuesday from 5 to 7 p.m. for a fund raiser. Robinson was found guilty on March 15 of two counts of fraud in a scheme to swindle a New York company out of $3 million in a Florida land sale.

Compiled by BILL McGRAW.