Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 52

--V i The Back Page Oiio Governor Sivipes Our Christmas Present 1 wwmm With the first floor of the home already gutted, flames shoot from a second-story window. The mother of the children, who was injured jumping from a window, is carried on a stretcher on the way to Holy Cross Hospital. QUESTIONS ANSWERS as the Innerman and the Outerman hold their annual pre-Yuletide conference, with Santa Claus serving as moderator Well, I see where the Ford Motor Co. is going to build its new $500-million transmission plant near Cincinnati, rather than in Wayne County as anticipated. Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas, and all of that balderdash, wouldn't you say? AThat's Jimmy Rhodes for you.

As the fellow said, "He would steal Christ off the cross and then go back after the nails." Walt a minute! Who is Jimmy Rhodes and how did he get Into this conversation? AYou either have to be kidding or your memory is getting shorter than twilight in Livingston County. On and off, but mostly on, Jimmy Rhodes has been governor of the great and noble state of Ohio since shortly after the battle of Fallen Timbers. Despite his tenure, strangers are apt to look at him, or listen to him, and come to the immediate conclusion that he was looking out the window when at her Sees Fire Kill His 5 Child ren smarts were passed out. Later, when they count their toes and find only four on each foot, it dawns on them that they misjudged the man. If there is anything loose around the country that Ohio can use, you can bet the egg money that Mr.

Rhodes will be circling around, trying to figure out some way of getting a grip on it. I attempted to warn you about him late last spring BY WILLIAM HART Fre Press Staff Writer Five children, ages one to six, burned to death in a Monday morning fire that raged through their north Detroit home while their father stood outside helpless, listening to their screams. The father, Council Graham, 26, and his wife, Victoria, 24, leaped out a second-story window to escape the flames that destroyed their home at 215 E. Margaret. Mrs.

Graham was taken to Holy Cross Hospital for minor injuries suffered in the fall. But the intense heat and smoke of the fire, which investigators think one of the children may have started in the living room, thwarted repeated efforts by Graham, neighbors and firemen to re-enter the house. THE DEAD CHILDREN were John, David, Kimberly, Michelle, and Walter, 1. The two oldest attended Greenfield Park Elemen tary School. "There was only a few seconds of time," said a sobbing disheveled Graham, who works at the Chevrolet gear and axle plant on Holbrook.

He told police he was awakened in his second-floor bedrooom just after 8 a.m. by the heat of the blaze and ran into the hall, where he was met by a wall of flames shooting up the stairs. "When I got out, I ran around the back where the TV room was," he said. "I figured if they was there I could get them out. I busted the window, but there was too much smoke.

"I could hear one-of them moaning and groaning back there," he said. "I couldn't get in." Officials said three of the children's bodies were found huddled together in the corner of the TV room. Another child's body was found in the downstairs hall, and the fifth was in the parents' upstairs bedroom. Detroit Fire Department officials said they believe the fire may have been started on a living room couch by one of the four children whose bodies were found on the first floor. Earlier speculation had centered on the Grahams' Christmas tree, which Graham said had been standing in the living room for at least two weeks.

Neighbors said the house was heavily decorated with Christmas lighting. But arson investigator Lt. Conrad Bist said the tree was unplugged when the fire occurred. He added that a melted pot found on the kitchen stove led him to suspect that one of the children lit the stove and somehow took flame from the burners into the living room. Graham told officials at the scene that last week one of the children had been playing with fire.

His wife had found a burnt spot in the upstairs carpet which he said was caused by a small fire started by one of the children. "None of the kids owned up to doing it," he said. 4. He also said that either he or his wife normally get up to help send their two oldest children to school, but they had decided not to send John and David to classes Monday because the family had stayed out late Sunday night at a church Christmas party. The Fire Department received a call at 8:38 a.m.

and sent a ladder truck, three engine-pumpers and a squad truck to the scene. Executive Chief Theodore Phillips said the structure of frame, brick and aluminum siding was "totally involved, top to bottom," when fire fighters arrived. Neighbors said the bottom floor of the four-bedroom house was already engulfed in flames when they were drawn from their homes by shouts from Graham, who had jumped into the front yard clad only in his undershorts. Lloyd Hines, 40, whose home next door was partly blackened by the flames, said: "I heard him (Graham) shouting and came out. I yelled at him, 'Where are your and he said they were still inside.

"I got a shovel and knocked out a back window," Hines said, "and stuck the handle in so maybe one of the kids could grab it. There was so much smoke you couldn't see nothing. You could just hear them hollering and crying." The interior of the house was gutted by the fire, which one fireman said may have been "vented" and thus intensified when the Grahams broke the upstairs window to escape. "There was nothing we could do," said Walter Wilson, father of Mrs. Graham and grandfather of the children.

Wilson, alerted by a neighbor's call, had driven to the scene but remained in his car, shaking his head slowly and "watching my children die." He sat in the car as Wayne County Medical Examiner personnel carried the children in covered stretchers out through the home's small backyard, stepping carefully among the rubble of blackened boards and furniture and scattered toys. "The ones that saw this know there are five little bodies in there," Wilson said. "It ought to make them think about their own kids." Free Press Photos By Ira Rosenberg i is I 1 "A ti I hi when I gave him the first Annual 01 Curmudgeon's Award for Meritorious Service he had tried to sweet-talk Canada out of six or seven zillion cubic feet of natural gas but as usual you weren't listening. Now he has moved into your baliwick and pinched the shirt off your back. We are told by news accounts that Ohio officials made 40 trips to Michigan during the last 90 days of negotiations, with Mr.

Rhodes and Henry Ford II amazing one another in person early in November. Then he returned to Columbus and worked a bit of magic on real estate taxes and what the state could do in the way of land preparation, freeway approaches and a few other trivial matters, and presto! there went "our" $500-million transmission plant. All right. So Jimmy Rhodes pulled our rabbit out of his bat. So what was our governor doing all of the time? A Perhaps he was counting the waves on Traverse Bay "they love me, they love me not." Mr.

Milliken still must decide whether he is going to favor us with another term in office, and meanwhile he is in the languids, which are just north of the doldrums. Leastwise, when asked about the heist pulled off by James Rhodes and Associates, Mr. Milliken replied that there will be other plants built before doomsday, or whenever. "We fully expect that Michigan will receive its full share of the new jobs that these investments represent," he said. Have you ever had the feeling that just once you would like to stand up and cheer as Sweet Willyum Milliken kicked an opponent in the shins and then clouted him over the head with a bar stool? Mister Nicely-Nicely tome on, now.

Just because we have lost another plant to Ohio is no reason why our governor should start acting like a plug-ugly. Weren't you breaking bread the other day at the Press Club with Sonny Eliot, the celebrated weather prognosticator? What was that all about? A Mr. Eliot was trying to tell me about the new system which permits forecasting 10 days in advance, but I just kept going like Santa Ho! Ho!" That wasn't very nice of you, was it? A Nicely-nicely, again. When Mr. Eliot can tell me with certainty on Tuesday what is going to happen on Wednesday, then perhaps it will be time to pay heed when he takes a flyer on a week from Friday.

Ten days, indeed. Weather forecasting is an hourly science, and that's stretching it. Besides, out in Howell our weather is more Lansing-like than Detroit-like, so if it weren't for Mr. Eliot's hilarious stories we would prefer to watch a TV-girl with pretty knees. I thought knees were out of style.

Aren't they? A Not in Howell, they aren't. Out here we still cling to some of the old virtues, with knees high on the list. Fancy that. Santa Claus, do you have anything to say before we run out of space? A That Jimmy Rhodes of Ohio sounds like a real hustler. We're needing some new toy factories up North, and I think I'll go ask him if he knows where we can rip off a couple 4s 'fM ss- it A Neighbors watch in anguish as firemen batlle the blaze at the Graham home names faces rs.

Abzug Tries for House Seat Again BELLA ABZUG has decided to try her hand at congressional politics again. The former congresswoman and outspoken women's rights advocate said Monday that she'll seek the Democratic nomination for the seat being vacated at the end of the year by Rep. Edward Koch, New York City's mayor-elect. Mrs. Abzug gave up her seat last year to run for the U.S.

Senate, but she was defeated in the Democratic primary by Daniel P. Moyni-han. She also ran for New York City mayor this year, but finished fourth in a field of seven in the September primary. Mrs. Abzug, who recently chaired the National Women's Conference in Houston, had represented part of the west side of Manhattan in the U.S.

mil i I 4 tT I I that God can give hope to the alcoholic. For one thing, the Bible says, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." The battle is not an easy one. But Christ can begin to transform a person into a new creature, and minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day he can give a person the strength to resist the hold alcohol has on him. QUESTION I used to work in a hospital for alcoholics. I know people say alcoholics can be cured, but I became very cynical about this.

Do you really think there is any hope for alcoholics? A.N.M. ANSWER I read recently that alcoholism is currently the third greatest health problem in the United States. This problem has reached epidemic proportions, and it would be easy to be cynical. However, I am convinced -t jf- 4 1 ml 1" 4 House. This time she'll try for the seat that represents the east side.

FREDDIE LAKER's cheap trans-Atlantic flights have become a popular mode of travel between the U.S. and England maybe too popular. Over the weekend, police were called in to control a crowd of Christmas travelers who became unruly when officials announced that the $104 Skytrain flight from London to New York was sold out. All but 50 seats of the 345-seat flight had been sold at another Skytrain station, and when the remaining seats were gone, the more than 200 travelers who had waited in line all night at Victoria Station began shoving the ticket sellers and pounding on office windows. "I thought we were all going to be lynched," one worker said.

NELSON RIDDLE, an Oscar winner himself, wUl be music director for the golden anniversary show of the Academy Awards next April 3. The composer won an Oscar in 1974 for the music in the movie "The Great Gatsby" and has been a five-time nominee. DAVID FROST'S weekly interview show for NBC-TV is scheduled to be used as a summer replacement series. The show will be called "David Frost's Special People." MARGARET TRUDEAU says that sometimes she thinks there is every chance she'll reconcile with her estranged husband, Pierre. The couple have never discussed divorce, Mrs.

Trudeau told People magazine. But she admits that the split-up after six years of marriage was a relief for her. "Politics is an ugly and thankless role," she said. "What I did was never really appreciated No matter how many limousines, maids and houses, they can't make up for a woman's own lack of identity. I can't be a rose in any man's lapel." And Canada's prime minister? "Pierre was furious about the public disgrace and humiliation I caused him.

If I had gone more gracefully, he would have been more forgiving." THE GHOUL (Ron Sweed) is moving to Detroit's WGPR-TV, Channel 62, starting at 8:30 p.m. Jan. 6. His weekly show's regular starting time will be 8 p.m. Until a month ago, The Ghoul was ghouling at WXON-TV, Channel 20.

SCOUT FINCH'S perceptive storytelling about life and racial tension in a small Alabama town in the 1930s was good enough to help her creator, Harper Lee, win a Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and place Miss Lee's book on the required reading list for many high school English courses. But the parents in Eden Valley, didn't like the cursing in "To Kill a had the school board ban it from literature classes. Last week the board reversed itself after hearing from parents who liked the book. Boo Radley might have had something good to say about that. JAMES DEAN, killed in a car accident 22 years ago, has a new memorial erected in his name near Cholame, Calif.

The $15,000 memorial, built by a wealthy Japanese businessman who said he was a Dean admirer, is about a mile from where the actor was killed in 1955 on his way to an auto race. Dean, a symbol of rebellion in the 1950s, had made only three movies before he died at age 24. RUDOLF HESS, the ailing deputy of Adolf Hitler, celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary a day early Monday at West Berlin's Spandau Prison, ilse Hess, 77, came to visit her 83-year-old husband early to avoid publicity. Hess, the last Nazi Germany leader still imprisoned, is the sole inmate at Spandau. CORNELIA WALLACE'S plea for temporary alimony from her estranged husband, Alabama Gov.

George Wallace, has been rejected. A Circuit Court judge in Montgomery ruled Monday that her request was "neither necessary nor appropriate." Mrs. Wallace claimed she was penniless and had no money for Christmas. The judge said the question of support should not be taken up until the divorce case begins Jan. 4.

PAUL KRASSNER has been named the new publisher of Hustler magazine by publisher Larry Flynt, now a born-again Christian. Kras-sner, 45, the former publisher of Realist magazine and author of a Lenny Bruce biography, said he plans to completely revamp the personality of the magazine, as Flynt has said he wants done. The three-million-circulation magazine will display sexuality in an erotic rather than raunchy manner. Krassner said. Reports of the appointment didn't say what Flynt would be doing.

Ji lyrj jr 1 hi; I AP Photo Jordan Mrs. Ghorbal Diplomatic Snafu? Top White House aide Hamilton Jordan reportedly made an offensive remark at a recent dinner party that Barbara Walters gave so the ambassadors of Israel and Egypt could meet informally. According to one of the guests, Jordan sat down next to the wife of Egyptian Ambassador Ashraf Ghorbal, looked at her bosom, reach to pull at her elastic bodice and said something about "always wanting to see the twin pyramids of the Nile." Other guests, including former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, say they recall no such remark. The ambassador said his wife "doesn't remember anything of the sort." Press secretary Jody Powell, speaking for Jordan, denied that he made the remarks, which were published in Washington i ii QUEEN ELIZABETH (right) and her sister, Princess Margaret, provided a view of their royal prof iles as they chatted recently at Ascot in England. Their mother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, also came to the track to watch her horse.

"LORETTA AND I ARE HAVING AN OLP-FASHIONED CHRISTMAS. I'M NOT LETTING HER CHARGE ANYTHING ni mm Ii Jmum.m mm mjm i i -i r. --i r-ii.