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      Families Of Ship Disaster
      Victims Not Forgotten At Yule,
      
       Gifts, Clothing, Cash Pour In For Widows,
       Children of Crew Lost In Lake Michigan
       
      ROGERS CITY, Mich., Dec. 26 (AP) - Christmas for
   the families of the men lost with the Great Lakes
   freighter Carl D. Bradley was as happy as friends
   could make it.
      "Nothing was lacking," said Mrs. Melville Orr,
   one of 33 women widowed when the big vessel broke
   apart in a Lake Michigan storm last month and left
   some 50 children fatherless.  "Most of the youngsters
   probably had a bigger Christmas than they ever had
   in their lives."
      Mayor Kenneth Vogelheim described the day as
   unbelievable.
      Not a child was forgotten.  It took weeks of 
   preparation to insure that everything would be
   just right.
      Toni Budnick, 2, got a toy chicken. . . Gary
   Orr, 10, played with a machine gun. . . Michael
   Kowalski, 6, crawled across a carpet pushing a
   toy army truck. . . Kathryn Krawczak, 4, fondled
   a new doll. . . there was everything in the way
   of toys that a child could ask.
   
      Outfits For Every Child
      "Christmas was wonderful under the circumstances,"
   said John Blasky, a bank president and member of a
   committee administering a disaster fund for the families..
      A firm in Grand Rapids that asked to be kept anonymous
   sent boxes of clothing.  Another company sent enough to
   outfit every child.
      "Gifts of toys came in by busloads and truckloads,"
   Mr. Blasky said.  "The children had two or three times
   as many gifts as they could carry and still some boxes
   had to be stored away for other parties."
      The chamber of commerce at nearby Little Posen sent
   two huge baskets of food to every family.  Each got a
   turkey plus traditional trimmings.
   
      Fund Sends Checks
      The Presque Isle County health and welfare fund
   sent checks of $5 per child and $10 per widow.
      And the Bradley ship disaster children's fund,
   sponsored by the Detroit Times, arranged for group
   hospital and medical protection to be paid by the
   fund which now stands at $120,000.
      Only two men out of a crew of 35 survived the
   disaster when the Bradley went down Nov. 18.
   Twenty-three of the crewmen were from Rogers City,
   a town of 3,873 high on Lake Huron whose livelihood
   comes from its ships and the limestone they haul
   from its quarries to steel mill furnaces that glow
   like its Christmas spirit the year around.
               "The Toledo Blade"
                   December 26, 1958
                   
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