Discoveries Down The Rabbit Hole

Anyone else who does much online research will tell you that it’s very easy to find yourself going down a rabbit hole that you never intended to. It can be a waste of time, but it can also be fascinating. You just never know what you’re going to discover along the way.

While doing research for my current work-in-progress, Baby Boom, the seventh book in my Tinder Street family saga, I’ve come across many oddball stories and a few that make you scratch your head and say, “Really?” Here are two examples of discoveries from down the rabbit hole from the year 1949 alone.

On February 22nd, a Hereford cow named Grady somehow managed to squeeze through a narrow opening into a silo on a farm in Yukon, Oklahoma, where she promptly got stuck. What might seem to be no more than a footnote in agricultural history became a nationwide news story as efforts continued for five days to free the hapless bovine. Newspapers, radio, and even Life magazine covered the story.

Grady was finally rescued after someone came up with the idea of building a ramp from the silo, then cutting a hole from the ramp through the side. Then the cow was sedated, and axle grease was slathered across her body and around the opening. Hard-working volunteers from inside the silo and outside pushed and pulled until she finally popped free.

Grady became a local celebrity, with a sign erected on Route 66 denoting the farm where she lived. She even became the subject of a children’s book, Grady’s in the Silo. Seemingly unaware of her fame, Grady continued to live out her life on the farm, grazing and probably wondering why so many people slowed down to see her as they drove past.

The second story is not as charming. In fact, it’s rather grim. On September 5th of 1949, a mentally disturbed World War II veteran named Howard Unruh went on a shooting spree in his close-knit neighborhood in Camden, New Jersey. Some of his victims were neighbors whom he felt had wronged him in some way, and others were random people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. By the time the smoke cleared, Unruh had killed thirteen people and wounded three others. It was America’s first single-episode mass murder.

Three of Unruh’s victims were neighbors Maurice Cohen, a pharmacist, his wife, Rose, and his 63-year-old mother, Minnie. They had sought refuge in their apartment upstairs from the pharmacy, and when the gunman burst through the door he shot Minnie, who was trying to call the police for help. Rose and the couple’s 12-year-old son, Charles, hid in two closets. Unruh found Rose and murdered her, then followed Cohen out onto an upstairs porch where he shot him. The pharmacist fell to the ground, dead. Fortunately, the killer did not find young Charles, who survived the attack unharmed physically. He went on to live a full life, passing away in 2009 at the age of 72.

But here’s where the rabbit hole part of the story comes in. Nearly 70 years later, on February 14,

2018, Charles Cohen’s granddaughter, Carly Novell, then age twelve, survived the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the same way her grandfather had escaped death so long ago when he was the same age, by hiding in a closet at the school. Seventeen others were not so lucky and were killed, along with another seventeen wounded in the tragic incident. What are the odds that two relatives, three generations apart, would find themselves in the same perilous situation, and escape death in the same way, at the same age?

Today is your last chance to enter our Free Drawing for a book from my personal library, The Search for Anne Perry: The Hidden Life of a Bestselling Crime Writer. It’s a true story based on a famous 1950’s murder of a woman in New Zealand committed by two teenage girls, one of whom was the victim’s daughter. After serving a five year sentence for the murder, one of the girls eventually remade herself as bestselling crime writer Anne Perry. It’s an engrossing book about crime, punishment, and redemption that I am sure you will enjoy.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn this evening. Note: Due to the high cost of shipping printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 30 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – Money doesn’t buy class.