Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1901-06-24

Youthful Life-savers.
In paper in the st. Nicholas. on
"Life-Sayers. Old and Young" Gustav
Kobbe tells of the remarkable doings
Of half dozen young boys and girls.
Among those not connected with the
Government service who have received
medals for saving or aiding to save
life are number much younger than
the average age of this student crew.
One of the first girls thus honored was
Edith Morgan of Hamlin, Michigan, who
endeavored with her father and broth
ers to row in northerly gale and
heavy sea to a vessel capsized three
miles out. When the boat was forced
back, Edith aided in clearing a track
through the logs and driftwood for the
surf-boat, which had meanwhile been
summoned, and also helped launch the
boat. On previous occasion she had
stood in snow six hours helping the
life-savers work the whip-line of the
beach apparatus.
Edith Clarke, when 16 years old, and
pupil in a convent of Oakland. Cali
fornia, plunged into Lake Chabot to
rescue a companion who in wading on
the treacherous margin, had disap-
peared in GO feet of water. Edith
seized the unconscious girl. and keep
ing her head above water with one
arm, padded with the other, and trod
water until boat came to the rescue.
Marie ID. Parsons of Fireplace, Long
Island, New York, was only 10 years
old when, seeing man and a child
swept off a pleasure-boat by the boom,
and observing that the child clung to
the man so that the latter could make
no headway she sprang into a small
boat and reached the spot just in time
TO save these two lives.
Maud King. when only 13 years old,
saved three lives off Castle Pickney,
the lighthouse depot in Charleston har-
Dor. At the time there was south
west gale and heavy sea- In a fu-
rious squall, which added impetus to
the gale, yawl containing three men
and a boy was capsized. The
boy managed to swim ashore;
but the two men got only as
far as the piles of the wharf.
There they hung, too exhausted to
climb up, while the third man, unable
to SWIM clung to the yawl Maud,
Notwithstanding her mothers protests,
prepared unaided to launch q small
boat in the boisterous sea. But she
was Joined by her aunt, Mrs. Mary
Whiteley, and, together, this brave
girl and her aunt rescued the imperiled
men.
Frederick Kernochan, when only 10
years old, sprang into the Navesink
river and rescued a woman. Henry F.
Page of Schenevus, New York, is also
one of the lads who at 10 years old
have been honored with life-saving
medals. Fully dressed, he plunged in
to mill pond and saved one of his
playmates who had suddenly found
himself in deep water.
William B. Miller, IS years old, of
Elkton, Maryland, showed he had a
cool head as well as brave heart by
the rescue of his companion who had
stepped from shallow water into a
deep hole. When William seized the
drowning lad, the latter began to
struggle, and it was toss-up whether
Williams life would be sacrificed or
not. But, with great adroitness, he,
while swimming, lifted the struggling
boy to treetrunk which protruded
into the river, and thus saved both
his companions life and his own.
When the 20. M. Bond of Oswego
was stranded an eighth of a mile out
! from Rondeau. Ontario, and the crew
was hanging half perished. in the rig
ging, Walter Claus, a lad who lived
upon a farm not far away, made four
trips out to the wreck through the rag
ing sea in a small boat, and by his own
exertions saved the entire crew.
These young rescuers were inspired
by the noble impulse to risk their lives
for the lives of others. Their exploits
awaken not only the gratitude of those
whom they saved, but the admiration
of all to whom knowledge of their he
roism may come. The age of chivalry
has by no means gone by; for what
can be more truly chivalrous than the
deeds of these young heroes and her.
oines of our coast?