The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-12-27
4 Children, Father, Victims of
Pneumonia Are Rescued From
Frigid Home by Kindly Police

THE only social equation Alonzo
a Bolding and his family know
today is this:
If you don't have coal, you have
pneumonia
They didn't have coal yesterday,
nor the day before, and so Alonzo
and four of his children have
pneumonia at City Hospital today.
From their slate-gray home at
927 Church-st. with its patched
windows and its open weather.
boarding. Alonzo and his children
were taken to the hospital last
night. bewildered and sick.
They we're loaded into City
Hospital ambulance by attendants
who shivered in the cold Of the
house. Mrs. Bolding, who is 81,
protested. She insisted the house,
on which they paid no rent and
which they do not own, was their
home and she said, the place for
her children was at home, eSpe-
cially when they needed her care.
But, with authority borrowed
from an outraged sense of social
decency and a dead certainty of
death for the Boldings as an al
tentative, Police Lieut.. Lee Trout
man commanded them to leave.
They'll die if they're left here,
he said. and the woman, whose
husband had had no work for two
years and who could find none for
herself sighed and watched them
go.
They we're Betty Rose, g. who
got for Christmas, from some
agency, two dolls when she needed
warmth; Frances Marie. 8, who is
so frail she never attended school;
Lewis Elmer. II, assigned since
first school days to the fresh air
class; and Louise Violet, who, at
16, knows only the weary round Of
futile job hunting.
n
A Ionic. who is AZ and was
"A too ill to take advantage of
a Civil Works Administration job
last summer, is a carpenter by
trade. He brought his family to
Indianapolis from Bedford, Ind,
two years ago, and for two years
they have lived on the charity of
the Center Township trustee.
If The indianapolis Times
Clothe-A-Child campaign hadn't
provided clothing for the three
younger children they would have
had none, their mother told police.
Christmas Day, Alonzo, weak
and worried, walked more than
D. miles from his home to City
Hospital to get cough medicine
for the ailing children. He had
a premonition, and he knew the
last load of coal, burned rave
nously by a stove that was over
taxed in the shelterelss shelter,
was gone.
Yesterday, he picked up sticks
and bits of coal from streets and
alleys and finally borrowed a
small basketful from a neighbor
who needed it nearly as much
as he did.
That burned an hour, but it
made almost no impression on the
bitter cold of the day which was
surging inside every moment. A
visiting doctor from City Hos
pital called and ordered the chill
dren to bed to keep them warm.
And then at midnight, having
learned of the case through City
Hospital Lieut.. Troutman called
and ordered the ambulance.
Today Mrs. Bolding is staying
at the tumbledown home of her
father. the Rev. Doyle Ratcliff,
who is off downstate trying to
pick up few pennies as a rowing
preacher. The home is at 901 S.
Church where there also is
sickness.
Louis, %, her brother, weighs
less than 100 pounds and has had
no work for three years; Cecil
Grubbs, %, her brother-in-law,
and her sister live there with
their 10-months-old baby.
And they buy food and fuel for
all on the So a week Mr.. Grubbs
makes on a Federal Emergency
Relief Administration project.