The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1935-08-23
WILL ROGERS BODY
LIES In STONE CRYPT

alF WHeH IHe small group OF
mourners filed out.
Attendants lifted the unosten-
tatious casket in which Law the
broken remains of the actor killed
week ago in ali air crash in AL
aska and carried it to the receiv-
ing vault behind the altar where
it will rest in an oblong niche I'M
til Mrs. Rogers decides when it
will be shipped back to Oklahoma.
Actors and friends of the hui
morist were weeping silently as
they passed out of the chapel. Bill
Hart, two-gun cowboy of silent
films, stood for several minutes
outside the chapel, his face COW
cred with tears.
Others most deeply affected
1were Billy Burke, widow of Flo
REM Ziegfeld, who was buried
from the same chapel, and Doro-
thy Stone, dancing daughter of
Fred Stone, famed comedian and
close friend of Rogers.
The widow, Betty Blake Rogers,
was near collapse. She passed to
her automobile through a double
Gordon of police and was assisted
by her sons, Will, Jr., and Jim.
Surprisingly enough, most of
those who attended the funeral
held up we'll until Boles started
singing. This was Rogers favor
tie song and as Boles went through
| it sniffles could be heard from the
private room occupied by the fam
7 lily and from points throughout the
chapel.
g.. Actors, motion picture magnates
and old friends were present IN
the tiny chapel. Flowers, from ad-
mirers throughout the country,
made a virtual flower bier of the
church, set in a cleft in a grass
covered slope.
They came from those who knew
him and those who didn't-frola
actors, cowboys and stable hands
And while the widow, her chill
dren and members of the family
sat in the chapel, services were
being held in Hollywood Bowl, in
Beverly Hills, in San Diego's Cali
fornia-Pacific international Expo
sition.
More than 100000 persons paid
an active tribute to the genial
homespun cowhand who rose to be
Americas most widely loved pri-
vate citizen and the foremost hui
morist since Mark Twain.
Prior to the funeral, the body
| lay in state while more than 3d.
600 persons walked past in
roped lane, to view the flower
banked casket.
I For five hours a solid line filed
past he plain bronze casket.
There were 1925 of them
children and old men, plump, per-
spring women with babes in arms
and silent girls.
Many of the actors cowboy
friends were in the crowd. An old
veteran lifted a gnarled hand in
salute and tossed leather lariat,
| entwined with desert flowers, on
the grass in front of the coffin
Many were angry at refusal to
open the casket. Colonel "ldaao
Bill' Pierson, veteran plalnSman
who rode with Rogers % years
ago when the cowboy-actor won
i"Idaho Bill's" rodeO at Dewey
, Okla, shook his fist at the guards
when he found the casket was
shut.
| Never in Hollywood's history
where the great and widely known
have been honored lavishly IN
death, has there been such a pa
rade from all walks of life as thf.'
which plodded past the bier OF Vhe
cowboy-philosopher.
/ When the tall wrought IRON
| gates of the cemetery opened at
dawn, there was mile-long me
stretched down from the Slopi"s
hill. .o
Bv 10 a. m. it stretched two
miles. A blistering sun beat down
on the sweltering line.
The curious, the worshlpperS
and the old friends Of the ACTOR
were moved through in double
quick time, and within an hour
1.-The congestion had cleared.
Uniformed soldiers, cadets ara
non commissioned army mes
lfrom March Field stood ~a'eh
over the coffin, which rested OIL "
slight rise, under a clump OF pine
land olive trees. H..
| An announcement of the fanny
Explained the closing OF the c"a,
lket. Rogers during his hfeIinie
had expressed "a desire that h'-
body see him dead"
! DR.. ]. Whitcomb BrOugher' DAP
Itist pastor who had known the az
tor for years and was sumlhonSu
from an evangelical tour TO c 10
duct the services, delivered '"'
eulogy. liza #
He spoke of Rogers as ohe w
the greatest men America mas eva wa
produced-measured' by any o''o
of half dozen standards. lam
"He was pure in mind and ci s"iI
in thought like a rubber U
bounding on a clean wall, ne .m nd,J
his thoughts and they rebou"u
l,uithnnnt taint or soil