Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-07-06
Can't Help
Being Altman !
SeiSn09raph

rUCKED away in the bound solitude of the Hun
garian countryside little of Perbal is as far
! away from the bood-and thunder upheaval of the
present it possible for place in Europe to be-
ON an outlying Louis Kiss blacksmith, and his
family might about world gone crazy,
not for his ten-yearold daughter Esther, who
terrible at the instant they happen long
before radio brings any of them to the peaceful farm
disturb the law-abiding inhabitants
Esther Kiss that unique phenomenon human
seismograph She is sensitive to oscillations as that
delicate scientific which registers distant earth
quakes.
And SO far as is known scientists before
heard of anyone who is human scismograph"
Esther KISS abnormal sensitiveness to oscillations
revealed itself when she was but few months Old The
strong and weldeveoped baby began to
howl whenever her father working his smithy struck
the anvil with his hammer Esthers mother thought her
startled by the noise she carried her to her
EraUmUttcrs hottse,faf fFeHfthe erlSshnp Ahere no
hammerng could be heard But there Esther began
every time the work started in the smthy be-
she physically distressed by the shaking blows
her fathers big hammer.
Later she no longer screamed but continued to feel
the reperclssions several miles away She would
shudder and when anyone in the neighborhood
dropped slammed door, If she could not
hear the sound When some felled at neigh
boring farm miles away, Esther had violent pains all
over body and looked If she had been through a
all due to her amazing constituencies
one day when Esther seven, she was racked by
commissions screamed and fell into dead faint When
recovered told how she had had terrible pains I'm
her she put it, and had felt the
whole earth begin to family didn't know what to
make II. Next day news that at the precise
Esther had her attack explosion and land
wrecked coal mine 80 miles away and it was
OF the catastrophes in local history.
After this doctors studied Esthers condition. but they
could only discover child abnomay sensitive
oscillations without having particularly keen hearing
Living the remote farm she not often subjected to
shocks. Her system gradually grew
custoned to every day at the
farm Her parents placed her thick of
tires she always thick rubber-soed shoes
developed fairly well and the doctors thought she
would outgrow her strange sensitiveness.
Then the war broke out the bhtzkreg Poland began
and Eshers condition rapidly worse She had fire.
quen attacks which upset the family and all the neigh
bors who did not know how 20 help her
such times" the child said Il terrible things
Sometimes huge blocks flying about in the
and when they collide everything trenbes Mountains
drop from the and driven deep into the soil"
the doctors persuaded Esther TO draw what she
saw during these attacks sketches
tumble that might have been the work of cubist artist
one day last Fall however Esther had her worst fit The
doctor from Perbal soothed
child with hypodermcs When she at last lay in bed
calm the asked her what she
had seen Hastily Esther skctched looked like tall
lettering buildings with tiers upon tiers OF windows all
awry vision of city crumbling into ruins.
This must have happened somewhere" said little
Esther who has never city or building taller than
The doctor placed map Europe before the child and
asked her 10 show him the place where the catastrophe
must have happened Without an nstants hesitation she
pointed 10 Bucharest
Next morning the radio announced that Bucharest
had indeed ny earthquake ever
experienced in Rumana instruments all the
Institutes Europe registered the shock,
being could feel II at distance Of hundreds of
except Esther Kiss the human sesmograph" who by
getting quite reputation.
During the last few months Esther seldom has had
attacks but she is always suffering from
has fits OF trembling and talks of her visions of burning
houses bursting fire" Her father keep
Of such attacks and carefully check them
against bulletins Invariably Esthers seizures coin
eide with a particularly violent air raid which
may not reach the lonely farm for days weeks
afterwards.
number Of doctors and ncuroogiss have examined
Esther them think that with care plenty Of rest
improvcmentsof her general condition she may grow
out Of IT," but Of them figure ont why she
sensitive.