Ottawa County news. (Port Clinton, Ohio) 1931-1956, 1950-07-14
Three Drown In
Area During Week
(Continued from Page II


born March 6, 1925, in Fort Re-
covery, and was son of Mr.. and
Mrs. Henry Fullenkamp. Not mar
ried, the young man was a radio
engineer for Dayton's station
WING.
Surviving are the parents; one
brother, Julius; and six sisters,
Joanna Murlin, Alice Brokamp,
Henrietta SCHNEIDER, Rita Murlin,
Esther Rauch and Mary Kidwell,
all of Dayton.
browns In River
Morris F. Hildenbrand, a., Bu-
cyrus building contractor and
bulldozer operator, was drowned
Saturday night when small out
board motored boat overturned in
the Portage River, five miles west
of the city.
Hildenbrand's two companions,
Floyd Kibler, 81, and Walter Held,
40, also of Bucyrus, clung to the
overturned boat and were rescued
by John Rogier, Bay township,
who operates a boat livery and
tourist camp.
Deputy Sheriff William Cullen
and Coastguardsmen Hawkins
and SN Robert Evans used grap-
pling hooks early Sunday morn
ing. Hildenbrand's body was re-
covered IL hours after the trag-
edy, when the coastguardsmen
hooked the pants cuff of the river
victim.
DR.. George Poe, county coroner,
was on shore when the body was
recovered. He gave a verdict of
accidental drowning. The body
was brought to Gerner & Wolf
mortuary and later taken to the
Num- Funeral Home in Bucyrus,
where services were held Tuesday
with burial in Oakwood cemetery.
Morris Franklin Hildenbrand
was born Sept. /, 1905, in Bucyrus.
He is survived by his widow and
two children.
Girls Body Found
Dale Collins, an employee at
ROLAND Qualman's Vista Villa,
discovered the body of eleven
year-old Arlene Benko, Toledo,
lying along the beach on the
Harry Stolts property, west of
the summer resort, at 8 o'clock
Tuesday morning.
Arlene was drowned sometime
around 3 o'clock Sunday after
noon. There was no witnesses to
her death and the search for her
body was twice called off due to
confusion as to her possible
whereabouts.
The Toledo girl had come to
Vista Villa with her parents, Mr..
and Mrs. Joseph Benko, and her
two brothers, John, nine, and
Dickie, 10. Three other Benko
children had remained at their
Toledo home.
Arlene was last seen shortly
before 3 o'clock Sunday after
noon when she was playing in
shallow water along the Vista
Villa shore with several other
children.
When the parents discovered Ar
lene was missing, a general alarm
was sounded among the large
crowd of vacationists at Vista
Villa. AS no one was certain Ar
lene had drowned, cottages and
autos were also searched in an at
tempt to find the missing girl.
A beach ball, with which Arlene
had been playing, was found
floating in shallow water. Vaca-
tionists, organized by Deputy
Sheriff Myron Hetrick, Mr.. Quail
man and coastguardsmen, formed
a human chain gang to search the
beach area.
Deputy Sheriffs Clarence Step
hens and Myron Hetrick, along
with the coast guardsmen from
Marblehead, continued the search
until late Monday. They thor
oughly covered the Vista Villa
area, using graphing hooks and
could find no trace of the girl.
Collins used rowboat in his
search Tuesday morning and found
Arlene's body lying face down
! on the beach of the Stoits proper
ty. AS there had been recent
dredging operations there, it was
thought that Arlene had wander
ed away from Vista Villa and
stepped into deep hole.
The body was brought to Ger
ner & Wolf mortuary and later
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