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Looking back: Preston man signs professional football contract and men drive off with loaded school bus

J. C. Gaskill opened Burley Realty and Abstract in 1905. S. H. Kunau joined him in the early 1920s. They operated their business as Burley Realty and Abstract and Cassia County Abstract. The employees pictured here are unidentified. | Courtesy photo
IDAHO FALLS — EastIdahoNews.com is looking back at what life was like during the week of Feb. 21 to Feb. 27 in east Idaho history.
1900-1925
BLACKFOOT – A local community was mourning the death of a young girl, the Blackfoot Idaho Republican said on Feb. 23, 1917.
Emma Mulville, 14, died in her sleep. Her mother woke up between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. on Feb. 22 to “cover up the little girl, who was sleeping with her, and became alarmed at her coldness.” A doctor was called to the home but “no efforts could revive the girl’s ebbing life.”
“Emma was seemingly in the bloom of health and youth, always lively and happy and always busy at her music or school studies,” the local paper mentioned. “(Her death) came as a painful blow to the community, reminding all of the blind picking and choosing of mysterious death.”
It was determined that heart failure was the cause of her death.
“If any words could help console the stricken family, they must be the assurances that their grief is shared by all members of the community, whether strangers or friends, who had known the little girl with the curls, and felt in her presence the contagious, warm cheer of her amiable youthfulness.”
1926-1950
PRESTON — A former Preston High School football player signed a professional football contract, The Preston Citizen announced on Feb. 27, 1947.
Marcel Chatterton signed a two-year contract to play professional football beginning the next fall with the Chicago Bears. The article said he was “one of the most outstanding gridders and all-around athletes ever to come out of this county.”
He was first contacted by the Bears in 1943 after a successful season with Colorado College as a marine trainee. Chatterton played on the Fort Pierce Florida Navy “Amphibs” and Brigham Young University football team.
“His contract (with the Bears) calls for $5,000 a year plus bonuses, together with a year-round job if he wants it,” The Preston Citizen explained. “He plans, however, to enroll at Northwestern University in the fall and work towards his master’s degree in the field of business administration. He reports to Chicago for early drills in August.”
1951-1975
RIRIE — Two men got into a school bus loaded with children and drove off, The Rigby Star reported on Feb. 26, 1953.
The bus was parked in front of the Ririe school building while the bus driver was inside the school building. The men got into the bus and drove it down one of the alleys and struck a garbage can.
“At this point, with the children screaming, the self-appointed drivers thought it was time to leave; stopping the bus and made their getaway,” the article states.
The paper continued, “In the meantime, the regular driver of the bus came out of the school building and could hardly believe his eyes when he noted the busload of children, which he had left a few moments before, had vanished.”
The bus was located undamaged and no children were injured. Tudor Bill Laughlin, 19, and Donald James, 19, were charged with driving off with the bus.
1976-2000
AMERICAN FALLS — A farmer pleaded guilty to helping an illegal alien, the Idaho State Journal said on Feb. 24, 1976.
Melvin Funk, 35, an American Falls farmer, and Angela Webster Quinn, 27, of American Falls, both plead guilty in U.S. District Court to “aiding, counseling and abetting a Mexican national once employed on Funk’s farm to violate U.S. immigration laws.” The charges were misdemeanors.
Both defendants admitted to the judge that on July 24, 1972, Quinn (then Angela Webster) married Honorio Gonzalez so he could remain in the U.S. and work on Funk’s farm.
“Funk told the judge he farms 9,000 acres between Aberdeen and American Falls and Gonzalez proved to be a good worker,” the Idaho State Journal said.
Funk testified he observed Gonzalez talking with Quinn in an American Falls lounge and “arrangements were made” for the marriage.
In Quinn’s testimony to the judge, she claimed she was paid $1,000 for marrying Gonzalez in Pocatello. She said she “neither lived nor cohabited” with Gonzalez, and that in February 1973, she asked for a divorce.
Funk and Quinn had been scheduled for trial on grand jury indictments charging conspiracy to violate immigration laws. The indictments were to be dismissed as a consequence of their guilty pleas to the lesser charges, the paper said.
“Assistant U.S. Attorney Wilbur Nelson told the court the reduced charges resulted from negotiations with the defendants and their three attorneys,” the Idaho State Journal reported.
The post Looking back: Preston man signs professional football contract and men drive off with loaded school bus appeared first on East Idaho News.
Source: eastidahonews.com

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