Looking back: Child miraculously survives after catching on fire and 6-year-old drives car
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IDAHO FALLS — EastIdahoNews.com is looking back at what life was like during the week of April 24 to April 30 in east Idaho history.
1900-1925
GROVELAND — A 7-year-old girl was “badly burned” by a spark from a bonfire, the Blackfoot Idaho Republican wrote on April 26, 1907.
The twin daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ernest F. Hale was playing in front of the house while a fire “made of brush” about 50 yards away was burning. A heavy wind was blowing, and a spark from the fire got caught in the girl’s clothing.
“She immediately started for the house, and by the time she reached the back door, her clothes were in flames,” the local paper reported.
She made her way into the house, and her older sisters and father “did everything in their power to pull her clothes off and put the fire out, but not until she was badly burned.”
“The flesh on her back was almost burned to a crisp,” the article noted.
The girl miraculously survived, and a doctor said she had a “good chance to recover.”
1926-1950
ROBERTS — A bone belonging to a prehistoric animal was found near Roberts, The Rigby Star said on April 29, 1937.
Albert Scott, of Lorenzo, discovered the bone when he “brought (it) to the surface” while operating a drag line for a canal 10 miles northwest of Roberts.
“The specimen was part of a leg bone and knee joint, being a foot long, 14 inches around the bone and 22 inches in circumference around the largest part,” the article explained.
Scott told the paper the bone was broken off with the drag line and the other portion was “visible in the soil,” which was “between eight and nine feet below the surface of the ground.”
“The bone, although quite brittle, was in a good state of preservation and was quite heavy,” The Rigby Star said.
1951-1975
PRESTON — A Texas teenager who ran away from home made it to Preston before deciding he wanted to go back home.
The Preston Citizen said in its April 26, 1951, paper that Ernest Lee Eller, 17, was headed from his home in Lubbock, Texas, to California.
“He got to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and then took the wrong road, finally arriving in Preston, broke tired and ready to return home,” the article reads.
The local sheriff’s office and police helped get in contact with Eller’s parents, who “wired him enough money to return home.”
1976-2000
POCATELLO — A six-year-old boy got inside a parked car in front of his house, started it up and took it for a drive, according to the Idaho State Journal.
The article, dated April 24, 1977, said the child “backed it up the street and rammed a house.”
Witnesses told the Journal the boy drove the car backward, was going north in the street’s southbound lane and another witnesses claimed the boy passed three cars headed in the same direction.
Witnesses said the car then “sheared off a porch” on a house before coming to a stop in a front yard.
The boy was taken to St. Anthony Community Hospital and was released.