THE PLAIN DEALER . SUNDAY, JANUARY 10, 1999 5-D OURCENTURY 1949

ATA GLANCE Topsy-turvy weather marks 1949 Plane crash ends lives, air races It was the wildest weather year - ers could remember, with a green Christmas and a white St. Patrick’s Day. The tempera- ture was 63 on Jan. 18, zero on Jan. 30 and back to 61 on Feb. 15. March saw more than half of the winter’s snowfall, but was above av- erage in temperature. The summer was the hottest on record, with the temperature at or above 90 for 15 straight days in July. August saw a record high of 96 and record-tying lows in the 40s. That was followed by the third- coldest September and the fifth-warmest Oc- tober on record. November was, as The Plain Dealer put it, “warm and snowy” with 14 inches of snow in the last five days of autumn. December was one of the warmest and rain- iest ever. • The coaxial cable carrying television net- work programming from the East Coast reached Cleveland in January, just in time for the lucky handful of set owners to see Presi- dent Harry Truman sworn in for a four-year term. They also could watch Milton Berle on “Texaco Star Theater,” Ed Sullivan’s “Toast of the Town,” Ted Mack’s “Original Amateur Hour,” “Howdy Doody,” “Meet the Press” and “It Pays to Be Ignorant.” When the cable PLAIN DEALER FILE reached Chicago, they could see Dave Garro- way and “Kukla, Fran and Ollie.” Locally, Bob Above, pilot Bill Odom’s body is removed by police and neighbors from the Dale and Linn Sheldon were the big stars, with wreckage of a burned house in Berea on Sept. 5, 1949. The veteran ’round- Dorothy Fuldheim interviewing celebrities the-world flier’s plane went out of control on the second lap of the nightly. Programming didn’t start until late race at Cleveland airport and smashed into the house. At afternoon, but until then, owners of new sets left, part of a radiator from Odom’s plane lies in a side yard of the home stared in fascination at the test pattern. where the plane crashed. “He never cut the throttle or anything,” one • witness said. Television had not yet cut into movie at- tendance. Among features at the 89 neighbor- hood theaters advertising in The Plain Dealer Pilot, mother and child killed in fiery tragedy were Howard Duff in “Calamity Jane” at the Royal on Madison Ave. in Lakewood, Bob Bill Odom, the famous long-distance man pulled him out, burning himself Hope in “Sorrowful Jones” at the Uptown at By Fred McGunagle racer. Odom had never flown a severely. A neighbor rushed them to St. Clair Ave. and E. 105th St., George Raft in closed-course race before Saturday’s Berea Community Hospital. It was an idyllic Labor Day after- “Johnny Allegro” at the Stork on Lorain Ave., Sohio Trophy race, but he won it. His Neighbors came running. “There noon, with the temperature near 80 and Betty Grable in “Beautiful Blonde from plane was owned by Jacqueline Coch- were pieces of wreckage all over, but degrees. Perfect for watching the Na- Bashful Bend” at the Imperial on Kinsman Rd. rane, the pioneering “aviatrix.” nothing big enough to show an air- tional Air Races. Or for cooking out Before the race, she handed him a plane had crashed unless you knew • while switching between the Indians rosary and told him she would say a it,” said one. “There was a man in the and Browns games on the radio. Or, if prayer for him on every lap. yard. He was almost hysterical. He The American Hockey League champion you lived on the west side of Berea, said his wife and son were in there.” Barons were aging. They finished third in the for doing both. The green F-51 Mustang was easily Western Division and were eliminated in the recognized by the barrel-shaped radi- The neighbors ran to the back of But at 429 West St., Bradley Laird’s ators Odom had moved to the wing the house, but it was too hot for them playoffs by their nemesis, the Hershey Bears. family was working to fix up the The Indians didn’t look like last year’s world tips, and fans in the grandstand to go in. They carried out as much brand-new $16,000 ranch home they cheered as he sped by on the second furniture as they could from the champions as they lost 17 of their first 29 had moved into four days earlier. games. After they were shut out in a double- lap. At 4:48 p.m., only 75 feet above front. Laird was washing windows with the the ground, he cut around the second A wheel and a piece of the engine header in Chicago, White Sox General Man- aid of his father-in-law, Benjamin ager Frank Lane sent Bill Veeck the Comiskey pylon north of Bagley Rd. in what was had flown across the street and Hoffman, while occasionally play- then Olmsted Township. lodged on the porch of a house there. Park home plate with a note: “We thought you fully squirting 5-year-old David with might like to know what this looks like.” The But he cut too sharply as he headed Burning fragments went through an the hose. Thirteen-month-old Craig for the third at Sprague and Marks open window and into the living team eventually got as close as second, but fin- was in his playpen in the driveway. ished third, eight games out. Bob Lemon won roads, and he seemed headed inside room, setting it afire. The owner man- 22 games, and left fielder Dale Mitchell batted Jeanne Craig was working in the the pylon. He banked and veered aged to put it out with a garden hose. .317, but the star of the year was a fan, Charley house. Her husband called to her to sharply to the right, but the plane When only nine planes sped past Lupica. On May 31, he climbed a 65-foot flag- come out and see the planes roaring continued to roll over, perhaps be- the airport for the third lap, a mur- past at 400 mph less than 200 feet off pole above his Wade Park Ave. store and cause of the weight of the wingtip ra- mur ran through the grandstand. A Laird in her bathroom. Bradley Laird vowed to stay there until the Indians reached the ground. She said she could see diators. Momentarily, he flew upside distraught Cochrane jumped into a them out the window. was notified at 6 p.m. in the hospital, first place. down. “Then he dived, power on, car to look for Odom. She quickly where he had gone to check on his right into a house,” said a man who He came down after 117 days — at the Sta- The races had been a great success: spotted a plume of smoke rising to the son. Two hours later, the boy died of was watching nearby. “He never cut dium, where Veeck had had his pole trucked 76,000 people at Municipal Airport south. his burns. the throttle or anything.” with Lupica still atop it. Veeck buried the 1948 and an estimated 150,000 more The Berea and Olmsted Falls fire “The world ended for me with that pennant beneath the Stadium home plate. parked for miles around had been Bradley Laird never heard the departments finally put the fire out, crash,” Laird said over and over the Then he buried an era: He sold the team to a thrilled by stunt pilots, helicopter plane that hit at 333 mph. “I just felt a hampered by the heat and by the next day. “We were all wrapped up in syndicate headed by Ellis Ryan. aerobatics, parachutists and midget terrific explosion and saw a sheet of thousands of spectators who gath- our new place. Jeanne was such a racers. Now, at 4:40 p.m., came the flame whip off the roof,” he said later. ered. Souvenir hunters picked up good mother. We were so completely At least Cleveland still had one winner: the main event. Ten planes roared off in “I was stunned, but I dashed into the pieces of wreckage, which littered the happy. Why did this awful thing have Browns ran their victory string to 29 before pursuit of the Thompson Trophy and house calling Jeanne’s name.” street. By then, the planes no longer to happen?” losing to the San Francisco 49ers in midsea- $40,000 in prizes. The fire drove him back. Flaming were roaring overhead; Cleland had son. But attendance was down. Only 17,000 That’s what the whole community Co-favorites were Clevelander gasoline had showered the baby’s won the race. was asking. The suburbs over which saw the Browns beat the Buffalo Bills 31-21 in Cook Cleland, the 1948 winner, and crib, setting his clothes afire. Hoff- Firemen found the body of Jeanne the first round of the playoffs. Five days later, the planes flew — where, before the the National Football League and the All war, farmers charged a dime to park America Conference announced they would in their fields — now were filled with merge in 1950, with the Browns, 49ers and subdivisions. In the 1947 Thompson Baltimore Colts joining the NFL; the other race, a woman in Brook Park had four AAC teams folded. Two days later, the been injured by a cockpit cover when Browns beat the 49ers, 21-7, for their fourth ti- a pilot bailed out. tle in the four years the AAC existed. But they The Berea Progressive Citizens drew only 22,000; 30,000 had seen St. Ignatius League began circulating petitions to defeat East Tech, 13-0, in The Plain Dealer ban air races. “The citizens of Berea Charity Game. don’t want these flying hot rods over- head,” said its chairman. Since 1929, 12 of the 15 National Air Races had been held in Cleveland (there were no races during the war). They were a major tourist attraction. But the handwriting was on the wall, even before Berea and nearby sub- urbs passed ordinances banning above their communities. The national committee decided to skip the 1950 races. Between 1951 and 1963, there were air shows with races in several different cities. Be- ginning in 1964, the annual Cleveland Air Show brought the latest in avia- tion to Burke Lakefront Airport — but without pylon racing. Bill Odom’s body was found be- neath the concrete floor of the Laird house, where the crash had driven it. He had wiped out himself, a young mother, a baby and Cleveland’s air PLAIN DEALER FILE races. The Laird family home burns as neighbors and others try to save items inside the home after pilot Bill Odom McGunagle is a Cleveland free- crashed during the National Air Races. lance writer.

LOOKINGATAYEAR

Jan. 22: Communist forces seize tops the list at $467,361. staunch critic of the Nazi regime, is China and appoint Chou En-lai to control of Peking from troops loyal to March 2: An American B-50 chosen to head the Federal Republic head a new government. nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek. bomber completes the first nonstop of Germany. Born: Bruce Springsteen, Meryl Feb. 5: The Internal Revenue Serv- flight around the world. Sept. 23: President Harry Truman Streep. ice releases a list of Americans who March 18: The United States and tells his Cabinet the Russians have Died: Author Margaret Mitchell, PLAIN DEALER FILE made $75,000 or more the previous nations of Western Europe form the successfully tested an atomic bomb. dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, year. Among those in the entertain- North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Oct. 1: Victorious Communists es- psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan, in- Charley Lupica and his pole. ment industry, Humphrey Bogart Sept. 15: Konrad Adenauer, a tablish the People’s Republic of dustrialist Solomon Guggenheim.