Lizzie Kunde

1941 school yearbook photo of Haynie from Carlisle School in Price, Texas.

James attended Arkansas State University in 1953.

January 17, 2000. He survived by his daughter, Dorothy Costello (William Jr.) O'Rourke; sons, John (Kathleen) Costello all of Webster, Richard H. (Sandra) Costello of OH; grandchildren, Laura, Sarah, Erin O'Rourke, Kevin, Christopher Costello, Richard, Cassandra Costello.

Friends may call Wed. 2-4, 7-9 at the Anthony Funeral Chapel 1031 Ridge Rd, Webster. You are invited to bring a written memory or photograph of Dick for the family's memory book. A Funeral Mass will be held at St. Paul's Roman Catholic Church on Thursday at a time to be announced. Interment at the convenience of the family. In lieu of flowers, contributions in his memory may be directed to Christopher's Challenge c/o Rochester Area Community Foundation 500 East Ave. 14607.

Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, New York) Tuesday, January 18, 2000

1934 Senior Yearbook photo of Roy from San Bernardino High School. Next to his photo it reads, "Rose Harbison Scholarship '33, Seal Bearer, Writers* Club '32 '33".

Francis Mazziotta, 22, of 2433 S. Fountain St., Allentown, received a broken right big toe yesterday when he accidentally dropped a brick on it while at work.

Mazziotta, an employe of the Roma Construction Co., 1501 Cedar Crest Bivd., Allentown, was treated at Osteopathic Hospital.

The Morning Call (Allentown, Pennsylvania) Wed, Aug 25, 1954 ·Page 5

State Senator Kenneth W. Reagin (D-Cory) presented to the state yesterday a painting by a 24 year old Cory man who is paralyzed from the neck down and paints by holding a brush in his mouth.

The large painting of three bird dogs was presented by Reagin to State Conservation Director Donald E. Foltz.

Gerald Lee Nees, a former Cory High School basketball player was paralyzed when he suffered a broken back nine years ago in a diving accident.

Nees has been able to support himself partly with money earned by painting, Reagin said.

During a hospital confinement in 1959, a dental student became interested in Nees and designed a special mouthpiece to hold pencils and brushes without damage to his teeth.

The Indianapolis Star (Indianapolis, IN) Tue, Dec 18, 1962 ·Page 29

Gerald Lee Nees; injured in a swimming accident when he was 16, has been paralyzed from the neck down for 27 years. He paints his charming, highly detailed American scenes in a painfully slow process holding the brush in his mouth.

Mr. Nees, rejecting pity, refusing welfare, has never let his handicap defeat him. He has been painting for 21 years and his work has won wide acclaim. He has been the subject of over 300 articles in magazines and newspapers and on many TV and radio talk shows. Mr. Nees has had dozens of one-man shows where his works have invariably sold out and has won numerous cash prizes as well as critical acclaim.

Mr. Nees love of nature, his natural optimism, his enjoyment of life and people and his respect for the traditions of America are all reflected in his work which is destined to take is place among the paintings of the great American Folk Artists.

Anderson Daily Bulletin (Anderson, IN) Sat, May 10, 1980 ·Page 55

Photo of Gerald in the 1954 Cory-Perry Township High School in a dedication to him that reads: "We, the Senior Class of Cory High School dedicate the 1954 Apple Leaf to two boys
seriously injured in accidents during the vacation last summer---Erret Robertson and
Gerald Nees."

CORY, Ind. (Special) - Gerald L. Nees, a talented young Cory artist who paints all his pictures with brushes held in his teeth, has a one-man show at the 5050 Art Gallery in Chicago. The show, which started June 24, will run for three weeks.

He has gained quite a reputation for excellent work in water colors and oil colors and has had pictures accepted for exhibitions including several Wabash Valley Shows in the Swope Art Gallery in Terre Haute.

Nees has done all this in spite of a physical handicap. He was stricken with paralysis when
a high school boy, but managed to graduate from high school. He then began his art training in a correspondence school.

His work now equals and often surpasses the paintings of those with full use of their arms and hands.

The Terre Haute Tribune (Terre Haute, Indiana, USA) Sun, Jun 30, 1968 ·Page 39

Mr. and Mrs. Moise H. Goldstein of Cuevas announce the engagement of their daughter, Miss Nathale Goetter Goldstein, to Dr. Aaron Stern, son of Mr. and Mrs. Meyer D. Stern of Detroit, Mich.

The wedding will take place in October. Miss Goldstein graduated from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and the Tulane University School of Social Work.

Dr. Stern is a graduate of the University of Michigan and is assistant professor on the staff of the University Hospital.

Sun Herald (Biloxi, Mississippi) Thursday, August 25, 1955

1942 yearbook photo of Aaron from the University of Michigan. He obtained an A.B. in Zoology.

1977 yearbook photo of Talman from Fortuna Union High School in Fortuna, CA.

1957 senior yearbook photo of Barbara from Thomas Jefferson High School in Port Arthur, Texas, USA. While in school, she was involved in Band 54-55; GRA 54-55; and JCL 54-55.

BOSTON (AP) - Boaz Piller, 77, first cellist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has died on vacation in Sestri Levante, Italy.

Piller, Dutch - born U.S. citizen, was stricken Tuesday while visiting Sestri Levante with his wife. The body will be flown to the United States for burial.

Evening Express (Portland, Maine, USA) Thu, Mar 19, 1964 ·Page 7

1963 senior yearbook photo of James from St Joseph High School in Cleveland, Ohio, USA.

Funeral services for Ruth J. Chesnut, 76, of Ridge Farm were held at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 11 at Houghton-Leasure Funeral Home, 200 E. West St., Georgetown. The Rev. Richard Jordan officiated.

Burial was in Cemetery, Sidney. Mount Hope Visitation was from 2 to 4 p.m. and 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday at the funeral home. Mrs. Chesnut died at 11:20 p.m. Sunday (Nov. 8, 1992) at home.

She was born April 8, 1916, at Broadlands, a daughter of Ernest and Josephine DeWitt Leerkamp. She married Ray Chesnut on Feb. 12, 1936, at Sidney. He survives.

Also surviving are a son, Morris Chesnut of Ridge Farm; three daughters, Donna Hobden of San Jose, CA, Janet Hubbard of Ridge Farm and Sandra Schumacher of Plainfield; a brother, Clifford Leerkamp Longview; six sisters, Wilma Schwartz of Champaign, Margaret Sidney. Mildred Erb of McKinney of Pinehurst, N.C., Evelyn Foster of Newman, Norma Robb of Madisonville, KY, and Pat Grubb of Covington, IN; 11 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by an infant son.

Mrs. Chesnut was a member of the Ridge Farm Bible Church and the Vermilion Valley Quilters Club. Her hobbies were quilting, painting, sewing and gardening.

Southern Champaign County Today (Villa Grove, Illinois) Wednesday, November 18, 1992

Despite his pleas that he now knows the value of life, the man who strangled a Hillside police officer in 1972 has been denied his request for parole.

The 11-member Illinois Prisoner Review Board voted unanimously Thursday to deny the parole request of Silas Fletcher, serving a 200-year sentence for the 1972 death of Hillside Police Officer Anthony Raymond.

At a parole hearing last week at the Dixon Correctional Center where he is an inmate, Fletcher gave his strongest argument ever in his quest for freedom from prison.
He told the state board that a heart attack and bypass surgery last year "caused me to become acutely aware of how precious life "I am now aware of what I deprived Officer Raymond and his family of. I have seen my grand-children. He never will," said a tearful Fletcher during an hourlong plea for his release.

"I don't believe Fletcher," said Hillside Police Chief George Kudrna, a detective at the time of the crime who helped, with hundreds of other officers, to solve the Raymond murder, one of the most notorious crimes in Chicago suburban history. "As long as I live and as long as there is a Hillside Police Department we will be there to protest Mr. Fletcher," Kudrna said.

Fletcher killed Raymond, 25, the father of two young children, after the officer stopped him on an expressway ramp on the Eisenhower Expressway for a traffic violation.
Because Fletcher and his two accomplices had just robbed a local restaurant, they took Raymond hostage at gunpoint. They took him back to Fletcher's Hanover Park home and strangled and stabbed him.

There was a yearlong nationwide search for Raymond before his body was found in a shallow grave in a northern Wisconsin resort community. Last week, Fletcher said, I am asking his family to forgive me." But Raymond's family have been the strongest opponents of his ever being released.

Mary Ann Blair, Raymond's sister, and Charles and Anne Raymond, his parents, travel annually to state prison to oppose Fletcher's release.

"He is an evil person and no one should ever believe that he should be released," Blair said. "We will be here every time he is asking for parole."

The annual parole hearings are accompanied by annual petition gatherings in the western suburbs, which this year produced 18,000 signatures opposing his re lease. One of Fletcher's accomplices,. Robert Martinez, is also serving a 200-year term at Dixon and his parole hearing is scheduled for next month. A third alleged accomplice was shot to death in Indiana by police in connection with another crime before he could be charged in the Raymond murder.

The state parole board also on Thursday unanimously denied the parole request made by Paul Fontani, 37, convicted of shooting to death Downers Grove Police Officer Richard Barth in 1974.

Fontani had been involved in a home burglary and was hiding' with another youth in a wooded: area of a village park when Barth' approached them. Fontani had a, gun and shot Barth.

He was sentenced to 100 years in state prison.

By Art Barnum Tribune Staff Writer: Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL) Fri, Feb 17, 1995 ·Page 179

THE FORMER brother in law of Silas Fletcher, 39, accused slayer of a Hillside policeman, testified Tuesday that Fletcher told him of having disposed of the body "where they'll never find the s.o.b." James Ehmann of Rhinelander, Wis., said when he saw Fletcher washing what appeared to be blood stains from the floorboard of a van, he asked, "Did you do away with another squeaker?"

Ehmann said after Fletcber answered. "Yeah, yeah I stabbed him in the ribs," he then inquired, "Where did you put the body? In a well down South?"' That was when Fletcher said the body would never be found, Ehmann told a Criminal Court jury In Judge Richard
Fitzgerald's courtroom.

Fletcher is on trial there for the kidnaping and murder on Oct. 1, 1972, of Hillside Policeman Anthony Raymond.

Ehman said that about 6:15 a.m. Oct. 2, 1972, approximately eight hours after Raymond was
kidnaped when he stopped a suspicious car on the Mannheim Road
entry ramp to the Eisenhower Expressway, he was awakened at his Rhinelander farm home by a knock on the door.

"Silas was there and two other men were in his Jeep. 1 told them to come and make themselves at home and Silas introduced them as Martinez and Millar," Ehmann said.

Police believe Robert Martinez and Jesse Millard also took part in the kidnaping and murder of the policeman. Martinez is in Nevada, fighting extradition to Illinois. Millard was killed in an attempted holdup.

Raymond's body was found Aug. 18, 1973, in a shallow grave on a farm owned by the Ehmanns four miles south of Rhinelander.

By Charles Mount Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL) Wed, Nov 13, 1974 ·Page 61

SILAS FLETCHER, 39-year-old leader of a robbery gang, was sentenced to 100 to 200 years in prison Thursday for the murder of Hillside Policeman Anthony Raymond on Oct. 1, 1972.

In sentencing Fletcher, Circuit Court Judge Richard Fitzgerald observed that the crime -killing a policeman in the line of duty-currently permits the death penalty to be imposed.

But because the crime was committed before the present Illinois death penalty law was enacted, the maximum sentence is a very long prison term.

"THE MOST serious sentence I can impose is too lenient because your fate will be determined by what the pardon and parole board will decide at a later date," the judge said. Fletcher automatically will become eligible for parole after 11 years and 3 months behind bars.

"But the defendant should not be furloughed," Fitzgerald added, referring to an Illinois prison policy of granting brief furloughs from prison to some inmates.

Fletcher was found guilty of the kidnap-murder of Raymond after a jury deliberated on the case for four hours last Nov. 27.

RAYMOND, 25, THE father of two, was last heard from at 10 p.m. Oct. 1, 1972 when he radioed to the Hillside police station that he had stopped a suspicious car at the ramp leading from Mannheim Road and the Eisenhower Express-way.
Because of heavy radio traffic that night, all further radio contact was lost.

Raymond's body was recovered by authorities on Aug. 18, 1973. It was in a shallow grave a few feet from the edge of a farm where Fletcher's sister had lived in October, 1972.

Fletcher's sister, her then-husband, James Ehmann, and several other relatives all testified against Fletcher at the trial, describing how he arrived at the farm early on Oct. 2, 1972. Ehmann testified that Fletcher told him be had killed a man.

Fletcher's accused accomplice, Robert Martinez, is scheduled to be tried soon.

By Charles Mount Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL) Fri, Jan 10, 1975 ·Page 3