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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 29, 1963)
Family Weekly j December 29,1963 the University of Heidelberg for their joint study on the construc tion of the atomic nucleus). A 57-year-old mother of two, she is the first woman to win the physics prize since Madame Curie in 1903. Her comment when told the King of Sweden would award her the prize, worth about $12,000: "Good. I've always wanted to meet a king." MR. AND MRS. ANDREW FISCHER Dr. James N. Berbos kept picking, up several fetal heartbeats in his patient, Mrs. Andrew Fischer of Aberdeen S. D. "I suspected that she might have triplets," he recalls. So he ordered X-rays and discovered that he was treating a 54,000,000-to-1 patient Mrs. Fischer was carry ing quintuplets. Three days later, on Sept 14, Dr. Berbos delivered four girls and a son to Mrs. Fischer, already the mother of five, within 72 minutes. "Nerve-wracking," said the doctor. Mr. Fischer, a shipping clerk, and his wife seemed to agree but mostly because of the dizzy ing surge of well-wishers, from President Kennedy to promoters wanting the quints to sell their products. Before the family could even name the fivesome, they had a popular label. They were "The Million-Dollar Babies," a conservative estimate on how much they will make as America's new darlings. ANDRIAN AND VALENTINA The bride wore white: ankle length gown, double veil, gloves, roses. The groom was so calm he helped his tearful bride slip a plain gold band on his finger. The couple: Soviet cosmonette Valen tina Teres hkova, 26, and cosmo naut Andrian Nikolayev, 34. Val entina had previously dodged reporters' questions about her ru mored romance by saying, "Every woman hopes to marry someday." When that day came, it was a spec tacular one covered by Moscow television. Acting as big daddy (fathers of the couple were killed in the war) was Nikita Khrush chev, who proposed 20 or 21 toasts (reporters lost count but noted that Nikita only sips these days) and quipped: "May the marriage be a long one. May you have radar to avoid all the obstacles of life." SANDY KOUFAX Interesting people are beset peo ple. Sandy Koufax, lefty star of the Los Angeles Dodgers, wanted to be a basketball player; baseball scouts grabbed him because he could throw so hard (without any idea where the ball would go). When Sandy mastered control pitching, he in curred a finger injury, and doctors feared they might have to amputate. But in 19G3 Sandy came back with strike-out records and a no-hit game. In September, the Dodgers St. Louis series was the pennant deciding one but, alas, Sandy's turn on the mound fell on the Jew ish New Year. Solomonlike manager Walt Alston pitched Sandy out of turn, and the fireballer sent the Dodgers toward a World Series sweep over the Yankees with a stun ning shutout Headlined a Los An geles newspaper: "HAPPY NEW YEAR, SANDY!" At last it was. J3L SIR ALEC DOUGLAS-HOME He started the year as Lord Home, British foreign secretary, and ended it as Sir Alec Douglas Home, prime minister, having giv en up his noble title for a seat in the House of Commons. By any name, he seemed a tepid cup of English tea to Americans, who wondered mostly why he pro nounced his name "Hume." The story goes that a battling Scottish ancestor (the Home family dates back to the 13th century) tried to rally his warriors with the cry, "For Home! For Home!" The fol lowers misunderstood and ran home. Since then the Homes have preferred mispronunciation to dis honor. Beneath Sir Alec's bland exterior, however, courses- that same fighting blood. Reluctant to take the job at first. Sir Alec, once committed, survived a bitter polit ical struggle against far more am bitious leaders. When word of his victory leaked out from party head quarters, London crowds shouted: "It's Home! It's Home!" this time nobody misunderstood. JESSICA MITFORD Jessica Mitford comes from a no ble English family noted for getting people's hackles up. Her father, for instance, stirred British tempers by sympathizing with Hitler. Jessica's contribution to family tradition is this year's best-selling book, "The American Way of Death," which studies alleged overcommercializa tion in the undertaking industry. (The cost of living, she says, rose 71 percent since World War II while the cost of dying rose 100 percent.) Clergymen largely praised the book for exposing "pagan cus toms and trappings," but under takers mourned that Miss Mitford had castigated them with inaccurate statistics and unfair interpreta tions. Congressman James B. Utt (R.-Calif.) went further. He ac cused Miss Mitford of "Communist front activities" and striking "an other blow at Christian religion." Her reply: "Red herring." 7Tn Ml Gemutlichkeit who smokes Brazilian cigars, works with Beethoven music in the background, and drinks cham pagne and beer. But West Germans wondered if an uncle figure like Ludwig Erhard, a fervent anti-Nazi handpicked by American occupation forces to revive his nation's econo my, would make a firm chancellor. One who doubted it was Konrad Adenauer, who at 88 was reluctantly turning over the post to Erhard. "A rubbery lion," Der Alte used to call him and Ludi took the abuse good naturedly. Would this "rubbery lion" bend to the ambitions of Charles DeGaulle who wants to in crease France's influence in western Europe at the expense of the U. S.? Erhard lost no time in knocking the "national egotism" typified by he Grand Charles. It reminded NATO leaders of a previous observation by Herr Erhard: "I am an American invention." I IP LUDWIG ERHARD "Onkle Ludi" looks like a Dutch uncle 220 pounds of rosy-cheeked POPE PAUL VI Giovanni Cardinal Montini chose the name Paul when he succeeded the late Pope John XXIII as su preme pontiff of the Roman Catho lic Church. It was a significant choice. The question had been whether the new pope would carry on John's dream of apurturumo an "opening" of the church to new ideas of the modern world. The name Paul hinted of the new pope's direction it was St. Paul who rec ognized the universality of the teachings of Jesus and carried Christianity beyond the confines of a Palestinian sect. John had dreamed that the Christianity spread by Paul could once more find a type of unity, and Pope Paul VI lost no time in assuring the world that he succeeded to this ideal as well as to the Chair of Peter. He said: "I long to make mine the wish that spontaneously and generously welled up in the hearts of my predecessors, espe cially John XXIII: come, let the barriers that separate us fall!" (Continued on page S) Family Weekly. December 29, Ml S
