Crime and Justice

In 1964 I drove to Indian Lake, Ohio to interview Edith, the mother of a famous radio and television personality. I was hoping through his mother to set up an interview with her famous son when again he visited at Indian Lake cottage. Toward the end of our lively conversation, when the elderly Edith had gone to take phone call, I noticed an old bell which seemed out of place with other items on the porch shelf. Upon her return, when I asked about the bell, Edith had sighed and said, “If my husband, Milt, were here, he could tell you about it. It had been passed down in his family. They were relatives from Columbus (Ohio) and that bell was connected to some historical event. Listen Jim, my husband has no further need of it, sure my son has no interest; why don’t you just take bell along with you?”

Hugh Downs’ Columbus relative James Downs’ cow was not just family milk provider, but a beloved pet named Jesse! Columbus Downs relatives I located, interviewed in 1967, claimed the family never psychologically got over discovering the butchered remains in 1892 of their cow “Jesse” with the bell still suspended from its headless neck!