People, Feb. 19, 1951

Legends

A London auctioneer disposed of the last effects from the English home of Czechoslovakia’s late Jan Masaryk, lover of life, who plunged to his death from an office window in Prague three years ago, as the Reds were taking over his country. Two of Masaryk’s favorite sheepskin jackets, trimmed with fluffy white wool and decorated with black and red sprays of brilliantly embroidered flowers, plus a felt coat and a pillow cover, fetched £32. Other clothing, including a pair of shoes, three net scarves with lace borders, a child’s white skirt and bodice and a lace shawl, brought the total sale to £60.

In his Wallingford, England home, 90-year-old Dr. William Ralph (“The Gloomy Dean”) Inge, famed for his tireless attacks on smug optimism, welcomed some visiting relatives and gave photographers a rare smile of smug satisfaction as he performed a skillful balancing act with his two-week-old twin grandchildren, Nicholas and Caroline.

In 1891, during an era that launched such merchant tycoons as John Wanamaker, Louis Bamberger, Marshall Field and David May, Cleveland’s Samuel Halle and his brother Salmon put $10,000 into a modest fur store specializing in sealskin caps. A dozen expansions have built Halle Brothers Co. into a $39 million-a-year business, and left 82-year-old Samuel Halle the last survivor of the big-name U.S. department-store pioneers. Last week key employees surprised spry Co-Founder Halle with a 60th anniversary luncheon and the gift of a leather desk set —which he can use daily as the still-active chairman of the board.

In Los Angeles last week, dressed as if for mourning in black gown, black coat and dotted veil, Swedish Immigrant Greta Garbo, 45, finally got around to taking her final oath as a U.S. citizen. Before scurrying back to privacy, she obliged newsmen with one hurried pose and one restrained quote: “I am glad to become a citizen of the U.S.”

A chance passer-by gets the credit, in a popular legend, for saving the brand-new life of Abraham Lincoln, born 142 years ago this week in an insanitary cabin near Hodgensville, Ky. Soon after the future President came into the world under the supervision of a rural midwife, according to the story now retold by Chicago’s Dr. Theodore Van Dellen, a neighbor named Isom Enlow “happened by.” Finding the newcomer blue with cold, Neighbor Enlow set matters to rights by pouring down the baby’s throat some melted turkey fat, which he carried to lubricate his gun.

Heroes

From Korea came word that West Point’s 1949 All-America Quarterback Arnold Galiffa, now a lieutenant with the 3rd Division, had helped break up a Red attack by heaving 75-yard hand-grenade passes.

South Dakota’s Senator Francis Case got a request from a constituent. World War II Marine Corps Ace Joseph Jacob Foss, 35, Congressional Medal of Honor winner credited with shooting down 26 enemy planes over Guadalcanal, now lieutenant colonel and commander of South Dakota’s Air National Guard, wanted to fight again. It would take a waiver of a rule prohibiting Medal of Honor winners from combat duty. Said the Senator: “Joe said he’d almost be willing to return the medal, if this would enable him to get combat duty.”

Clarence (“Union Now”) Streit sailed for Europe, his first trip abroad in twelve years. It was as a New York Times correspondent in Geneva, watching the futility of the League of Nations, that he determined to devote his life to crusading for a more fundamental union of free peoples.

Confusion

When San Antonio reporters asked blonde Soprano Dorothy Kirsten, 31, if she still planned to marry Dr. Eugene R. Chapman, 50, the surgeon she met in San Antonio two years ago, the Metropolitan Opera star had a ready answer. “Everybody knows we are going to get married,” she burbled. It was simply a matter of setting the date. The flustered doctor, recently divorced and not so fast with his reply, said: “No plans at this time.” After a hasty conference, the prospective bridegroom reconciled the two views with a formal statement: “Miss Kirsten and I will be married in the late spring. We had hoped to be able to make the announcement at our chosen time and in our chosen way. I regret that our desire for privacy caused some misunderstanding.”

The list of “bourgeois” books banned by Communist Hungary now neared the 700 mark. Among the forbidden authors: Louis Bromfield, Edna Ferber, Fannie Hurst, John P. Marquand, P. G. Wodehouse, Marcel Proust. Specifically mentioned as objectionable: Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan stories, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, James Hilton’s Lost Horizon, Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People.

A court in Loerrach, Germany slapped a $140,610 fine on Prince Hans von Liechtenstein, 40, cousin of little Liechtenstein’s sovereign, Prince Francis Joseph II, for evading customs. The prince’s defense: the luggage he carried belonged to a friend; how was he to know it contained 13,270 Swiss watches?