Milestones, Mar. 2, 1959

Married. Chris Chataway, 27, English runner (now a BBC-TV commentator) who, with Chris Brasher, paced Miler Roger Bannister on the way to the first four-minute mile (1954), in the same year beat the Soviet Union’s great Vladimir Kuc to set a world record for three miles (he shocked the Red athletes at a post-meet dinner by lighting up a big black cigar); and Anna Lett, 27, pretty blonde TV producer; in London. Ushers: Dr. Roger Bannister and Chris Brasher.

Marriage Revealed. Donald Marr Nelson, 70, World War II boss of the War Production Board; and Lena Peters Schunzel. fortyish, widow of Actor-Director Reinhold Schunzel; he for the fifth time, she for the third; in Durham, N.C., Feb. 12.

Died. Vice Admiral Osborne Bennett Hardison, U.S.N. (ret.), 66, skipper of the aircraft carrier Enterprise in the 1942 battle of the Santa Cruz Islands; of injuries received when he was run over by a truck; in Washington. The “Big E” was the lonely nucleus of U.S. naval power during the early phases of the Pacific war. Last summer, despite efforts to preserve her as a national memorial, the Enterprise was sold for scrap.

Died. Pierre Ryckmans, 67, Belgian High Commissioner for Atomic Energy, onetime (1934-46) Governor General of the Belgian Congo and later Belgium’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Trusteeship Council; of cancer; in Brussels.

Died. Timothy James Mara, 71, founder of the New York Football Giants, onetime Manhattan “betting commissioner” (i.e., bookie, when the practice was legal) who became one of the principal developers of pro football; of a heart attack; in Manhattan.

Died. Daniel Alden Reed, 83, Old Guard Republican Congressman from upstate New York, senior member and onetime chairman (1953-54) of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, foe of foreign aid, believer in high tariffs and low taxes; of a heart attack; in Washington, D.C. Dan Reed was a direct descendant of John and Priscilla Alden and, in the Puritan tradition, a self-reliant conservative. Elected to the House in 1918, he was undefeated in 21 consecutive biennial elections, was topped in seniority only by Carl Vinson of Georgia (1914) and Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas (1913). As chairman of Ways and Means when the Republicans took over in 1953. Reed made headlines when he promptly opposed the Eisenhower Administration’s plan for a six-months’ extension of excess profits taxes. In a rare move, House Republican leadership bypassed Reed’s committee. Commented one Democrat: “Mr. Reed has been in the minority so long that bucking the White House is an unbreakable habit with him.”

Died. Laurence Housman, 93, English playwright (Victoria Regina), novelist, brother of the late Poet A.E. (A Shropshire Lad) Housman, pacifist, pre-World War I woman-suffragist, satirist (The Life of H.R.H., the Duke of Flamborough); in Glastonbury, England. An icily patrician figure with dark eyebrows and a white, pointed beard, Laurence Housman described himself as “the most censored playwright in England—but the most respectable.” His work was morally impeccable, but the British censor, following the letter of the law, would not allow him to present on the stage either the Holy Family (Bethlehem) or a recent monarch (prodded by Edward VIII, censorship was finally lifted). In the U.S. there were no objections. Victoria Regina, starring Helen Hayes, ran for 604 performances on Broadway in the ’30s.