Milestones, Sep. 27, 1954

Born. To Eve Arden, 42, wide-eyed, wisecracking radio-TV comedienne (Our Miss Brooks), and Brooks West, 38, TV actor: their fourth child (the other three were adopted), second son; in Los Angeles. Name: Douglas Brooks West. Weight: 9 Ibs. 4 oz.

Born. To Archduke Otto von Habsburg, 42, peripatetic pretender to the Austrian throne, and Princess Regina of Saxe-Meiningen, 29: twin girls, their second and third daughters; in Würzburg, Germany. Names: Monika, Michaela. Weights: 7 Ibs.; 7 Ibs. 11 oz.

Died. Clarke S. Ryan, 31, an assistant U.S. Attorney under Thomas F. Murphy, who, after Murphy resigned to become New York City police commissioner, took over the Government’s case against Alger Hiss; of polio; in Manhattan.

Died. Brigadier General Paul Thomas (“Pete”) Carroll, 44, White House staff secretary; of a heart ailment; in Washington. A battalion commander under Dwight Eisenhower in World War II, handsome West Pointer Carroll served Ike in a variety of posts after the war (e.g., as top aide at SHAPE), after the inauguration became the President’s chief liaison officer with the Pentagon before taking over as staff secretary.

Died. Phyllis Baker Astaire, 46, wife of Dancer Fred Astaire; of cancer; in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Died. Herbert W. Hoover,* 76, chairman of the board and co-founder with his father of the Hoover Co., which, in 1908 (under the name Electric Suction Sweeper Co.), marketed the first vacuum cleaners, grew into one of the world’s largest electrical appliance firms (1953 sales: $51 million); of a heart ailment; in Canton, Ohio.

Died. Burton Lee French, 79, longtime (1903-09, 1911-15, 1917-33) Republican Congressman from Idaho, onetime (1949-53) vice chairman of President Truman’s Loyalty Review Board; after long illness; in Hamilton, Ohio.

Died. Frank Erne (rhymes with churny), 79, onetime lightweight (1899-1902) boxing champion, conqueror in 1900 of the immortal Joe Gans (to whom he lost the crown in a rematch that ended with a first-round, one-punch knockout), in recent years the oldest living ex-champion; of a heart ailment; in Manhattan.

Died. Helen Nicolay, 88, daughter of Abraham Lincoln’s personal secretary, John G. Nicolay, and author of popular biographies of popular people (MacArthur of Bataan, China’s First Lady); of a heart ailment; in Washington, D.C.

*— No kin to ex-President Herbert Hoover.