location of death Montego Bay, Jamaica

Thomas and Nancy Capehart were among 37 victims of a airplane accident at Montego Bay (Jamaica) airport when the plane's landing gear buckled on landing and the aircraft exploded and burned. They were traveling on a Columbian airliner from New York to Bogota on a business trip. The plane had made an unscheduled stop earlier at Miami airport for repairs to a faltering engine.
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Handwritten-Mon. Jan. 25, 1960

Funerals Held For Air Crash Victims

Funeral services for three prominent Indiana residents killed in the crash of an airliner in Jamaica last week were conducted today.

Services for Thomas C. Capehart, 36, son of Sen Homer E. Capehart, and his wife, Nancy, 36, were held in Indianapolis while services for Muncie meat packer John Marhoefer, 55, were at Glenview, Ill.

All seven Marhoefer Packing Co. plants in several Midwestern states stopped work for three minutes in respect to the company's founder and president.

Senator Capehart and 10 staff workers arrived at Indianapolis by plane from Washington to attend the services for his son and daughter-in-law.
Adams County, Indiana Historical Museum "Jan1958-Dec1960"
Image 31
Transcribed by Janice Vasilovski
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Handwritten-Thurs. Jan. 21, 1960

Sen. Capehart Son Killed In Airline Crash

INDIANAPOLIS (UPI) - Sen Homer E. Capehart's son and daughter-in-law and a millionaire Muncie meat packing executive were among 37 persons killed in a Jamaican air crash today.

Thomas C. Capehart, 36, Indianapolis industrial plant executive, his wife, Nancy Elizabeth, 36, and John H. Marhoefer, 53, were the Indiana victims.

Capehart, one of two children of the Indiana senior senator, headed the Packard Manufacturing Co. plant here, a family-owned firm. The couple's death orphaned their four children, ages 2 to 9.

Marhoefer was the wealthy founder and president of the Marhoefer Packing Co., a meat packing concern which operated plants in three states, including Indiana. He was the second wealthy businessman to be killed in a plane crash in less than a year. The other was Ermal Marsh, head of Marsh Foodliners of the Muncie area, who was killed last summer in a private plane plunge near Logansport.

The three Jamaican crash fatalities raised to eight, the number of Indiana persons with Hoosier connections killed in a series of four major air crashes this week. A Carmel sailor and a Danville couple's daughter-in-law and grandchild were killed in Virginia. A Navy lieutenant commander from East Gary was killed in one Turkish crash and an Indianapolis-born drug firm executive in another Turkish crash.

Marhoefer and the Capehart's' were traveling together to study the feasibility of opening a meat packing plant in Bogota, Colombia. They had boarded the plane at Miami shortly before it crashed while landing in Jamaica.

Mrs. Capehart's sister, Mrs. A. L. Gardner, contacted by telephone, broke into sobs when informed of the accident. She said she had not been notified that her sister and brother-in-law were on the doomed plane.

"Oh, no." she said, "Oh, no!" She was unable to answer questions.

However, Earl Capehart, Indianapolis attorney and Thomas' brother, said Thomas and his wife left Indianapolis Tuesday morning for a brief trip to Bogota.

Thomas was president of the Packard Manufacturing Co., Indianapolis, a metal machinery firm founded and still owned by the senator.

Earl said his father, who had come to Indianapolis to stay with his ailing wife, had gone back to Washington Wednesday, along with his wife. Earl notified his father of Thomas's death.

The young Capehart's' children, Thomas Jr., 9, Lucy, 7, Mary Ann, 4, and John, 2, had been left in Indianapolis in the care of the Gardner's.

In Washington the senator was too distressed to talk early today when told details of the crash. The senator asked that a news story of the crash be read to him. But he broke off the conversation after hearing that his son was among the dead. "Call me later," Capehart said brokenly.

The Capehart's have a daughter, Mrs. James Culley Pearson Jr., of Arlington, Va.

Ironically, the Capehart's were enroute to a continent which Capehart's father had visited many times as a senator. The senator is a great believer in stimulating good diplomatic and trade relations with South American countries.

Young Capehart was a graduated in electrical engineering from Purdue University. His wife, Nancy Elizabeth, was a member of the locally prominent Sohn Milling Company family of Columbus, Ind.

Capehart's brother said the Capehart's originally had planned to travel by Braniff Airlines from Miami but a mechanical failure caused them to transfer to the Avianca Constellation.

Marhoefer, a millionaire packing company owner with branches in three states, and young Capehart had planned to investigate the feasibility of opening a meat packing plant in Bogota.

The 55-year-old Marhoefer, a native of Germany, came to the United States in 1924 and began work for the Pittsburgh, Pa. packing house. He went into business for himself in 1934 at Waukegan, Ill, and then began acquiring other packing houses.

At the time of his death, the Marhoefer firm had seven branches, including two in Chicago, and one each in Bloomington and Hebron, Ill., Postville, and Jeffersonville and Muncie, Ind. The firm also owns the National Stockyards at Muncie, and employs about 2,000 persons.

Marhoefer maintained a residence at Glenview, Ill, in addition to his Muncie home. Surviving is the widow, Elfreda, and two sons, John G., vice president of the Marhoefer firm, and Jacob R., a senior at the University of Notre Dame.

He was a member of both the Edgewater and Lake Shore Country Clubs of the Chicago area, and was one of the guests at the Queen Elizabeth dinner in Chicago during the English Monarch's visit last summer.

Adams County, Indiana Historical Museum "Jan1958-Dec1960"
Image 36
Transcribed by Janice Vasilovski