Bloomington Daily Telephone 05/18/1942

Pretty Margaret Fern Rush, age 13, was drowned Saturday evening. She died a heroine. The auburn-haired Girl Scout, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Otis Rush, 803 South Rogers Street, gave her life to rescue Marilda Nash, age 17, who fell into the Torphy quarry hole a half mile southwest of Bloomington.

Margaret Fern Rush and a group of neighbor children, including Marilda Nash, were out on a fishing trip. Marilda, who cannot swim, fell from a ledge into the water. Margaret, a sturdy child who swam well according to her friends, plunged into the cold depths and grabbed the strangling girl who was about to sink for the second time. Supporting Marilda the plucky freckle-faced Margaret managed to swim with her a few feet toward the edge of the pond where other members of the group were holding out fishing poles to tow the two back to safety.

Frankie Nash, 12-year-old brother of Marilda, who with Harry Dillard, age 11, pulled Marilda to safety with a pole, gave the following account of the tragedy.

"Marilda fell in. The Rush girl dived in after her and swam a little with her. She got her where she could reach the pole. Marilda grabbed the pole but Margaret didn't; she just went down and never did come up again. Her eyes were open when she sunk. There couldn't any of us swim so we couldn't jump in after her. Margaret didn't holler for help. She just went down with her eyes open."

The drowning, first such accident in Monroe county this year, took place between 6:15 and 6:30 Saturday evening. Frankie Nash ran for help. He ran a half mile to the Public Service company sub-station on South Rogers Street and asked Fred Fletcher who is employed there to call police and report the accident. Fletcher called immediately, at 7 o'clock. The officer receiving his call at police headquarters advised him that a report of the drowning had already been received, just a moment before Fletcher called.

A police squad car was dispatched immediately. Silas (Pete) Crum, Red Cross first aid instructor and a member of the city fire department, and Roger Coan, also of the local fire department, hurried to the scene with the oxygen inhaler kept by the department for use in such cases. Sheriff Earl Baxter and Dr. Ray Borland, acting coroner, sped to the fatal spot. Police Captain John Axsom, Patrolmen Ray Branam and Earl Duncan, and State Policemen Walter Howard and Roy Dunlap also responded.

News of the tragedy was posted in a bulletin window of The Telephone and more than two hundred persons including expert divers were soon at the quarry. When officers first arrived at the scene of the drowning no dives were present and a return was made to town for the purpose of securing a boat and grappling hooks for dragging the pond for the victim. Divers reached the quarry before the boat and grapping hooks were secured, however, and started immediate efforts to bring up the girl.

Fireman Coan, Robert Waldron, Todd Bruce and John E. Langley took part in the diving which finally resulted in the location of the body. Langley, a 27-year-old truck driver who lives at 1128 1/2 South Madison Street, brough the body to the surface.

"I was diving feet first," he told a reporter for The Telephone at the scene, "because I was afraid of hitting my head on the stone blocks which are piled around under the water. I hooked the girl with my feet the second time I went down and brought her up holding her with my feet. There are placed in this quarry 50 feet deep but it must have been about 20 feet deep where I found her."

Margaret was between two big blocks of stone when the diver found her. It was estimated she had been under the water for forty-five minutes. The stone blocks between which she was found were about two feet apart and located in a north corner of the rectangular pond, almost directly below where the girl sank.

In searching for the victim, Langley was guided by an extensive knowledge of the quarry pond, he having gone swimming in this quarry many times over the past ten years.

The divers had found the water almost unbearably cold and a fire was kindled on a big slab of stone at the edge of the pond. By the light of this firs and later with additional illumination from flashlights, the battle to restore life to the young heroine was waged with artificial respiration being combined with the administration of oxygen from the inhalator.

Dr. Borland and Sherrif Baxter supervised the life and death battle to revive the victim and from time to time Dr. Borland checked for signs of returning life. He found none. Long before first aid workers knew, Dr. Borland realized there was literally no hope for the child but the effort s to restore the victim continued until nine o'clock.

"I knew we hate to give up boys," Dr. Borland at last observed, "but . . . ."

Margaret died in a red and white checkered dress, was wrapped in a blanket which had been brought by Sheriff Baxter. She was passed up from the brink of the water to men standing on a stone ledge some eight feet above. The Allen funeral coach had been called after a police squad car near the quarry had radioed to local police headquarters that hope had been abandoned. The funeral coach could not be driven all the way to the quarry and the victim was carried on a stretcher for a distance of approximately a block, along a weedy railroad switch. Sheriff Baxter guided the stretcher bearers with a flashlight.

Those administering artificial respiration at the quarry noted the victim was bleeding about the mouth and nose and this gave rise to a belief that Margaret hay have sustained an injury as she plunged in after the Nash girl. Dr. Borland found, though, that this bleeding resulted from a cut in the girl's upper lip, a superficial wound which could have had no effect. Death, he established , resulted from drowning

What caused Margaret to sink to her death after saving the life of the Nash girl will never be known definitely. Several possibilities were advanced by officials who pointed out that she may have been too exhausted to help herself after her efforts to drag the other girl to safety; that due to the coldness of the water, she may have suffered cramps which have brought death to many expert swimmers. Whatever the cause of Margaret's drowning, eyewitnesses accounts from the children who were with her show that she gave her life for her companion.

Margaret jumped in the water to make her brave and successful rescue with her slippers on her feet, according to the belief of the much excited young people who were at the scene, and these slippers -- what are known as "wedges" with heavy soles which make a continuation as a part of the heels -- may have been a contributing cause to her exhaustion. After she was taken from the water, one of the slippers remained on a foot as the effort was made to restore heart action. When the effort was given up and the body was placed on the stretcher, the other slipper was picked up from the ground and placed on the cot.

One report was that both Margaret and Marilda fell into the quarry pond. Another version of the tragedy circulated was that after Marilda had fallen in, Margaret knelt on the brink on the pond and grabbed the struggling girl and was pulled in.

Frankie Nash, however, did not vary from his original report of what happened and what he witnessed:

"My sister fell in and Margaret dived in and helped her out and then went under," he told Mr. Fletcher at the Public Service sub-station Saturday evening when he ran in to ask that help be called. And the lad gave this same account to a reporter for The Telephone. "Marilda fell in and Margaret dived in after her."

Mrs. Rush, mother of the victim, heroine, said Margaret and the neighbor children left on the fishing trip Saturday afternoon between 4:30 and 5:00 o'clock. First they had been fishing in a nearby small stream. One of the group suggested that there were bigger fish to be caught in the quarry ponds -- and they all went after the bigger fish. They had caught nothing, however, and at one quarry hole near the Torphy hole, they had been chased away by a group of boys who were preparing to go in swimming. They had not even started to fish at the Torphy pond when the tragedy occurred.

Margaret Fern, a healthy and sturdy girl, was always enthusiastic about out of door sports, including hiking, fishing, and ball playing, her mother recalled at the Rush home Saturday night. The mother stood by the casket where rested Margaret, dressed in a pink gown, with a pink ribbon banding her hair. The mother, though visibly shaken profoundly by the tragedy, displayed the same bravery in her sorrow that her daughter had displayed Saturday evening when she jumped into the quarry to save the Nash girl's life.

Margaret's death marked the second time Mrs. Nash had lost a child in sudden tragedy. On June 11, 1933, her son, Jackie, was struck by an automobile and fatally injured on South Rogers Street near what is now the R. C. A. plant.

Margaret Fern was a 7-A pupil in the local Junior high school. She attended Sunday school at the Nazarene church. She belonged to her school's Girl Scout troop and was greatly interested in the program of this organization.

In addition to Frankie and Marilda Nash and the Dillard lad, there were with Margaret Saturday evening, J. D. Green, age 9, and Dickie Harold Adkins, 9, and Mary Nash, age 20, all living in the South Rogers Street neighborhood. The Nashes are children of Mr. and Mrs. Ben Nash, 807 1/2 South Rogers.

Surviving the victim-heroine, in addition to the father, a Burns City worker and the mother, an employee of the South Side Café, are eight brother and sisters who are: Mrs. Ben White of Wagner, Okla., Mrs. Harold Adkins of Indianpolis; Eugene Rush of Vincennes; Mrs. Harold Wisely of Bloomington; Mr.s Claude Michael of Trenton, N. J.; and Martha, Leroy, and Sammy Rush all at home. The maternal grandfather, Samuel Allen, a Monroe county resident, also survives.

Funeral services for Margaret will be Tuesday afternoon at 2 o'clock at the First Church of the Nazarene, conducted by the Rev. Lelan Rogers, pastor of the church, assisted by the Rev. Harry Smith. The young heroine will be buried in Clear Creek cemetery. Sunday afternoon the body was removed from the Allen Funeral Home to the Rush home where throngs of people are calling to see the little girl who died such a brave death.

Pallbearers at Margaret's funeral will be boys from Bloomington high school, Robert Sexton, William Hessler, Donald Stewart, William Vaught, Ansel Axiom, Curnel Nikirk, Robert Green and Leon Peterson. Flowerbearers will be local Girl Scouts, of Junior high school Troop No. 8, Laureen Day, Beverly Parham, Faye Burns, Melba Purcell, Martha Shields, Marilyn Languell, Joyce Nikirk, and Carol Kell.