Newspaper Page Text
“David is giving his brother the gift
of life. That’s the best Christmas
present we could get,” was Mrs. Cheryl
Perkins’ comment about her husband’s
kidney transplant operation which
began early this morning.
Donald Perkins lost both of his
kidneys some three months ago after
years of suffering from a cronic kidney
disease, glomerulus nephritis.
Now one of them is being replaced in
DAYS TO
CHRISTMAS
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Three city employes warm their hands before an open fire. The temperature
tumbled to 20 degrees here this morning and it’s expected to dip to 20 or below
tomorrow.
County, solons
discuss funds
for new judge
Spalding County Commissioners told
the local legislative delegation this
morning to go ahead and do what is
necessary to plan for an additional
Griffin Judicial judge if the General
Assembly should approve of one.
The Georgia Judicial Council has
recommended one for the circuit. It
serves Spalding, Fayette, Pike and
Upson Counties. Judge Andrew
Whalen, Jr. is the Judge.
The Griffin Circuit has been placed
third on a priority list for new judges.
The General Assembly added two last
year.
This was one of the things the
legislators discussed with county
commissioners this morning.
Rep. John Carlisle, Rep. John
Mostiler and Sen. Virginia attended the
session.
They agreed to refine the language of
a law which adds to the salary of some
county offices as they accumulate
years of service. No additional money
was granted, however.
The legislators turned down a request
from the county commissioners that
they be paid a monthly SIOO for
expenses rather than be reimbursed for
actual expenses as they are now.
The commissioners will continue to
he reimbursed for expenses.
Woman’s Club
building sold
Mr. and Mrs. William T. Atkinson,
Griffin natives who operate a day care
center on North Hill street, have pur
chased the Woman’s Club building at
Poplar and Sixth streets for $42,000.
They plan to raze the building and
construct a new one to house the day
care center.
Stewart Davis of Griffin Realty Co.
handled the real estate transaction.
Mr. and Mrs. Atkinson started the
service in the former Sacred Heart
rectory on North Hill.
They have a waiting list of people who
want to enroll children in the center so
the couple decided to expand so they
could handle more and provide im
proved services.
Money from the sale of the clubhouse
will be divided among the women’s
organizations who had shared the
historic clubhouse.
He gave kidney to brother for Christmas
an act of true brotherly love by his
younger brother, David.
Both men under went simultaneous
surgery at Emory University Hospital.
They were in adjoining operating
rooms. While doctors removed one of
David’s kidneys, another team of
surgeons prepared to transplant it in
Donald.
The ailment first became noticeable
while Donald was a student at the
GRIFFIN
DAI LY NEWS
Daily Since 1872
“Folks seem to have better
resistance to underserved
blame than to unearned
praise.”
County studies
Grant building
Acquiring the use of the Grant
building on East Solomon street is one
of the possibilities under consideration
for additional county office space.
But a spokesman for the Spalding
County Commissioners said today no
decision has been reached.
The commissioners have been
discussing the possibility some two
months.
A possible expansion of the Spalding
Superior Court is one of the things that
prompted the county to look for more
space.
Busy
By MAY WINGFIELD MELTON
Mr. and Mrs. A. Z. Fordham are busy
preparing for the family dinner at their
home, 624 East Mclntosh Road on
Christmas Eve. The Fordhams have
been married 56 years and they are
expecting almost that many family
members on December 24.
With eight children, 20 grandchildren
and ten great grandchildren plus their
wives and husbands, the crowd adds up
in a hurry. Sometimes the younger
members bring their girl and boy
friends to the family affair.
Mrs. Fordham works for weeks
getting the cakes and pies ready for the
dinner. She usually makes a coconut
layered cake, a Japanese fruit cake, a
tunnel of fudge cake, pound cake,
sweet potato pie and dried peach
custard pie. Other dishes are divided up
among the children and grandchildren
so there won’t be duplications. Dinner
is put out buffet style in the kitchen with
everybody helping themselves. The
younger children sit around the coffee
table in the living room.
Children in the family are Herman
(Pete) Fordham of Atlanta, Doris
Stitcher of Carrollton, Claris Ison of
Griffin, Jack Fordham of Jonesboro,
j University of Georgia in 1960. It went
undiagnosed until 1967. When the family
i first learned the disease would end in
complete kidney failure, David at that
[ time volunteered to give one of his
f kidneys to his brother.
f It took nine years to do it.
i The brothers underwent extensive
tissue and blood tests to determine if
> Donald’s system would accept the
i kidney.
Griffin, Ga., 30223, Tuesday Afternoon, December 21,1976
Winter arrives with cold blast
If you think it was cold here this
morning just wait until tomorrow.
The U. S. Weather Service is
predicting a low in the upper teens
tomorrow.
Winter officially began here at 12:36
p.m. and the mercury was just above
freezing after an overnight low of 20
degrees.
The cold wave sent the temperature
tumbling below freezing all across
Georgia and more of the same is on tap
for tomorrow.
The official forecast for the Griffin
area calls for temperatures between 15
and 20 degrees tomorrow morning. The
high is expected to reach into the 40s.
Georgia wasn’t the bnly state caught
in the cold wave.
Elsewhere:
Travelers’ advisories were posted for
portions of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky,
Indiana, western Virginia and the
mountains of North Carolina. A
freezing rain warning was issued for
* northern Maine.
The temperature dipped to 4 degrees
above zero in Chicago at 3:30 a.m. and
strong winds sent the wind chill factor
down to 32 below zero.
“It’s strong enough to give a reindeer
frostbite,” a downtown police dispat
cher said, though no cases of exposure
were reported.
The dramatic change from a
Hospital room rates to remain the same
After considerable discussion, the
Griffin-Spalding Hospital Authority last
night decided against raising room
rates.
In other action the authority:
I.— William Feely was named
executive director of the hospital,
effective Jan. 1. Administrator Carl
Ridley who will retire in 1977 will
concentrate on some outside hospital
The Fordhams expect
over 50 for family dinner
Ruby Nelson of Griffin, Donald
Fordham of Forest Park, Shirley
McGee of Griffin and Jimmy Fordham
of Dalton. All plan to be in Griffin for
the holidays. One grandson is coming
home from California and among the
group there will be a doctor, a lawyer, a
teacher and a preacher.
An active member of DeVotie Baptist
Church, Mrs. Fordham has been a
member of the church since she was 11
years old. Mr. Fordham joined in 1962.
Varella Kendrick, daughter of the
late Mr. and Mrs. C. J. Kendrick, and
Aubry Zorn Fordham married at the
courthouse here on Saturday, April 20,
1920. Mrs. Fordham’s sister, Mary, was
to marry Leon Knight on Sunday, April
21, 1920 in Griffin. Varella didn’t make
it to her sister’s wedding but often visits
her at the Knight home on Hammond
Drive.
Mr. and Mrs. Fordham both worked
at Dundee Mill Number One. Mr.
Fordham worked 29 and a half years
before he was injured in an automobile
accident 26 years ago. Mrs. Fordham
went back to work at Dundee after her
children were in school. She retired in
1961. Mr. Fordham says that if “it
weren’t for the cotton mills Griffin
Their types were so close that doctors
wondered if the two were twins. Donald
just turned 35. David will be 33 Dec. 31.
The operation was first set for
October but was postponed until
Christmas week because of an
infection.
Through the years, Donald often
became discouraged and blue but was
always bolstered by his brother’s good
humor.
weekend of almost springlike weather
was caused by another wave of frigid
Canadian air pushing south and east
across the border.
In Chicago public transportation was
snarled and delayed by snow and icy
roads Monday and an icy road was
blamed for an auto accident that
claimed five lives near Downington,
Pa., Monday.
In Atlanta the temperature dived
from the 70s to around the 20s.
Daley dies of heart attack
CHICAGO (UPI) — Mayor Richard
J. Daley, 74, the last of the big city
bosses whose influence extended from
the city wards to the White House,
collapsed and died of a heart attack in
his doctor’s office Monday.
Church bells tolled mournfully over
the wind-and-snowswept streets of
Bridgeport, the old, ethnic neigh
borhood on the South Side where Daley
lived, proclaiming the news. Some 500
persons packed the Church of the
Nativity of Our Lord to pray for the
man who had ruled the city for 21 years
- the only mayor a generation of
Chicagoans had ever known.
In political circles, Democrats
projects.
2. — Computer firm in Pennsylvania
held up sending some 14,000 bills then
dropped them on Griffinites all at once.
That was the reason for some late
billings and other snafus, the authority
learned.
3. — Finance Chairman Jerry Savage
said the hospital is in the best financial
would be dead.”
Looking back on the years together,
the Fordhams say that life has been
“rough but happy” raising eight
children. One of Mrs. Fordham’s
sisters told her that they got along
better with eight children than she did
with two. Varella says the children
“helped themselves and helped us”.
They say, “The Lord has been real good
to us.”
Some years ago Pete told his mother
he would get her a car if she would
learn to drive. She agreed and even
though she ran into a telephone pole
near her house on one of her first trips,
she got her license in three weeks. She
has been driving ever since.
Family members draw names for
their Christmas gift exchange. Adult
names are put in one envelope with a
ten dollar limit and children’s names
are put in another envelope with a five
dollar limit. In addition Mrs. Fordham
begins in November and buys a "small
but useful” gift for each member of her
family.
Varella Fordham celebrates her
birthday on Dec. 23 but says no present
she receives can compare with the
pleasure she has in being surrounded
by her whole family on Christmas Eve.
“David never showed any signs of
discouragement,” Cheryl said.
The new kidney will mean that
Donald can get off the kidney machine.
Since March he has had to travel to
Atlanta three days a week where the
machine performed the kidneys’
functions.
He also will be able to eat more foods.
His present diet is rigid and has no salts
or fats.
Vol. 104 No. 302
Snow fell across much of the Midwest
Monday and spread into the Northeast
today, presaging a white Christmas.
South Bend, Ind., reported two inches
of new snow and Cleveland, Ohio,
Charleston, W.Va., Akron, Ohio,
Burlington, Vt., and Caribou, Maine,
each reported an inch.
Subzero temperatures stretched over
much of the upper Mississippi Valley,
with readings in the teens as far south
as Oklahoma and Arkansas. Frost and
jockeyed for position in the political
vacuum created by Daley’s death.
The immediate future of government
in the nation’s second largest city was
muddled by infighting over provisions
for naming an acting mayor.
City statutes call for the City Council
and appoint an acting mayor to
run the city until a special election is
held. But there was confusion over who
serves as acting mayor until the council
meets Wednesday.
Daley, as was his routine, began his
last day early, stopping to attend
church services before arriving at his
office and a Christmas breakfast for
city department heads.
shape it has been since he has been on
the board.
4. — So far this year, the hospital is
operating in the black.
5. — Committee of doctors formed to
recruit physicians for community.
6. — Administrator, board and
doctors exchange accolades in the
spirit of Christmas and at year’s end.
Details on page 13.
Rs
Mrs. A. Z. Fordham
“David’s wife, Barbara, and
daughter, April, 12, have meant so
much to us. Everybody has been so
good. The main thing I’ve asked for is
prayer. . . “We call this our new
beginning,” Cheryl said.
Donald is employed at the William
Carter Co. in Barnesville. They have
three children, Cris, 12, Brett, nine, and
Jerrie Lynn, eight.
Weather
ESTIMATED HIGH TODAY 35, low
today 20, high yesterday 50, low
yesterday 41, high tomorrow in low 40s,
low tonight 15 to 20.
FORECAST: Clear and very cold
tonight. Sunny and wanner tomorrow.
EXTENDED FORECAST: A chance
of rain Thursday followed by clearing
Friday. Fair and a little warmer
Saturday.
freeze warnings were posted for por
tions of northwestern Florida and a
hard freeze was forecast for portions of
south Texas.
An ice jam on Buffalo Creek in
Buffalo, N.Y., pushed the creek four
feet above flood stage and triggered a
flood warning for the area.
Early morning temperatures today
ranged from 20 below zero at Warroad,
Minn., to 73 at both Miami and Key
West, Fla.
He stopped at Civic Center Plaza,
next door to his office, to watch ice
artists carve Christmas sculpture and
then appeared at the dedication of a
South Side park, where he took time to
toss a basketball through the hoop in an
inside gymnasium.
A short time later, complaining of
chest pains, Daley hurried to the office
of his personal physician, Dr. Thomas
Coogan Jr.
Coogan said an electrocardiagram
and a checkup indicated an irregular
heart rhythm and that he had told
Daley to check in to a hospital. He said
the mayor agreed. Coogan said he left
the room while Daley phoned his son,
Michael. When Coogan returned, the
aging mayor was in the throes of the
fatal heart attack.
Daley never regained consciousness,
despite efforts of paramedics and a
medical team from Northwestern
Memorial Hospital. Doctors applied
closed chest heart massage and used
drugs and a hand respirator to keep
Daley alive. Specialists made surgical
openings in Daley’s throat and chest to
aid breathing while members of the
mayor’s family waited in the next
room, praying.