forgottennewsmakers

Archive for the ‘People’ Category

, , , , , ,

RALPH NEVES (1916 – 1995) Jockey Who Died and Came Back to Life

In American History, Biography, California History, Horses, Movies, People, Uncategorized on November 29, 2019 at 11:07 AM

As the saying goes, when we get injured, we’re encouraged to “get right back on the horse.”  Ralph Neves really took that to heart. For him, that wasn’t just good advice; it was logical. He was a jockey, and there was a race to run with a big prize at stake. Never mind he had been declared dead just hours before.

ralphneves.jpg

Ralph Neves

 

Neves’ personality was full of grit and determination. When he was five,  his family moved from Massachusetts to California. Nothing is known about his mother. His father, who worked as a plasterer, allowed his son to do his own thing. Neves learned how to ride horses and dropped out of school to start earning money. He joined the rodeo and then did stunts for movies. The basic pay for stunt doubles was $10 a day, but Neves got $50 every time he fell off a horse. One day that added up to $200 because the director needed four takes to get the shot.

JUST HORSING AROUND           When Neves saw the potential for something that fit his temperament better, he made the transition from movies to horse racing. He won his first race when he was 18 years old. He signed a contract for $15 a month for three years, with $5 a month raises after the first year. Then Neves was picked up by Charles S. Howard, owner of the horse Seabiscuit, for $200 a month for two years. Howard wanted Neves to race in New York, but Neves jumped out of a bathroom window en route to get back to California.

Neves did things the way he wanted to, and that was reflected in his aggressive, reckless racing style. In 1935, a year after he started racing, The Seattle Times characterized him as a “…cocky, confident little youngster. When he mounts a horse, the possibility of failure never enters his mind. … He is a fearless rider and never hesitates to take a chance. Oblivious of danger to himself, he sometimes leans toward the rough side.”1  Neves was often fined for riding the horses too hard and whipping them too much. He was suspended for five to ten days at a time so often that once, to make their point, the track stewards suspended him for six months. Winning was everything, and he didn’t care what anyone else thought about him.

 DOWN AND OUT               On a spring day in 1936, Neves proved just how much winning meant to him. At the Bay Meadows track in San Mateo, California, Bing Crosby offered $500 and a gold watch to the jockey who won the most races in a multi-day meet. Neves was determined to win the prize. On May 8, he was in first place, only two wins ahead of another jockey. Riding Flanakins in an early race, Neves was leading the pack going into the far turn. For some reason, Flanakins faltered, throwing Neves into the wooden rail. He couldn’t get out of the way and was trampled by the horses coming up from behind.

In those days there was no ambulance waiting next to the track. Neves’ lifeless body was put in the back of a pick-up truck and taken to the track infirmary. He did not have a pulse, but the track doctor gave him a hopeful shot of adrenaline and had him transferred to the hospital and then to the morgue. Neves was wearing his ripped pants, one boot, and a toe tag to identify his corpse. The track announcer informed the crowd that jockey Ralph Neves was dead, and everyone stood for a moment of silence.

KEEPING HIS EYE ON THE PRIZE       Miraculously, Neves regained consciousness. When he realized what he was missing by being in the morgue, he walked out and took a taxi back to the racetrack. Neves was determined to get back on the horse, literally, and not let a near-fatal accident keep him from winning the meet. After everyone in the locker room recovered from what they thought was seeing a ghost, the officials refused to let Neves participate in any more races that day. The following day, however, Neves rode in five races. He didn’t win any, but he got enough second and third places to get the overall title for the meet and win the $500 and gold watch.

Neves continued his career as a jockey, interrupted for a short time by serving in the cavalry during World War II. And, he continued to sustain injuries. In the army he fell off a horse and broke his back at Fort Riley, Kansas. In 1959 he fell during a race and needed emergency brain surgery. Since winning was everything, Neves did whatever it took to win. In 1957 he had to go on a major diet to get down to 105 pounds to qualify for the Santa Anita Handicap, riding Corn Husker. He won by half a length.

While he’s best known for cheating death for the win, Neves was honored for his overall contributions to horse racing. In 1954, he received the George Woolf Memorial Jockey Award (named after the jockey who famously rode Seabiscuit to victory against War Admiral in 1938) for bringing recognition to the sport. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1960 with the nickname “Portuguese Pepperpot.”

Neves hung up his silks in 1964 at 48 years old. During a career that spanned 30 years, Neves rode 25,334 horses, winning 3,772 races and earning over 13 million dollars. When he started winding down, he took up golf and needlepoint. For all of the injuries he experienced, he made it to 79 years old. He was under treatment for lung cancer when he died the second time, in his sleep.

QUESTION:  What is something you’ve done that seemed impossible? How did you do it?

© 2019 Debbie Foulkes All Rights Reserved

Sources:

1 Cronin, Brian. “Did jockey Ralph Neves die in a race accident and come back to life?”     LATimes.com, June 6, 2012. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2012-jun-06-la-sp-sn-ralph-neves-20120606-story.html

Christine, Bill. “Former Rider, Now 70, Was So Tough That He Came Back From the Dead: Ralph Neves Was No Stiff as Jockey.” Los Angeles Times, October 29, 1986. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-10-29-sp-7878-story.html

Christine, Bill. “Long Ride Over for Jockey Neves : Horse racing: Declared dead after a race, he dies of cancer 59 years later.” Los Angeles Times  July 8, 1995.  https://www.latimes.com/archives/la- xpm-1995-07-08-sp-21661-story.html

Ralph Neves Bio, National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.  https://www.racingmuseum.org/hall-of-fame/ralph-neves

Ralph Neves, 78, Hall of Fame Jockey by Associated Press New York Times Archive July 10 1995  Archived April 24, 2019.   https://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/10/obituaries/ralph-neves-78-hall- of-fame-jockey.html

Whirty, Ryan. “Jockey Ralph Neves’ strange tale” ESPN.com  May 5, 2011. http://www.espn.com/espn/page2/story/_/id/6486411/sportCat/horse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Neves

https://www.jockeysguild.com/george-woolf-award/

Photo Credit: 

TenderFriend[CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Young_Ralph_Neves.jpg

 

 

 

 

PAUL POPENOE (1888 -1979) First Marriage Counselor and Eugenicist

In American History, Biography, Doctors, People, Trivia on October 27, 2010 at 9:06 AM

Paul Popenoe, age 27

In 1888, Paul Popenoe was the first of four children born in Topeka, Kansas.  When his parents moved the family to Pasadena, California, Popenoe found fertile ground for his seemingly disparate interests: growing date palms, eugenics, and marriage counseling.

The Victorian values of the late 19th century were embedded in Popenoe, but he took a progressive stance on many issues, making his life a contradiction.  He was a Sunday school teacher in his youth but later eschewed religion and became a secular humanist.  When he was 17, he fainted after eating a steak dinner and became a strict vegetarian long before that was popular.  But, true to his Victorian roots, he did not believe in any kind of sex outside of marriage, and he was a virgin on his wedding night.

About 1908, Popenoe dropped out of college after three years to work and care for his sick father.  After working as a newspaper editor for a few years, he quit his job and made a six-month tour of Europe.  Popenoe’s father worked as a nurseryman when he retired, so on his dad’s behalf, Popenoe learned Arabic, one of eight languages he knew, and traveled around the Middle East collecting date palms.  This lead to his first book, Date Growing in the New and Old Worlds, published in 1913, which became a manual for horticulturists.   

A CERTAIN KIND OF PEOPLE PERSON         Later that year, Popenoe moved to Washington D.C. to edit the new publication the Journal of Heredity. He idolized Charles Darwin and believed that improving humanity would happen by applying science to society.  His focus turned to heredity and eugenics, an extension of natural selection.  Eugenicists believe in improving the genetic makeup of the human population specifically by sterilizing people with genetic defects or undesirable traits, thereby keeping them from reproducing.  This was a very progressive point of view subscribed to by the intellectuals of the time, including Alexander Graham Bell, Margaret Sanger and Theodore Roosevelt.  Popenoe’s self study in a group of like-minded scientists and intellectuals eventually resulted in his book Applied Eugenics, published in 1918. 

During World War I, Popenoe was a captain in the vice and liquor section of the War Department Commission on Training Camp Activities.  He was responsible for eliminating liquor and prostitutes from around the army training camps, the perfect job for a teetotaler with his puritanical upbringing.  After the war he went to New York and worked as the Executive Secretary of the American Social Hygiene Association.  Their mission was to use public education to promote premarital abstinence, but they were broadminded enough to promote sex education and birth control. 

BECOMING HIS OWN CASE STUDY               It was while he was in New York that Popenoe married Betty Bowman, a dancer 13 years his junior, after a six month courtship.  The couple moved to Coachella Valley, California where Popenoe retreated to his first love and established a date farm until the agricultural market collapsed and forced them to move to back to Pasadena.

Popenoe’s lack of experience with women made his marriage rough going at first.  He was, however, determined to understand the unique world of women, and his efforts resulted in the book Modern Marriage, A Handbook for Men, published in 1925.  Fifteen years later he revised the book to include advice for women based on his personal and professional experience. 

Despite his lack of a college diploma, in 1929 Popenoe was awarded an honorary doctorate from Occidental College, where he had done two years of study twenty years earlier.  He used the title Dr. Popenoe professionally.

STAYING TRENDY                       The application of his philosophy of hereditarianism shifted with the tide of social thought, and he changed his focus from genetic improvement to family improvement.  In 1930 Popenoe founded the Institute of Family Relations (later the American Institute of Family Relations) in Los Angeles, bringing marriage and family counseling (a concept that started in Germany a decade earlier) to America.  He maintained that “…to improve the race, we should first start with the family.  And since the family often suffers problems which threaten its stability, we must treat those problems.  In other words, we should establish a marriage counseling center where maladjustments might be brought, studied, classified–and helped if possible.”1  Part of his counseling was to encourage fathers to take an active role in the lives of their children. 

In the ensuing decades, the Institute had up to 70 counselors and claimed in 1977 to have counseled over 300,000 men, women and children.  He required the counselors to be married and never divorced.  Even though Popenoe was not religious, in the 1960s and ‘70s many of his assistants were ministers and other religious people, including Dr. James D. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family.  His office moved to Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood and Popenoe became the marriage counselor to the stars, although Lana Turner went to his house for her sessions to maintain privacy.

REACHING THE MASSES              Popenoe’s influence extended beyond the Institute.  He wrote a daily newspaper column called “Your Family and You,” and he counseled couples on a reality TV show called “Divorce Hearing.”  He was a popular lecturer on college campuses and wrote a total of 17 books and numerous popular and scientific articles on marriage relations.  Television host Art Linkletter asked Popenoe to help him create a way to successfully match men and women, a forerunner to today’s dating services.  Popenoe created a questionnaire of 32 items including race, religion, politics, and pets.  Over 4,000 people responded to a newspaper ad to be matched.  A Univac computer analyzed the surveys and picked a couple who were introduced to each other on Linkletter’s television show People Are Funny.  It was a good match, and the couple got married. 

In 1953 Popenoe started the advice column “Can This Marriage Be Saved” in the magazine the Ladies Home Journal, using actual case studies from the Institute in his articles.  Still a feature of the magazine, the column has been called “the most popular, most enduring women’s magazine feature in the world.”1

Popenoe’s own marriage was not without its challenges, but he practiced what he preached.  Within the relationship the duties fell along traditional gender lines: Popenoe worked and took care of the yard and Betty was a stay-at-home mom who raised four boys.  Their youngest son wrote that Popenoe was a strict disciplinarian who, despite a heavy work schedule, gave his children lots of attention.

In his 1926 book Conservation of the Family, Popenoe predicted what the family of the future would be like.  He expected better mate selection, greater understanding leading to a stronger permanence of love, more intelligent consideration of children, more concern for individual development, especially for women, and more democracy within the family structure.1

QUESTION:  What do you think makes a good marriage?

©2010 Debbie Foulkes All Rights Reserved

Sources:

1http://www.popenoe.com/PaulPopenoe.htm

http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/glossary=eugenics

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/eugenics

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,867279,00.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Popenoe

Popenoe, David, War Over the Family.  New Jersey: Transactions Publishers, 2005   http://books.google.com/books?id=FhZeJwLSu74C&pg=PA238&lpg=PA238&dq=obituary+paul+popenoe&source=bl&ots=iH3CDQf5Ut&sig=qWwi-eyeC2zp23l5EpqalGP91eg&hl=en&ei=GiLHTJOMAoyssAPKps2oDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBcQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=obituary%20paul%20popenoe&f=false

AUDIE MURPHY (1924 – 1971) Most Decorated Soldier in World War II & Actor

In Actors, adventure, American History, Hollywood, People, People from Texas, Trivia, World War II on October 4, 2010 at 3:21 PM

Audie Murphy

When Audie Murphy was twelve, the dream of fighting in the Army was his only relief from the poverty and back-breaking work of his Texas sharecropper family.  He was one of nine children who all worked in the fields as soon as they were old enough to hold a hoe.  While he was tending the crops, Murphy fought many battles, and he was always victorious and unharmed.  Real life did not play itself out so easily.

When Murphy was a young boy, his father left with no explanation and never returned.  His mother died when he was sixteen.  The three youngest children were placed in an orphanage, and the rest were forced to fend for themselves.  Murphy worked in a gas station and radio repair shop, but he had a bad temper and got into fights often.  He preferred to be alone, and only in solitude could he connect with his dreams.

 NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR GOVERNMENT WORK   On December 7, 1941, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Murphy was 17 years old and more determined than ever to become a soldier.  The day he turned 18 he went to the Marine Corps recruiting station to offer his services.  He was rejected outright for being too skinny, which only added to his anger.  His second choice was the newly formed paratroopers.  They were a little more encouraging, telling him to come back after putting on weight.  His third option was the infantry, even though he thought they were too ordinary for his ambitions.   They accepted him as he was and shipped him off to boot camp.  During the first close-order drill, Murphy passed out and was immediately dubbed “Baby.”  To add insult to injury, he was transferred to cook and baker’s school.

Refusal to do anything else eventually got Murphy a place back in the rank and file. In 1943 he landed in Tunis, Tunisia and then went on to Italy.  Finally, his dream of being in combat was coming true.

In Sicily, Murphy was moving ahead of his company with the scouts.  Two Italians appeared, and instead of surrendering, they jumped on horses to escape.  Murphy instinctively fired two shots and killed the two enemy soldiers.  Murphy’s company commander made him a corporal.  During a march to Palermo, covering 25 miles per day, he contracted malaria and was in the field hospital for a week. 

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A SOLDIER    After many more battles, some additional training and two more bouts of malaria, Murphy landed in France.  His company was ordered to neutralize a hill that was an enemy strongpoint.  Murphy and two comrades were bringing up the rear with enemy fire surrounding them.  One of his partners died mid-sentence right next to Murphy, and the other one was killed when standing up to move.  Murphy dove into a ditch and came face to face with two German soldiers.  The split second it took for them to realize who they were looking at was enough of an advantage for Murphy to react, killing both of them. 

While he was making his retreat, Murphy exchanged fire with several Germans in various foxholes until his ammunition ran out.  He found some fellow soldiers pinned to the ground by German fire overhead.  Murphy dragged a discarded machine gun into a ditch and aimed uphill so the enemy had to expose themselves to shoot down to him.  By the time he was ready to shoot, however, bullets were landing within a foot of his body.  He let loose with fire in all directions trying to hit anything he could.  There were cries of agony, and Murphy walked uphill to reconnoiter the area.  He saw several dead Germans and one that he put out of his misery. 

When more gunfire attacked him, he emptied his weapon and waited.  One of his buddies, Brandon, arrived, and as both men started walking in the ditch, they were attacked at point blank range.  A bullet clipped off part of Brandon’s ear, but he was able to kill both attackers.  The two American soldiers dove into a hole already occupied by two Germans, and killed them.  Then Murphy and Brandon raised their helmets, inviting fire to reveal the enemy’s position.  They lobbed two hand grenades toward the sound of the blast, and then there was silence.  Brandon saw a white handkerchief waving and was convinced the Germans were giving up.  Murphy cautioned him against responding to the gesture, but Brandon stood up to capture the surrendering enemy.  In a barrage of bullets, Brandon fell back into the hole.  Murphy was trapped with two German soldiers under him and his best buddy on top.  With single-minded focus, he tried to move his friend, leading the way with a grenade.  He sneaked behind the remaining Germans and made sure they were permanently incapacitated.  Finally, there were no more enemy soldiers to confront.  After removing the personal effects from Brandon’s pockets, Murphy sat next to his friend and cried until he was spent before rejoining his company.

For his courage and commitment in many similar situations during three years of active combat, Murphy received 33 awards and decorations.  He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest military award given for bravery.  In an attack of six Panzer tanks and 250 infantrymen, Murphy mounted an abandoned, burning tank destroyer and used one machine gun to stave off the advancing enemy.  Even though he was wounded in the leg, Murphy stayed there for almost an hour, fighting off the attacking Germans on three sides and single-handedly killing 50 of them.  After rejoining his company, he organized a counterattack which forced the Germans to retreat.  In addition, he received five decorations from France and Belgium.  He is credited with killing, wounding or capturing over 250 enemy soldiers.  In 1945 Murphy was 21 years old when he resigned from active duty.  He had attained the rank of Second Lieutenant.

LIFE AFTER WAR    James Cagney saw Murphy’s photo on the cover of Life magazine and invited him to go to Hollywood.  Murphy admitted he had little talent, and he struggled to get parts, sleeping in a gymnasium until he got a break and finally a contract at Universal.  He found his niche in westerns and starred in The Red Badge of Courage directed by John Houston. 

In 1949 he published his autobiography, To Hell and Back, which proved to be a bestseller, and he starred in the film version of his story.  The movie set a box office record for Universal that was only surpassed by Jaws in 1975.  He made a total of 44 films.

Murphy’s heart was always in Texas, and he owned a ranch there as well as in California and Arizona.  He owned and bred Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses, winning and losing fortunes gambling on them, and playing poker.  He also discovered a talent for songwriting, and he wrote songs recorded by Dean Martin, Eddy Arnold and Roy Clark. 

In 1949 he married actress Wanda Hendrix, but the marriage only lasted a year.  In 1951 he married Pamela Archer, and they had two sons. 

LIVING WITH THE NIGHTMARES     Murphy’s combat experiences haunted him for the rest of his life.  He suffered from “battle fatigue,” now known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and slept with a loaded pistol under his pillow.  In order to cope with insomnia and depression he became addicted to sleeping pills.  To break the addiction, Murphy locked himself in a motel room for a week until he finished going through withdrawal.  He advocated on behalf of the soldiers returning from Korea and Vietnam for better health benefits and treatment for mental health issues. 

On May 28, 1971, Murphy, 46 years old, was a passenger in a private plane when it crashed into a fog covered mountain near Roanoke, Virginia.  He was buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. 

QUESTION:  How do you feel about war?  What ideals do you think are important enough to die for?

To see clips of Murphy in To Hell and Back go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFOMVKB9fiY&feature=related

To see his appearance on the game show “What’s My Line” go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RWQ5tESVzk

©2010 Debbie Foulkes All Rights Reserved

Sources:

Murphy, Audie, To Hell and Back. New York: Holt Rinehart, and Winston, 1949.

http://www.audiemurphy.com/biograph.htm

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001559/bio

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy

http://www.cmohs.org/recipient-detail/2907/murphy-audie-l.php

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.mil/historical_information/audie_murphy.html