Old Newspaper Clippings


From: East Liverpool Review, East Liverpool, Ohio; April 24, 1951

"Cancer Boy" Dies at Home in Illinois

          McLeansboro, Ill., April 24 (AP) -- Donald Redfearn has gone--perhaps to play cowboy in Heaven.  Doomed to die of 100 cancerous growths, the only child of Chloe and Harry Redfearn asked his mother several weeks ago: "Will God let me play cowboy in Heaven?"

          Donald died yesterday in his small McLeansboro home to which letters by the box full and gifts had come from sympathetic persons across the country.

          His case started with a bruise from a fall two years ago.  Since then he has faded away.  His father, a $2,150-a-year schoolteacher, had done what he could to spare his son pain and misery.  In two years Donald had been in at least six hospitals in three states.

          Donald's 11th birthday would have been May 24.  Friends feared he would not live until then.  A special birthday party was held March 11.  Cares, letters and gifts, including a television set, and $2,500 poured in for the Donald Redfern treasure chest.



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