One bad thing Faith Marie does that drives us all batty is... she grinds her top teeth & bottom teeth together!!! 😤 hate that sound!! We hurry & put a teether in her mouth. She can grind away all she wants on that.
She is doing ok. Getting teeth in 1 or 2 at a time makes an unhappy Faith & mommy, but mommy puts real vanilla on her gums & makes a happy kid!!
She is still having 3 therapist come to the house a week to work with her speech, muscles, & sitting/rolling/standing. All 3 ladies are wonderful with Faith, Brandi, Deryk, & the Midget. They all spend a few moments playing with big sister Midgy & her ball, lol.
With this Coronavirus, they are going to be as vigilant as they were when Faith came home. This virus can easily kill Faith because of her weakened immune system.
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Pennsylvania Great Outdoors: The Helman Homicide
February 23, 2020 12:45 am·
Author: PA Great Outdoors - John Straitiff
BROCKWAY, Pa. – One of the most notorious crimes ever to have occurred in the Brockway area of Jefferson County was the homicide of peddler Lewis Helman in 1896. The events can be reconstructed from the newspapers of the time.
Both the Altoona Tribune and The Gazette in York described the Helman murder in their issues of September 3. More than a dozen other papers across the Commonwealth, from the Philadelphia Inquirer to the Pittsburgh Daily Post picked up the story during the week, and finally, on September 9, 1896, the Punxsutawney News made county readers aware of the event:
On Wednesday evening of last week, two Jewish peddlers were driving along the road leading to Brockwayville and when withing a mile of that town they were held up by two masked men supposed to be tramps. The names of the peddlers were Lewis Helman and H. Shakespeare, both of DuBois. As soon as the robbers ordered a halt both men jumped from their buggy, and the robbers attacked them with revolvers and knives. One of the shots took effect in Helman’s breast. The tramps then took to the woods which line the road. Where he died shortly after. As soon as the news reached Brockwayville, a posse of citizens began searching for the murderers. Shakespeare says he can identify the assassins. One of the highwaymen is tall, the other short, both of dark complexion. Helman’s body was brought to Punxsutawney and buried on Tuesday last. Deceased leaves a wife and four children and was 35 years of age.
Two brothers, William and Frank Dodson, were arrested at Hallton, Elk County, on Saturday last, on the charge of having murdered Lewis Helman at Brockwayville. The prisoners are now in the Brookville jail.
The Ridgway Star gives the following particulars: William Dodson will be remembered as the star actor in a trial at Judge Lucore’s office recently, when he was charged by Nathan Laughner, of Spring Creek, with threats to shoot.
He was bound over to court and gave bail in the sum of $300 to keep the peace. Mr. Laughner furnished the bail. He is a married man with a small family and worked in Hall & Garnder’s Hallton mill until recently.
Frank Dodson is a jail bird and was discharged from the penitentiary about a month ago. When he came home, Will quit working and the two brothers started out camping together and have been in Jefferson County most of the time since.
Both of the men have anything but a good name and have been a disturbing element in the community all the time they have lived here. A number of petty robberies in the last few weeks have been laid at their doors and the people are overjoyed at their capture.
Reynoldsville’s newspaper, The Star, reported that the eighty dollars in Helman’s pocket had not been taken.
An Orthodox Jew, Lewis Helman was quickly buried according to the laws and customs of that faith. “This law prescribes that, in case of death by violence, none of the blood shall be washed off, and none of the bloody garment removed, but that the victim shall be buried as he was when death came. He was laid in the grave without a coffin, his head resting upon a sack of earth. A small flat stone was placed over each eye and over his mouth, and a green twig in each hand. Boards were placed at each side of the corpse and above it and then the grave was filled up.”
Helman was buried in the Cherva Agudath Achuin Hebrew Cemetery in Cloe village, Bell Township, near Punxsutawney, with a rabbi present from Punxsutawney’s small Jewish congregation The Hebrew letters on his headstone reveal his Jewish name to have been Leib, which means “Lion” in Yiddish.
The Brockwayville Record covered the Grand Jury proceedings on September 18, 1896. The trial was postponed to December because Mrs. Dodson was unable to be present. Dr. John Thompson of Portland Mills had stated she was “not in a fit condition to attend upon the court at this time.”
In the interim, an engineer surveyed and mapped the murder scene, and Sheriff Gourley kept “a special watch” over the prisoners. As the trail approached, the excitement was almost more than the writer for the Brockwayville Record could bear:
A cold-blooded murder, resulting from a deliberately planned robbery, is so rare that its revolting nature still brings a thrill of horror when the circumstances are recalled. Its heinousness is all the more revolting when it is considered that the crime was committed in the midst of an orderly, peace-loving community where life and property are considered safe as they are anywhere in the land.
William and Frank Dodson, who are charged with this heinous crime, are not residents of the community.
N.U. Bond, Esq., who has charge of the defense, will be assisted by C.Z. Gordon, Esq., of Brookville, and possibly others. The attorneys who will assist District Attorney Strong are E.A. Carmalt, of Brookville, and A.L. Cole, of DuBois. Others are available if needed. The trial is awaited with great interest.
On December 15th the Jefferson County courtroom filled to overflowing, Judge John W. Reed entered and was seated, the prisoners entered, the Prothonotary read the arraignment, the accused replied “Not guilty,” and “twelve good men and true” were selected as jurors.
Testimony began the next day when witnesses for the prosecution explained the scene of the crime and the cause of death. Others described seeing the defendants buying liquor at the hotel Barclay in Westville and cartridges at Hamilton’s store, and having lunch at Lindemuth’s place.
Then N.U. Bond opened for the defense and stated his intent to prove that the accused could not have been at the scene of the crime, that the two men that had been seen following the peddlers were not the Dodson brothers. Witnesses were asked about Shakespeare’s reputation for truthfulness.
According to the Brockwayville Record:
The substance of his outline was to the effect that Dodson’s….set out the day before the murder to visit their sister at Harvey’s Run. They reached their destination that night, having traversed the distance from William’s home at Spring Creek on foot by way of Richardsville. …The next day…passing through Beechtree and Westville, on to the Beechwoods road and to the crossroad heading to the Brookville Road. At John Key’s place they took to the woods and headed in the direction of Carrier…pursued their way down the creek and river homeward, reaching Spring Creek late that night. Along their route they encountered persons who knew them and were prepared to testify that the defendants were far enough away from the scene of the murder to establish their innocence of the crime charged. Another thing the defense proposed to prove was that two men had been seen following the peddlers all day and that these men and not the Dodsons were the guilty ones.
A string of witnesses testified about the two strangers who were seen in the neighborhood. M.J. Raught saw them when he was driving from Carrier to Sugar Hill. Albert and Edward James said the strange men stopped at their hotel in Brockport on the night of the murder.
It was on Thursday that the defendants took the stand. Frank Dodson made a good impression. Frank removed his coat to show that his physique was normal, he had no “low shoulder,” as one of the men passing the Hutchinson farm was said to have. Both men described their apparel, description that conflicted with those of the prosecution.
William Dodson did not have the nerve of his brother. He appeared to wilt at times and was rattled under the sharp fire of examination. He spoiled the good impression created by Frank and once more the chain of evidence seemed to tighten around them.
Attorneys for both sides summed up Friday afternoon. On Saturday Judge Reed eloquently charged the jury on the law. The jury began deliberating, then asked on Tuesday to be dismissed, “It is now claimed that Samuel Fike of Knox Township, is related to the Dodsons by marriage, and that eleven of the jurors agree on murder in the first degree, but Fike holds out for acquittal.” That was denied.
Finally, “After being out for a space of five days the jury in the Dodson case at last reached a verdict. They made known their decision on Thursday morning after court had convened, and rendered a verdict of voluntary manslaughter. From the nature of the verdict and the long time consumed in reaching it, the natural inference is that it was a compromise. The maximum penalty for voluntary manslaughter is twelve years’ imprisonment.”
William and Frank Dodson were sentenced to “Twelve years apiece in the Western Penitentiary at hard labor, one dollar fine and cost of prosecution. Judge Reed said Saturday, while the Dodsons were before him for sentence, that the verdict in their case was an absurdity.” The Brockway Record found the verdict “extraordinary.”
Soon the Dodson brothers were “safe in the pen” in Pittsburgh.
For more information on places to go and things to see in the Pennsylvania Great Outdoors region, go to VisitPAGO.com.
https://www.explorejeffersonpa.com/pennsylvania-great-outdoors-the-helman-homicide/#more-260022
Wait! What? No mention of the Hilton's belly busters, fries and John? Incomplete history, I tell you! 🧐 RIP John. Gone but not forgotten. His legacy lives on.....
Wait! What? No mention of the Hilton's belly busters, fries and John? Incomplete history, I tell you! 🧐 RIP John. Gone but not forgotten. His legacy lives on.....
Wait! What? No mention of the Hilton's belly busters, fries and John? Incomplete history, I tell you! 🧐 RIP John. Gone but not forgotten. His legacy lives on.....
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PA Great Outdoors Visitors Bureau: History of Hallton
February 2, 2020 12:30 am·
Author: exploreJefferson
When the town of Hallton was first settled around 1810 by Amos Davis, it was known as Spring Creek. By the 1820s, Job Paine and James Watterson built a sawmill in the area where it became a rally point for rafts men during the rafting era of lumbering along the Clarion River.
(Story courtesy of Rob Keith)
In the 1880s, James K. Gardner and John G. Hall formed the Hall, Gardner & Co and constructed a sawmill. It was then that the town became known as Hallton.
The Clarion River Railway was completed to Hallton in 1891, and the Tionesta Valley Railway that came down Spring Creek from Sheffield also served Hallton. Hall would die in 1889 and William H. Hyde (Joseph S. Hyde’s son) would join the venture.
In 1905 Frank Clawson would construct a wood chemical plant up Spring Creek from Hallton on the west bank of the creek. The Hall, Gardner & Co sawmill would close in 1909, but it would take until 1948 for the Clawson Chemical Company plant to close, which also forced the abandonment of the Clarion River Railway.
Like many small towns along the Clarion River, once the lumber industry moved on, so did the citizens and industries in the town. The history of the town is captured in the photos and the stories told by the people that lived and worked there.
For more information on the history of and current activities available in the Pennsylvania Great Outdoors, go to VisitPAGO.com.
Thank you, to everyone who has followed along with Faith Marie’s journey to reach a year old!! The majority of us learned what Trisomy 18 is. We also learned that “Trisomy 18 is a Diagnosis, Not a Prognosis.” We have no idea what the future holds, we will go day by day. Everything is in God’s Hands, His plans & His time. 🙏🏻💜🙏🏻
Faiths oxygen was an avg of 95% last night. She had it up to 98% which is great. Still congested this morning. She was fussy and gassy yesterday. Still has a lot of junk in her nose and throat but hopefully it’ll get better today 🙏 she’s been cranky with her bottle but I think she had sinus pressure and maybe a headache yesterday too. So hoping for a better day today. We are restarting therapy this week with strict rules of if anyone is in contact with someone who is sick to just reschedule. But we’ve got to get her back on track again.
She had an oxygen level of 97% through the night!
Still congested but lungs are sounding much clearer, it’s like it went back to her nose again lol but I think a few more days and we will be almost back to normal 😁
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