Young minds remember this type of story...probably connected with survival instinct.  Sorry it struck the Mulls and was so close to your Mom and her family.

Hard core tragedy - thanks for sharing that. I have been looking at all the cool waterways freezing over and thinking how interesting it would be to explore some by foot. But your warning is serious. Perhaps a group of us could meet someplace cool and frozen where we could do a core test to make sure it is safe and then walk to see something we usually wouldn't - I'd love to walk on the Cuyahoga someplace around the Flats.

Disrupt IT

Umm moving rivers, especally ones that have a navigable channel dredged to 30+ feet regularly, would not be high on my list of places to go skating.  Uneven currents and thermal pollution (central waste water treatmetn plant) lead to uneven ice.   Ya'll got a core drill? 

"I grabbed a pile of dust, and holding it up, foolishly asked for as many birthdays as the grains of dust...I forgot to ask that they be years of youth."

Publius Ovidius Naso

While surfing the net, I stumbled across Zebra Mussel's post from February, 2007 concerning the deaths of Lois, Joey and Stevie Mall on the Dalwood Drive beach.

My grandmother and aunt (the Graces) lived at 363 Dalwood and I spent many, many summers with them during the 1950s.  I knew Joey and Lois his mother quite well.  Joey and the gang of us would play on the beach near the old stone beach house at the foot of the hill to their place.  Lois was always good for a quick snack if we didn’t feel like making the trek to the Lakeshore end of Dalwood and my grandmother’s house.

I was young at that time but recall that the original family name was Malois (sp) which had been shortened and Anglicized to Mall.  Lois was an incredibly sweet lady who often told my grandmother that she thought I looked like the actor Joseph Cotton.

I have been literally haunted by their tragic ends since they occurred.  I have visited that beach over the years when family or business brought me back to the places of my youth and am always moved when I think of the tragedy that occurred there.  That MAY flow from my own near-death by drowning off that same beach in 1948.  My father saved my life that day.  I am plagued by guilt that there was no one there to save Joey, Lois and little Stevie.

For years, I have been trying to locate a newspaper story or some other data giving more specific information on the events of that day but my recollection of the events (given to me by my grandmother at the time) squares with those of Zerba's.  My purpose for trying to "get it right" is to write a book or short story about growing up in that time and place. And I want to memorialize these three tragic deaths which I simply cannot allow to slip from our national memory without a mention.

Let me run  a few names by those of you who would happen upon this post:  Buddy Cosgrove, Russ Anderson, Paul Beining, Woody and Peggy Crowley, the Ellison twins, Lee Courtney.

All except Russ Anderson lived on Dalwood.  Russ lived on Groveland Club Drive (the next street east).  Years later, I saw Russ -- who was a Marine en-route to Vietnam -- at Hopkins Airport where I worked at the time.

If any in here who may have lived in the vicinity of Dalwood Drive in the 50s and/or may have knowledge of this tragedy would like to enter into a dialog about those simpler times or, more specifically, the events of that day, I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks.

"I grabbed a pile of dust, and holding it up, foolishly asked for as many birthdays as the grains of dust...I forgot to ask that they be years of youth."

Publius Ovidius Naso