The Chronicle

BULAWAYO, Tuesday, March 12, 1968 — A honey moon ended in tragedy for two home-loving newlyweds at the weekend.

Their car overturned and rolled several times on the Johannesburg Road, outside Bulawayo.

When police arrived on the scene they found the bride of a week cradling her dead husband’s head in her arms.

Later, as she lay in hospital, she told her father: “I felt him going cold and saw his face turning blue and I knew he was dead”.

The couple, Norman Abrams and Lorna Burns, both 27, were married the previous weekend at the Apostolic Faith Mission, North End, Bulawayo.

They were on their way home from Beitbridge, where they had been visiting relatives after staying at Umtali, when the accident happened.

A police spokesman said it was thought the car, being driven by Mr Abrams had tried to avoid a dog.

Last night at the Abrams’ home in Seventh Avenue, Woodville, where the whole family had gathered for the wedding, one of Norman’s seven brothers, Mr Henry Abrams, said:

“He was a very quiet person, a bit of a bookworm really”. The couple met just over a year ago and were engaged on Norman’s birthday, May 26, last year.

They had saved and spent more than £4 000 buying furniture and furnishing a house in Gladstone Road, Bellevue.

“They just clicked and started planning for the future straight away”, said Mr Henry Abrams.

The eldest brother, Louis, who is in the Royal Navy, had come home for the first time in 20 years to attend the wedding, and said: “It was a great shock. We are a very close family”.

The bride’s father, Mr Gideon Burns, a checker with Rhodesia Railways, said at his home in Churchill Road, Bellevue: “Lorna is a very quiet girl. She likes housekeeping and cooking”.

Mrs Abrams is expected home tomorrow from hospital.