San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Family puts Kevin Collins to rest
Items have been culled from The Chronicle’s archives of 25, 50, 75 and 100 years ago.
1994
Feb. 11: Beneath umbrellas and weeping skies, the family of Kevin Collins gathered yesterday to dedicate a memorial bench for the child who vanished 10 years ago from a San Francisco street corner. Kevin’s parents and seven siblings met at the northern edge of Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma beside the white marble bench for a private, half-hour ceremony with a priest. The bench, donated by an anonymous benefactor, bears the simple inscription, “Forever in Our Hearts — Kevin Andrew Collins” and a photograph of the 10-yearold boy. “Our family was there to put this to rest,” said David Collins, the father of the missing boy. “Most of the family feels we will not see Kevin in this lifetime.” Kevin was last seen of Feb. 10, 1984, waiting for a bus at Oak Street and Masonic Avenue, on his way home from basketball practice. “I do believe he is probably deceased,” David Collins said after the ceremony. “He knew he was so well loved and he would (have) come home if he were able to do so.”
— Steve Rubenstein
1969
Feb. 14: A crowd of some 600 persons gathered in front of the City Hall yesterday to protest Mayor Joseph Alioto’s intervention in the arrest last week of three Negro women. A series of speakers made it plain they see the angry controversy as part of a quickening attack on the American way of life. “Police brutality is the famous war cry of those who recognize no authority,” declared Jim Rourke, a business agent for Teamsters Union Local 85. The noon rally was sponsored by the local — which is interested in organizing a policemen’s union — and the Police officers Association. Policemen Gale Wright and William S. Hardeman made brief appearances to thank the crowd for their support. The two officers and a Tactical Squad member have been in hot water since a week ago when the women were arrested. The three women are Wayzel Fuller, 23, her sister Winifred, 26, and her mother Hazel, 50. Wayzel Fuller said she was arrested merely for taking pictures of a white woman who sideswiped her car. The sister and mother were arrested after they responded to Miss Fuller’s cries for help. The Tac Squad officer sprayed all three with mace when they were handcuffed in the back of the paddy wagon. Mayor Alioto had a variety of misdemeanor and felony charges against the women dropped following a conference with Police Chief Thomas J. Cahill.
— Jerry Carroll
1944
Feb. 13: More than 3000 inmates of San Quentin prison exceeded their Third War Loan bond quota by 900 per cent and as a result have little or no money left for the present Fourth War Loan drive. But they have devised a substitute and have adopted the slogan, “If you can’t buy a bond, give blood.” The prisoners are seeking to provide, not pints of blood, but three 50-gallon barrels of blood plasma for the Red Cross. ‘The men feel they are ‘on the spot.’ ” Warden Clinton T. Duffy said yesterday. “They could sell their blood for $8 a pint, and buy bonds, but they are giving it away.” In the Third Loan Drive, the prisoners’ quota was $9921. The inmates raised $100,275. Duffy explained that only 377 of the 3463 inmates earn any money at all. Those who earn are employed in highway and harvest camps. The other 3086 are dependent on funds sent in by friends and relatives or a meager amount earned from the manufacture and sale of trinkets in the prison’s Hobby Shop. Inmates do many kinds of war work but receive no pay. They make cargo slings, submarine nets, first aid battle station boxes as well as handling two and a half million tons of navy laundry a year.
1919
Feb. 16: The San Francisco quarantine office of the State Department of Horticulture at the Ferry building has added another bug to the 1276 specimens contained in the little bottles on the shelves of Chief Deputy Inspector Frederick Maskew. It is officially labeled “Pendiculus vestimenti.” Several days ago a steamship arrived from Havre, France, and Maskew sent his expert entomologists forth to make certain that pests that might prove harmful to California’s rural interests were not allowed to come ashore. The two Chatterley brothers — Stewart and Archie — made a thorough search. Then they came ashore and brought to the attention of the chief a little insect the identity of which could not be determined at a glance. L.A. Whitney, who can call nearly all bugs by their first names, placed one of the specimens under the microscope and consulted his references. He worked on the problem for a week but failed to classify the insect. Then George C. Helpner of Riverside happened to visit. He saw the new bug and said: “Well, I have just come from France. I have seen millions of those fellows over there. It is a fine specimen of ‘Pendiculus vestimenti,’ only we fellows called them cooties.”