Missouri Funeral

"When I die I want you to place my body in the office of the Mercury. Start the press and keep it running. Show the mourners the new Linotype. And have a Negro chorus sing the Rock of Ages."

These were the instructions of Thomas Vaughn Bodine, 67, gun-toting editor of the Paris (Mo.) Mercury. Then he went to a hospital and died last week of intestinal disease. Two days later his body lay in state from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. alongside the desk where he had worked for half a century. Instructions were carried out to the letter: 350 mourners were handed his obituary, fresh off the clanking press. The new Linotype machine, purchased to celebrate the Mercury's 100th anniversary three months hence, was Editor Bodine's great joy. He had started to use it to write his memoirs.

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