The Promise

When the one-millionth G.I. left Britain's Southampton for Normandy after Dday, wartime Mayor Rex Stranger was on the pier to bid him goodbye. The mayor learned then that Sergeant Paul S. Shinier hailed from a town called Chambersburg in Pennsylvania, that he had left behind him a young wife named Marian and a two-year-old daughter. At the end of their chat Mayor Stranger promised that if anything should happen to the G.I., he would see that the widow and child in Chambersburg were cared for.

Sergeant Paul Shimer was killed in action in the ETO. Last May, after his term as mayor was up, Rex Stranger hurried to the U.S. and from his own pocket took $3,000 to establish a trust fund for the education of little Patricia Ann Shimer. Grateful citizens of Chambersburg promptly acknowledged the kindness by raising another $3,000 for food for the rationed children of Southampton; the fruit growers of Franklin County stepped forward with the promise of 600 bushels of apples to add to the gift.

Last week, ex-Mayor Stranger was back home again. With him and the new mayor, Frank Dibben, some of Southampton's 25,000 school children were lined up in the Bassett Green schoolyard (see cut) to wish a merry Christmas to far-off Chambersburg and to collect their share (five apiece) of the ripe, red-cheeked Pennsylvania apples that tasted as sweet as a promise made and kept.

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