Thumper
08-10-2014, 02:01 AM
I attended an estate sale today and while rummaging around, came across a child's wool suit stashed back in a far corner of a closet. I was intrigued by it for some reason and decided to have a closer look. It has a matching coat, pants and belt, as well as a white cotton shirt. It's very small, size 2. I guessed it was from the 30's or 40's ... but really had no clue. It's 100% virgin wool and the moths have done a bit of a job on it in places, but it's basically intact. I have no idea why I was drawn to it, but I dragged it out of the closet and asked the lady running the sale how much she wanted for the suit. She said, "Oh, we were going to throw that away!" I said I really liked it for some silly reason and she said if I really wanted it, how 'bout $1.00? "BUT", she continued, "you may want to know the story behind it."
She proceeded to tell me whose house we were in ... the Edenfield's house. It was located in an OLD (nicely kept) neighborhood in the center of town, on Eden Street. She then told me the street was actually named after the Edenfields. Then she got to the story about the suit. The lady's husband and two sons had been killed in an accident at the Sebring race in 1966, and this suit had belonged to one of the sons (she didn't know which one). Whoa! I actually remembered that accident. We used to campaign a Corvette back in the day (owned by a wealthy businessman in Atlanta) and we went to Sebring every year. We did NOT go in 1966 (don't remember why) and moved away from Florida in 1967. I remember the tragedy because dad had mentioned that '66 was the worst year in Sebring history (actually 5 people were killed that year in two different incidents ... a driver died in a crash, and 4 spectators died in a later crash).
Anyway, the three Edenfields were killed along with Patricia Heacock whose husband had a large insurance firm back then. Actually, Heacock Insurance is still a big insurance company here in town (as well as Sebring) and has been here since 1922.
Here's a portion of the story from 1966: (this was AFTER a driver was killed in an earlier accident)
..... But then, disaster struck again. With less than 2 hours to go, the third placed NART 365P2 went into the pits, with Rodriguez going out and Andretti going in. Andretti took the car out, and on his first lap out, he was caught and passed (not for position) by Don Wester in a Porsche 906 going through the famous hairpin. On the Warehouse straight, Andretti re-passed Wester and pulled away from the Porsche. All of a sudden, while he was changing gears down from 4th to 3rd for the slow Webster turns at 140 mph, a part on the Ferrari's gearbox broke, and the car went from 4th to 1st, the rear wheels locked up and the Ferrari spun wildly out of control. While the hapless Andretti was spinning, Wester saw an opportunity to pass Andretti without incident. But Wester's plan failed appallingly- while underbraking for the Webster turns, the Ferrari was still going very quickly, and it then hit the back of Wester's Porsche. The Porsche spun out of control, went off the track, and it then went plowing into a group of spectators standing in an area where no one from the general public was allowed to be, and finally crashed hard into a warehouse, destroying the car. 4 spectators were killed in this tragedy- 46 year old Willis Edenfield, Sr. and his two sons, 20 year old Willis Jr. and 9-year old Mark were killed instantly, and 38-year old Patricia Heacock died of her injuries hours later. Wester was knocked unconsicious, but he survived with minor injuries; and this horrific incident was not known to the public until the day after.
The Ferrari went into a sand bank, and Andretti was able to get going again, but his front lights were destroyed after his contact with Wester and the sandbank, so he drove back to the pits in almost total darkness. He made it back to the pits, unaware of the horror that had taken place. The car retired after a pit fire when Andretti started the engine, destroying a number of important components, making it unable to continue.........
Ok, back to the suit ... I've researched the name on the label and all the references I dig up are from the 30's and 40's ... so I'm assuming the suit belonged to the older boy, Willis, as a young child ... or it could have even been handed down to the younger boy, Mark. Who knows? But, evidently Mom held on to it for whatever reason. Mom passed away and the suit is now hanging in my office, although I'm not really sure why. I don't know if there's any sort of market for it ... I just had a strong attraction to it for some unknown reason and couldn't see it being simply thrown in the trash.
Now what do I do? See if there's some sort of "collector's market" and list it on eBay? It IS kind of a cool "historical" piece I suppose. Possibly some Hollywood prop studio would want it. But, for some reason, selling it seems a bit "morbid". I'm not sure passing on the story of the previous owner would be a good idea, it's not like it belonged to Teddy Roosevelt or something. Any suggestions? I really have no clue why I "had" to have it. I'm starting to feel a bit creepy. :(
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She proceeded to tell me whose house we were in ... the Edenfield's house. It was located in an OLD (nicely kept) neighborhood in the center of town, on Eden Street. She then told me the street was actually named after the Edenfields. Then she got to the story about the suit. The lady's husband and two sons had been killed in an accident at the Sebring race in 1966, and this suit had belonged to one of the sons (she didn't know which one). Whoa! I actually remembered that accident. We used to campaign a Corvette back in the day (owned by a wealthy businessman in Atlanta) and we went to Sebring every year. We did NOT go in 1966 (don't remember why) and moved away from Florida in 1967. I remember the tragedy because dad had mentioned that '66 was the worst year in Sebring history (actually 5 people were killed that year in two different incidents ... a driver died in a crash, and 4 spectators died in a later crash).
Anyway, the three Edenfields were killed along with Patricia Heacock whose husband had a large insurance firm back then. Actually, Heacock Insurance is still a big insurance company here in town (as well as Sebring) and has been here since 1922.
Here's a portion of the story from 1966: (this was AFTER a driver was killed in an earlier accident)
..... But then, disaster struck again. With less than 2 hours to go, the third placed NART 365P2 went into the pits, with Rodriguez going out and Andretti going in. Andretti took the car out, and on his first lap out, he was caught and passed (not for position) by Don Wester in a Porsche 906 going through the famous hairpin. On the Warehouse straight, Andretti re-passed Wester and pulled away from the Porsche. All of a sudden, while he was changing gears down from 4th to 3rd for the slow Webster turns at 140 mph, a part on the Ferrari's gearbox broke, and the car went from 4th to 1st, the rear wheels locked up and the Ferrari spun wildly out of control. While the hapless Andretti was spinning, Wester saw an opportunity to pass Andretti without incident. But Wester's plan failed appallingly- while underbraking for the Webster turns, the Ferrari was still going very quickly, and it then hit the back of Wester's Porsche. The Porsche spun out of control, went off the track, and it then went plowing into a group of spectators standing in an area where no one from the general public was allowed to be, and finally crashed hard into a warehouse, destroying the car. 4 spectators were killed in this tragedy- 46 year old Willis Edenfield, Sr. and his two sons, 20 year old Willis Jr. and 9-year old Mark were killed instantly, and 38-year old Patricia Heacock died of her injuries hours later. Wester was knocked unconsicious, but he survived with minor injuries; and this horrific incident was not known to the public until the day after.
The Ferrari went into a sand bank, and Andretti was able to get going again, but his front lights were destroyed after his contact with Wester and the sandbank, so he drove back to the pits in almost total darkness. He made it back to the pits, unaware of the horror that had taken place. The car retired after a pit fire when Andretti started the engine, destroying a number of important components, making it unable to continue.........
Ok, back to the suit ... I've researched the name on the label and all the references I dig up are from the 30's and 40's ... so I'm assuming the suit belonged to the older boy, Willis, as a young child ... or it could have even been handed down to the younger boy, Mark. Who knows? But, evidently Mom held on to it for whatever reason. Mom passed away and the suit is now hanging in my office, although I'm not really sure why. I don't know if there's any sort of market for it ... I just had a strong attraction to it for some unknown reason and couldn't see it being simply thrown in the trash.
Now what do I do? See if there's some sort of "collector's market" and list it on eBay? It IS kind of a cool "historical" piece I suppose. Possibly some Hollywood prop studio would want it. But, for some reason, selling it seems a bit "morbid". I'm not sure passing on the story of the previous owner would be a good idea, it's not like it belonged to Teddy Roosevelt or something. Any suggestions? I really have no clue why I "had" to have it. I'm starting to feel a bit creepy. :(
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