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The Kitchen Table

Does anyone remember the Kathy Fiscus story?

14 years ago

Just looking at random things on the computer, like Jessica

McClure, the little girl who fell in the well and was rescued in the 80"s.

I remember in the 50's my father telling me of a little girl who did not survive in 1949.

She was 3, I was only 2 then so I heard of it later.

Apparently the media covered it around the world, it was a huge story. 1949, that's 63 years ago!

Anyway, I came across her story, are any of you old enough to remember hearing it or being told about it?

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Comments (8)

pattico_gw
14 years ago
I was 4 years old then...but I don't remember anything about it. There were not too many televisions in those days...and I don't remember listening to the radio...

If anything it was records.
jude31
14 years ago
1949 was the year I graduated from high school.. I remember the name but not the details. Of course I couldn't tell you what I ate for lunch yesterday so that describes my memory.

jude
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sunshines
14 years ago
I was 7 but don't remember either.
No, TV in our family.
marie_ndcal
14 years ago
We lived in CA at that time and yes I remember quite a bit. Did google her time to refresh my memory. Was in HS and during and afterwards, lots of people went around filling up old well holes. It was a tragic event. We were glued to the radio, but I think we did have a black and white Tv--can't remember.
Marie
kfca37
14 years ago
I remember it very well. It happened around Easter that year. I was 12. I believe it was the first big story covered by live television. I followed it via our daily newspaper as we got our first tv in 1951. People went down all hours of the day & night to stores selling tv's to follow the story in their store windows. Radio covered it quite heavily also.

I think the odd part of the story, if I recall correctly, was that Kathy's father worked for a Southern CA utility company & he had testified in Sacramento earlier about the danger of uncapped wells such as his daughter not much later died in. Nobody remembers for sure exactly the site of the well & her death---I think it's believed it's where a high school football field currently is. So much of So. CA has changed since 1949.
socks
14 years ago
I remember it--actually I was too little to understand, but my mother talked about it any number of times. I think it was one of the first live TV broadcasts.
kfca37
14 years ago
She was such a pretty child---there's a photo of her at the Find A Grave website. I didn't realize that not only do we share the same first name, but her birthday (Aug. 21, 1945)was just one day after mine---though not the same year.
pekemom
Original Author
14 years ago
I understand that people listened to the events on
the radio as most didn't have a TV in 1949.

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