People, Aug. 17, 1959

On an Iowa road a posse stopped Iowa's corn-fed Poet Paul Engle, warned him that two jailbirds, self-sprung from a nearby prison farm, might be lurking around Engle's summer home, a rambling old stone house near Cedar Rapids. Quipped Engle's car companion, daughter Mary, 18: "Oh, we'll probably find them at our house!" They did. The fugitives, a forger and an auto thief, had already held Engle's wife for nearly five hours, also had daughter Sara, 14, at kitchen-knifepoint. In the three hours that followed, the resourceful Engle family kept its nerve, calmed...

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