The Press: Watermelon for Barbara

In Tucson last week, chubby little Barbara Willis was dying of leukemia, but nobody had told her how sick she was. When the 13-year-old youngster developed a strange craving for watermelon, not available in Tucson, her doctor appealed to the Arizona Daily Star for help. It promptly asked its readers to help Barbara. To keep the truth of her sickness from her, Barbara’s parents hid the newspaper. But that only made Barbara suspicious. She guessed that she was dying, and she refused to eat anything at all. Desperately, Barbara’s mother appealed to the Star to “print something to make her happy.”

Once before, the Star had done something like that. In 1938, when General John J. Pershing was critically ill in Tucson, the Star had minimized his illness in a special edition of one copy printed for him every day. Last week the Star printed a one-copy edition for Barbara. Said the special story: “Barbara is getting along just fine. She’s going to be all right before long.” In the Star’s regular edition, the rest of Tucson was let in on the secret.

Barbara excitedly showed the Star clipping to visitors, pasted it into her scrap-book—and began to eat again. With a new lease on life she began to enjoy the shipments of frozen and fresh watermelons supplied by the Star’s readers. At week’s end, Barbara was still too sick to live—and still happily alive.