George McKee Jr. is Hero

Hero's Medal Urged for Boy Rescuer of Three

George McKee, Jr., 14, Saved Sisters and Man from Broken Ice

 

Afton [Chenango Co., NY]:  With three persons indebted to George McKee, Jr., 14, for their lives, a movement was started here today to obtain a Carnegie medal for him.  Mrs. Whit Y. McHugh, president of the Afton legion Auxiliary, learning for the first time Wednesday of young McKee's rescue last Friday of three persons from a hole in the ice in the Susquehanna river near here, said today that her organization would sponsor a movement to obtain recognition of the youth's heroic efforts.

 

The victims of the plunge in the icy river were his sisters, Marion and Dorothy McKee, and Harry Dyer.  With McKee and Mr. Dyer's daughter Annette, a student at Genesco Normal school, they were skating in the cove about a half-mile south of this village.  The ice broke, plunging the sisters and Mr. Dyer into the water.  George at the risk of plunging in himself crawled to the edge of the broken ice and pulled out his sisters, one of them, Dorothy, unconscious from a blow on the head as it came in contact with the edge of the ice.  Taking them to safety, he then grabbed Mr. Dyer, who was about to go down for the third time.  The victims were taken to the McKee home, where they recovered.  The McKee sisters, both students at Albany Teachers' college returned to their studies over the weekend.  [January 1936]