WEYWICH, HENRY
Daily Alaska Dispatch August 3, 1900
Story of Sad Dispair
Told on Flyleaf of a Small Bible
Belated Survivor
Of the Edmonton Trails on His Way south – Partner Starved
The terrible Edmonton trail has claimed another victim. Henry Weywich of Los Angeles, where his family are said to reside at present, starved to death while wintering near McPherson lake, on the Yssezoo (sic) river. His partner, Al Dominy, also of Los Angeles, was only saved from similar fate by shooting a moose. He lived upon the meat for four months, without even a bite of bread during that time.
The story of Weywich's terrible death by starvation is recorded in a little Spanish-American bible, in which he kept a diary as his note paper ran out. Dominy, who came down from the North on a late steamer on his way to Los Angeles, is taking the book to the family of the dead man, as the last words he ever wrote are inscribed therein.
Weywich and Dominy were members of the “Sunny South” party which passed through Seattle from Los Angeles to the Klondike in 1898. They took the Edmonton trail and before winter had set in had all given out but the two mentioned, and had turned back for civilization. Dominy and Weywich, however, struggled on and succeeded in reaching McPherson lake, where they built a cabin and prepared to spend the winter.
The men's provisions were terribly short, but they had no idea but that they would kill enough game to keep them going. No game appeared, though, and by January they were on short rations. The rest of the pitiful tale is best told in entries made in the diary by the dead man.
“January 6 – Too weak to go hunting. Cooked a spoonful of rice, one of flour and one of vegetables. Al gave me the leg of a squirrel.”
At this time the two men were living on two meals a day. Both meals consisted of a thin watery soup, as in that way they could get all the strength out of their slender stock of provisions.
“January 8 – Am eating the buds of willows. We had a little white weazel today. We are getting weaker and thinner every day.
“January 9 – Am starving to death. We had one spoonful of rice, one of evaporated vegetables and one of flour. It is cold and the theremometer (sic) is down to 40 below. How dreary everything looks.
“January 11 – Flour is all gone. No sign of game. Is still snowing. We are living on one spoonful of vegetables and the tips of willows.”
For five days after the entry on January 11 Weywich only signed his name and put the date down. He was evidently too weak to write.
The unfortunate man died on January 18. They had nothing to eat for the few days previous at all. Practically they had had nothing for weeks. Dominy and Weywich sang hymns and familiar tunes all the morning. The dying man gradually relapsed into unconsciousness and at 2 o'clock all was over. His partner Dominy buried the body a few rods away.
As luck would have it, Dominy managed to shot a moose, the first one they had seen, the same day Weywich died, and for four months he lived upon this meat, without a bite of anything else.
The last words that Weywich wrote in the diary, or Bible, were penned across the following verse in Acts of the Apostles:
“And now behold I go in spirit into Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there.”

 

The winter camp of the two men was on the lower end of McPherson Lake, on the Yessezoo river, about 500 miles from Dawson and 240 miles from Fort Laird. It is said that Weywich worked previous to going to the Klondike for the Los Angeles street railways.

[Submitted by Dena Whitesell]

WIESNER, JEROME B.
Jerome B. Wiesner, a science adviser to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and past president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has died. He was 79. Wiesner died at his home late Friday after an unspecified illness that lasted several months, MIT spokesman Ken Campbell said. Wiesner suffered a stroke several years ago. He was president of MIT from 1971 to 1980 and a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee from 1961 to 1964. "He was a humanitarian. The issues that were most important to him were peace, disarmament, education," said his son, Zachary. "I think he enjoyed working for the government, but he loved MIT." After his retirement from MIT, Wiesner was a founding member of the International Foundation for the Survival and Development of Humanity, a group of U.S. and Soviet scientists and educators that raised money for research on global problems. Born in Detroit, Wiesner joined the MIT radiation laboratory in 1942 after directing the University of Michigan's broadcasting service and working as chief engineer for the acoustical record lab of the Library of Congress. He worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1945 to 1946, then returned to MIT as a professor of electrical engineering, eventually rising to department head in 1959. He is survived by his wife, Laya W. Wiesner, and four children. LA TIMES 10-24-1994. Submitted by BLCW

WIESNER, LOUIS
Louis Wiesner, 86, who brought health services to victims of war and natural disasters through his work with the International Rescue Committee, died Sept. 20 in Meredith, N.H. The cause of death was not disclosed. Wiesner was a retired diplomat who had directed the State Department's Office of Refugees and Migration when he joined the International Rescue Committee in 1975. He created the group's medical program and served as its director from 1975 to 1984. Born in Port Huron, Mich., he was educated at the University of Michigan and Harvard, where he was a teaching fellow from 1939 to 1942. He worked at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Office of Strategic Services before joining the Foreign Service in 1944. He served in West Germany under the Allied Military Government after World War II and in Vietnam from 1967 to 1970. He served as U.S. disaster relief coordinator and regional refugee chief in Vietnam. After his retirement from the rescue committee, he published a study of Vietnamese refugees in 1984 called "Victims and Survivors: Displaced Persons and Other War Victims in Viet-Nam, 1954-75." LA TIMES 10-2-2002. Submitted by BLCW


WIESNER, WILLIAM "BUD"
William "Bud" Wiesner, a former barber, driver's education teacher and well-known civic booster, was memorialized Wednesday in Garden Grove, where his late wife served as the first city clerk. Wiesner, who also had served as a trustee of Garden Grove High School District (now Garden Grove Unified School District), died Saturday of heart disease, said his niece, Pam Matthews. He was 81. The funeral was at First Presbyterian Church of Garden Grove. "There were about 150 people there," said Randy Bryan, a fellow Garden Grove Host Lions Club member and manager of Dimond & Sons Mettler Mortuary, which handled the arrangements. "I'd say there were 25 Lions, about 50 Masons, the rest Shriners or other friends in town. He and Gwen had a lot of friends. They were that kind of people." Like his wife, Gwen, who was Garden Grove's city clerk, treasurer, assistant city manager and director of administrative services before she retired in 1981, Bud Wiesner wore several hats over the course of his life. He drove a taxi. He owned a barbershop. He taught driver's education. But Garden Grove Unified School District spokesman Alan Trudell said Wiesner was probably best known in lodge and civic circles. "I used to be a reporter covering Garden Grove and know Bud well. That was more than 20 years ago," Trudell said. "He is as well known in Garden Grove as his wife was. Gwen was the city's first [clerk]. Together they were both synonymous with Garden Grove. You've heard of the grapevine? She was the lead grape." Born Dec. 27, 1918, in Milwaukee, Wiesner spent most of his life in California. After his 1937 graduation from Marshall High School in Los Angeles, Wiesner served as a private first class in the Army Air Corps in China, Burma and India during World War II. He settled afterward in Garden Grove, where he became a member of the Lions Club and a Master Mason at the lodge known as Acacia Grove No. 352. He and Gwendolyn Oleta Smith were married in 1951. "I think because they chose not to have kids," said niece Matthews, 47, "they chose to be involved in other ways: school, city, the Strawberry Festival board. I found that, while I am a real niece and my brother is a real nephew, there are a lot of other people who considered them an aunt and uncle too." With his sister, Bud Wiesner ran a two-cab taxi service and later bought Century Barber. He sold it to a woman who turned it into a beauty parlor--and attended his funeral Wednesday. Sometime in the mid-1960s, Wiesner became a certified driver's education instructor, the type who rides in the car with students and steps on the passenger-side brake when things get dicey. His niece said it was a job he loved. "He liked people and really enjoyed it," she said. "I'm a baby boomer, and I guess a lot of people around my age in Garden Grove learned to drive from him. He was a barber, and there were a lot of guys who wouldn't have a haircut from anybody but Bud until they went off to college." LA TIMES 11-30-2000. Submitted by BLCW