BASCOMBE, Marshall K. "Shorty" c1910-1963

BASCOMBE, HOCUM

Posted By: Diane Scott (email)
Date: 6/26/2010 at 09:38:17

#1: (Death Notice)

M. K. BASCOMBE

OSAGE, IOWA - Marshall K. (Shorty) Bascombe, 52, died of a heart attack Saturday morning at the Mitchell County Memorial Hospital. Funeral arrangements are pending at the Champion Funeral Home.

He fell down the basement steps of his home Wednesday and was unable to get up until his sister found him 19 hours later. He lived alone and was employed by the Osage park commission.

[Mason City Globe Gazette, Saturday, November 30, 1963]

Note: Marshall was the son of Fred Bascombe and Zaide (Hocum) Bascombe.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#2: (Obituary)

OSAGE, IOWA- Funeral rites will be at 2 p.m. Tuesday at the Champion Funeral Home for Marshall Bascombe, 54, Osage Municipal Park Commission employee, who died Saturday morning at the Mitchell County Memorial Hospital.

Survived by three brothers and three sisters.

[Waterloo Courier, Monday, December 2, 1963]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#3: (Biographical story)

Dwarf Held
in Default of
$5,000 Bail

OSAGE, Aug. 1,— The law took (Marshall (Shorty) Bascombe, 27 year "old dwarf, at whom everybody had laughed since he was "old enough to know" seriously today,

Lacking $5,000 bond, he was held in jail awaiting a grand jury investigation of the shooting of Marie Meggett, 24, pretty waitress, who told him to "stay away" from her and refused to accept his gifts.

He waived to the grand jury when arraigned before Justice Donald Chehock on a charge of assault with intent to kill, filed by County Attorney Carl Conway. R.G. Cummings of Oaage is his attorney.

In Critical Condition

The girl, who won a prize in a July 4 beauty contest, was in critical condition at Nissen Hospital here following the shooting Tuesday night at the Wendell Tubbs residence, where she roomed. The bullet was removed and physicians said she would recover if infection did not result.

Bascombe hoped today that she would recover.

His ever mounting resentment against fate that left him 3 1/2 feet tall and the people who looked down and twitted him, drained away Tuesday night when he shot the girl from his ambush of jealousy on the front porch of the home where she lived.

Doesn't Blame Girl

"It isn't any of her fault," "Shorty" said. "Marie's a good kid. She didn't know."

He told how he had been included on parties which the waitress attended,

"You couldn't hardly say we had ever gone together," he said, "but she was as nice to me as she was to any of the others for a while. She didn't laugh at me as much as the others when someone started kidding me about my size like they've done since I was old enough to know."

Meant to Kill Self

"But she wouldn't have dates with me when I finally asked her. And she wouldn't take the things I wanted to give her."

"I went to her house meaning to kill myself so she could see. But when I saw her sitting there something came over me. I was mad at the whole world. So I shot her instead."

County Attorney Conway said today he had talked with Miss Meggett.

Asked to Be Wife.

"She told me," he said, "that two weeks ago "Shorty" had asked her to marry him.

"It was then, the girl said she realized how the dwarf felt towards her and she told him to keep away."

County officials precautions to prevent Bascombe from attempting to take his own life after he had asked for a gun to kill himself.

[Mason City Globe Gazette, Thursday, August 1, 1935] (Credit: S Bell)