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STADEM SAGA PRESENT:
So I saw the lawyer in Sioux Falls of Mr. Shupe, and he said Mr. Shupe had already moved out to Washington State. He also told me Mr. Shupe couldn't settle up for $750, which is what the plane cost.
He would have to have $850, Mr. Shupe said.
I said, 'Well, I will go and see him myself.'
So we let it go at that. Mr. Vust never had to say anything, for everything was being taken care of right.
When I got back by train, Claude Peterson who had my car came and got me. It was so good to get back to my babies--a happy day for me, to get back to my children.
But when I was back there in South Dakota, at the Academy speaking, I realized I was pregnant when I was at the President's house, and I mentioned it to Mrs. Hofstad, and she asked what I was going to do, saying, 'I don't see how you can handle this.'
I replied, 'With the Lord's help, I am going to see it through. I need to trust Him.'"
I had those checks from the Oren brothers [which they had given for Bob to purchase the plane for them, only it turned out to be the one that crashed--Ed.], and gave them each his check back.
So I never felt so good as I did when I had that thousand dollars [from Mr. Matthiesen's tithe of the profit from his flax field, given to Pearl as the Lord instructed him--Ed.] in my pocket when I went back on the train. I wanted to send the remainder, the left over money back, but he wrote to me, 'No, don't you do that.'"
" So the time came, when I said, 'Lord, show me exactly the date I should go down and see him. This was after the Lord showed me where he lived.
I was at a picnic at Lutherland Bible Camp, and my kids were roasting wieners. I mentioned to Mrs. Rud that my husband had bought a plane after she had asked about the family, and I said I had to go back and settle for the plane.
I said I had been back for the funeral, that my husband had bought a plane from a Mr. Shupe.
'Oh, Mr. Shupe, that's my relative,' she said.
'Where does he live?' I asked.
She told me exactly where he lived." [Mr. Shupe had unwittingly moved right to the town of the widow of Bob Ginther!]
I went to the door, and a lady answered.
"I've come to see Mr. Shupe?" I asked.
"He isn't here, he's at work," she said. 'He should be home anytime.'
So I went in the car, and I was so glad that I got Joyce asleep. But baby Roberta, I didn't mind holding her.
Joyce was hard to manage, because she was jealous of Roberta being held. And so Joyce fell asleep in the car, and I thought, 'Oh, I must go back, he must be there now.'
He wasn't there, but she said, 'You come on in. So I went and sat down with Roberta in my lap.
And here he came and set his shoes inside the door. He looked up at me, and I said, 'I am Bob Ginther's wife. I came here to see what you would settle for.'
He sat down. Right away he said, 'Bob was flying too low.'
I said, 'No, I know what happened, and you know what happened, what is it you want for the plane?'
I then said I want to read to you what my husband thought about you. I read from the letter [Bob had written to Pearl just before he died--Ed.], 'Mr. Shupe is an honorable and an upright man, and when Shupe does a job he does it right.'
"He turned beet red.
"Then he said he would settle for $750 instead of the $850. I gave him the money, and he wrote me a receipt, which I still have."
"I said, 'There is a lot of turmoil in the world, isn't there? But what is worse is the turmoil in our own hearts.' I gave him some gospel tracts, and I said, 'Would you read them and believe them?"
"Yes, he said he would. I invited him to come to visit me at my home and also go to my church, and that he should feel welcome any time he felt like it."
"I heard later he had gone back to his first wife, for this wasn't his first, the lady who let me in at his home in Puyallup. Here she was listening to the whole conversation.
I have no animosity against the man whatsoever. I fully expect to see him in heaven. I don't know how I heard it, but he has since died a few years ago."
"I thought how he was so ready to go and meet whatever God had as a challenge for him, and to think he was to go in his airplane or go fast. He didn't want to lay in bed and suffer."
"That was a thing he could not bear to think about. So God granted his wish, that he was taken real suddenly in his airplane."
"He was young. He didn't want to grow to be an old man. He had fulfilled everything that God wanted him to fulfill in his life. There was so much that God had him go through, he lived a full life. To me, he could have been eighty years old, after all he had gone through in his life."
"Some haven't fulfilled it that far, but his children have a lot to be proud of. If my children would live up to half as good as he was, I will be proud of them."
Mr. Shupe's handling of the entire plane deal was flawed. He encouraged two men to take up a defective plane everybody could see wasn't working properly, and then when it crashed with two deaths a few minutes later, Mr. Shupe did everything he could to cover his own responsibility for what happened.
Saying in so many words to the Afred Stadem, that God ought to be blamed for the tragedy if anybody was to be, he would not admit to his part in the crash, just that it had been a fatal crash, though relatives of the deceased could and did report his conversation urging Bob Ginther to take the plane up another time though Bob was very unsure about the plane's air-worthiness.
On the strength of that man's word, Bob Ginther did so--and he and his brother-in-law lost their lives! That was how greatly they honored and valued a man's solemn word back in those days of the early forties!
It contained hearsay of "reports" from unspecified authorities that the pilot was in error for taking a plane up that had frost on it, and also he was cited for flying very fast before the crash, as well as being put down for possible lack of experience since he had not been flying for a while before the crash.
Whose "findings" are these anyway? These charges were never substantiated by an investigation. Everyone including Mr. Shupe was aware of the frost, and the father-in-law, Alfred Stadem, was present at the airport while the plane's air-worthiness was being considered by the new owner and the dealer, and Alfred Stadem also wrote about this incident that he thought Bob was maybe too careful a flier.
All accounts of Bob show a man who had faith but who was not given to foolish risk-taking.
Both Bob and Art were highly responsible and sober individuals in character and habit, taking their duties to God, family, church, and friends very seriously at all times.
Pastor Peterson also testified in his funeral address that hunting by plane was not considered a foolish or unduly risky sport, and no one disagreed with him at the time.
Afred Stadem, the father-in-law had gone along with Bob to hunt at various times and he never described it as dangerous and something that married men with responsibilities ought to avoid--and Alfred Stadem, too, was as conscientious and sober a family man as you could hope to find in society.
A copy of the aeronautical agency's damaging report from Washington and whoever tampered with it came to the relatives of the deceased men, and after all these years it may interest the survivors to learn that an attorney looking at it this year has said that it would not stand up in a court reviewing the case [as I stated before, but which bears repeating]. This copy may have been tampered with, particularly the portions that cited the pilot for various types of malfeasance being added to possibly one factual paragraph at the top that gave public notice of the crash and the owner's name.
The widow, Mrs. Ginther, had every reason to go to court over the circumstances of the plane malfunctioning and crashing as it did.
To add to the suspicious role Mr. Shupe played, the plane was removed by Mr. Shupe from the Baltic field right after the crash, so that it was taken away from the owner without her permission.
Imagine, he demanded she pay for it, but he continued to hold the wreckage from her--no doubt fearing an investigation that might well have revealed the cause of the malfunction and the crash of the plane!
She never saw it, nor was it ever investigated officially. The newspapers reported what was seen, but that was not an investigation. Despite the fact the plane was defective and it had killed two men, Mr. Shupe, who held a dead man's check the bank refused to pay out on, demanded full compensation from the widow, and put it in the hands of his lawyers.
Feeling that she would not be treated fairly, the widow sought to settle outside court, and went to her lawyer and then went to Mr. Shupe's lawyer. From this point, the whole story evolved into one of miraculous provision and miraculous yielding of a man's address so that there could be a personal confrontation between the malefactor and the widow, between the Grace of God and a man who badly needed conviction of heart and, then, divine forgiveness.
When he did not meet with anger and condemnation from the widow, which he fully deserved, Mr. Shupe's defenses crumbled.
He changed, and turned around on the road he had taken. This all happened to him because the widow, Mrs. Pearl Ginther, was sensitive to God's leading in all aspects of the tragedy, the funeral, and the settling up with the dealer, always seeking God's way and not anything else.--Ron Ginther, Editor/Publisher.
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