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Show MOT My Family TVcelclyJune 28, tm ILlULQlUCUULliVUl By MRS. GEORGE HUTCHISON as told to Jack Ryan Mrs. George Hutchison, skoion above with four of her seven children, waits for her fiusband's return from prison. As he returns (below), daughmoment. ter Valeria hugs him in emotion-choke- d M husband had tossed restlessly Y all night. Even in the morning, as w6 got tie children ready for school, he seemed nervous. "Lucille," he said finally, "what would happen if I weren't here?" 1: I was busyjnitting probably sounded offhanded in answering,"Is-tha- t what's worrying you? Why, we'd be all right. There's Social Security . . ." Clyde shook his head. "I don't mean if I die--just if n. ' wasn't here." We had been married 17 years and have seven children, but now my husband seemed a stranger. Tears welled in his eyes, and he choked back a sob. I hustled the children off and asked George L what he meant. "I have to go away probably for a long time, he said. "Twenty-seve- n years ago, I escaped prison. I just can't take it any more, running like a deer in the forest." I didn't believe him. My husband is an oper ator on a detergent-spra- y drying tower at plant near St. Louis, Mo., and has always been a good provider (although, with seven children, we just manage to scrape by) . Recently he had opened his own upholstery business to add income, but it had failed. I knew he was working too hard, and I felt the burden had simply snapped his nerves completely. "I have to give myself up," he continued. "Every morning when I see the kids go off, I worry about them. They don't even have a real name." As he added detail to detail, I began to realize that the man who had never lied to me in all our years together had been tormented day and night by a secret he could not even share with his wife. Clyde Swanson was really George Hutchison, whose story began in the Depression. Those hard times drove Clyde or rather George now from his family's home town of Exline, Iowa, to Rock-for111. "Mostly I remember being hungry," he told me. George was brutally frank about his past. With a young friend he had turned to robbing street-cars. Once his friend had shoved a gun against the head of , an old lady and lifted back the trigger. "I talked him out of killing her," George said, "but that one moment was enough for me. I swore I'd never do anything that could possibly hurt anybody, and I went home to Exline." George's partner continued the streetcar rob- soap-processi- ng Nobody discovered his true identity. Officers d, Family Weekly, June 28, 1964. : beries and oneighOilled --aconductor in cold blood. When captured, he implicated George, who was brought back to Illinois. He was sentenced to one year to life at the age of 17. After six years, George was eligible for parole, but a crime wave broke out in the state, and the parole board changed to a "tough" policy. " Td served more time for a $12 robbery than most big crooks," my husband said. "One winter day I was working on a farm detail and just sneaked away. I was a woodsman, and I knew how to cover my tracks by brushing dirt over them. All I was wearing, though, were work clothes, and I almost froze until I climbed into - -- a boxcar. "I rode a freight to St. Louis. I was hungry, scared, and cold but, Honey, it never occurred to me to steal even then. I lived on soybeans from along the track. Then I found a dime on a sidewalk. It was enough for a streetcar ride to the other side of St. Louis where I tried to bum a meal from a lady before heading West. She asked me whether I would work for it, and I said I sure would. That was a new beginning odd jobs for r i i room, tDoara, ana ou cenis a weeK. George Hutchison became Clyde Swanson, a man who avoided people and rarely spoke. Then in 1941 the United States issued a draft call, and my husband's world crumbled again. "I drew out my savings," he explained, "packed my bag, and decided to go to Mexico. I figured they'd fingerprint me at the induction center and find out who I was. I was set to leave early one week then that Sunday the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor. For two days I just walked around trying to decide what I had to do. I didn't want to go back to prison. But I was big," healthy, and young, too, and mad as the devil at those Japs. It was no use. I couldn't run. On Dec. 9, I went to the induction center, hoping I'd be lucky." By my husband's standards, he was "lucky." at ininllimsnAA onJ nrnannon nnil HAIU lllVVlliWllV i wanted apply for officer's training. But George knew officer candidates are closely investi- firAfSrtyn'a O " ' V""V him to 1 gated. He refused. He went to the South Pacific with the 41st Division and saw combat with Jap on Biak. "You patrols know," he told me, "I think I may even have helped shoot down a Jap strafing plane with my rifle I sure think I hit him." From his combat experience came an offer for a face-to-fa- ce |