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Show Son Loses Grip on Mother; Fall Fatal He Held Her From Apartment Window Near White House. WASHINGTON. The 45-year-old wife of a Maryland farm owner slipped from the grasp of her son after a struggle and fell eight floors to her death from the window of an apartment building a few blocks from the White House. The woman was Mrs. Helen P. Berlage. She and her husband and son lived in two apartments on the top floor of the Jefferson apartments apart-ments here. The son, 23-year-old Thomas N. Berlage Jr., said his mother went to the window without warning shortly after 10 a. m., and climbed out. He rushed after her and grabbed her wrists just as she was about to let go. For three minutes, while he screamed for help out the window overlooking 16th street, the son struggled to pull his mother back to safety. Finally, his grip loosened and she slipped to an awning which covered a window on the floor below. The son started out the window after her, but her body edged off the awning and plunged to the sidewalk. side-walk. Police said she lived only a few minutes. They said her husband, Thomas N. Berlage Sr., owner of an Olney, Md., farm, told them his wife had undergone a serious operation about Easter and had been depressed de-pressed since. The couple had two other children. Witnesses on the street tried to improvise a net below the woman as she dangled from the window, but did not succeed. |