ustxtxb_obs_1956_01_11_50_00005-00000_000.pdf

from a .380 Colt automatic had penetrated his brain and passed through his head completely. Apparently he had shot himself as he sat on a blanket in his bedroom Saturday afternoon. The neighbor found a gun and put it in a drawer. When ambulance attendants arrived they found Shoemake already bandaged and sitting in a chair. Bldod trails all over the large home indicated that Shoemake had wandered around for some time after the shooting. Reports reached the Observer that he was kept on the telephone by a relative sometime after the shooting \(blood was found on the -coherent after the shooting. Vice Squadman Earl Coan said Rep. Bert McDaniel Shoemake’s lawyer in Wacotold him that Sunday a week ago he had visited Shoemake for the last time. He said Shoemake read him the Twenty-third Psalm, shook his hand, and said, “Goodbye, Bert.” McDaniel and members of Shoemake’s family kept a hospital watch. McDaniel would not talk to reporters but once said to a group of relatives loud enough for reporters to hear: “The newspapers drove Shoemake to do this. It’s a disgrace.” Dr. Boyd Alexander, Shoemake’s doctor, said he asked Shoemake when , he reached him if he felt any pain. Shoemake said he did not. Alexander askedhim : “Did you do it yourself ?” Shoemake did not reply. When a statewide meeting of investors was informed that .Shoemake had shot himself Saturday night, some of those present’ broke into bitter and emphatic applause. A surprisingly large number seemed to applaud lightly. Ben King, Austin real estate appraiser directed by the Insurance commission to appraise U. S. Trust’s assets and paid by Shoemake for several months before the state closed the company, worked with Shoemake often during that time. He told the Observer Sunday night: “FIe was a likable man. His intelligence or I.O. was superhigh. In addition to being a dreamer he did what most dreamers do not try to do : to put it in action. What kind of man he eras behind that, I don’t know.” King tentatively found that Shoeinake’s properties were over-valued. He said Shoemake never tried to get -him. to “bend” his appraisals. THE MOP-UP of the U.S.. Trust collapse proceeded last week. Six of U.S. Trust’s seven directors all but Shoemakesought a release from Judge Charles Betts’s court order ‘freezing their personal assets. Auditors located bank deposit slips for $98,000 cash that was believed to be the money Shoemake was reported to have taken from U.S. Trust offices for “safekeeping.” In Houston three creditors sued U.S. Trust to recover $9,538 they deposited and $5,000 exemplary damages. In Arkansas, Willis V. Lewis, president of the Arkansas Fire and Marine Insurance Co. that re-insured $1.6 million of U.S. Trust’s insurance policies ; admitted he got $500,000 from Shoemake as a “personal loan” to be used to invest in the Arkansas firm. He said he used $400,000 of it to set up the $500,000 company and sent $100,000 back to Shoemake at the latters’ request. The firm is being permitted to continue to do business in Arkansas conditioned by its agreement not to -dispose of any of its assets. Its permit to do business in Texas has been re yoked. Judge Charles 0. Betts of 98th district court granted a temporary restraining order against U.S. Life Insurance Co. of Waco, whose permit to do business was revoked Thursday by the commissioners at a hearing at which attorney William Yelderman of Austin represented Shoemake. The Attorney General filed a suit to put the company, a Shoemake subsidiary, into receivership. The board placed Southern Medical and Hospital Servicesanother U.S. Trust subsidiaryunder supervision. The company announced a new slate of managers it said were not connected with Shoemake. The board gave the company 30 days to hold an election. among the stockholders on the new management. Mystery Continues ;A:T..TS TIN The dram4 of A.B. Shoemake’s susi, tide shot, an audit of all Texas insur, since companies this year,,, and demands for impeachment of the insurance commissioners has all but obscured a continuing question in the TruSt and Guaranty’ collapse: what happened between July S and Sept. 15, 1955? On June, 24, in what it called “spe-.. tific findings,” the Board ofInsurance Commissioners said U.S. Trust was insolvent and its capital “totally impaired.” An unpublished hearing on revocation of U.S. Trust’s’ permit to ‘do business was called July 5. Then, for two months : silence. 400,000-the title as a Lloyds or mutual firm: Texas Mutual Insurance Company; AtLloyds Fire & Casualty Assurance; United Lloyds; United World Life InsurLloyds of North America; Hammonds & Zenith County Mutual Insurance Co.; Johnston?Stallworth Burial Assn.; ComMid-Continent County Mutual Fire Insurance Co.; Century Lloyds; Pioneer Western Mutual Insurance Co.; Continental County Mutual Insurance Co.; W. C. Czigan County Mutual Inusrance Co.; Mutual of Texas Fire & Automobile Insurance Co.; Home Service Casualty U.S. Trust & Guaranty \(trust, guaranty, WHAT BETTER GIFT for Christmas than an original drawing, painting or sculpture by young Texas artists? Why buy reproductions? Eeveryman a Medici! RENAISSANCE GALLERY. 624 Lamar Boulevard, Austin, Texas EVening Hours 8 to 11 .1 The Texas Observer Page 5 Jan. 11, 1956 On Sept, 15, -Ben King, Austin real estate man, was sent in by the Commission to appraise Shoemake’s properties.; In mid-December -the company was closed by the state. Insurance Comthissioners Garland Smith and Byron Saunders told the Observer and other Texas newsmen . that they did not take action against the company on July 5 . because the Attorney. General, John Ben Shepperd, told them they ddi not have sufficient evidence for a court judgment of insolvency. The hearing was “recessed” LEGAL ADVERTISEMENTS NOTICE OF INCORPORATION Notice is hereby given of the intention to incorporate a firm with offices in Corpus Christi, Texas, under the name of Jack Shackelford Decorator, Inc.” TO THE CREDITORS OF ESTATE OF S. M. LEE, SR..: Notice is given that letters testamentary upon estate of S. M. Lee, Sr., deceased, were granted us November 28, 1955, by County Court of Travis County. All persons having claims against said estate should present same in time prescribed by law, our residences and post office addresses in Austin, Texas, being as follows: YERNON BYRON LEE 7015 Burnet Road JESSIE M. LEE 301 North Loop Independent Executors of Estate of S. M. Lee, Sr. NOTICE TO CREDITORS OF ESTATE OF WILLIAM F. PEALE, DECEASED: Notice is hereby given that original Letters Testamentary upon the Estate of William F Peale, Deceased, were issued to the undersigned on the 29th day of September, 1955, by the County Clerk of Travis County, Texas. All persons having’ claims against said. estate are hereby required to present the same to us, or either of us, within the time prescribed by law. Our residence is 1808 Travis Heights Blvd., Austin, Texas, and our post office address is c-o William A. Brown, 702 Brown’ Bldg., Austin, Texas. ALLICE ETHEL PEALE WILLIAM FULTON PEALE, YR. Independent Executors of the Estate of William F. Peale, Deceased NOTICE OF INTENTION TO INCORPORATE A FIRM WITHOUT CHANGE OF FIRM NAME TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: Notice is hereby given that William L. Nelson, doing -.business under the firm name of Dwight TV Sales & Service Company, intends to incorporate such firm immediately under the firm name of Dwight TV Sales & Service Corporation, located at 724 Dwight Avenue, South San Antonio, Texas. Signed this 8th day of December, A. D.. 1955. DWIGHT TV SALES & SERVICE CO. By: WILLIAM L.’ NELSON, Owner SHERIFF’S SALE BY VIRTUE of a certain Order of Sale, issued by the Clerk of the 98th District Court of Travis County,_Texas, on the 12th day of December, 1956, in a certain Ca-use Nu. 102,604, wherein Western Republic Life Insurance Company, is Plaintiff and 011ie Edmondson and wife, Augusta Edmondson, are Defendants, in favor of the said Plaintiff for the sum of Three Thousand Three Dollars, with interest thereon at the rate of 6 per centum per annum from the 21st day of October, 1955, together with all costs of suit, that being the amount of a judgment recovered by the said Plaintiff, in the 98th District Court of Travis County, on the 21st day of November, 1955. 1, on the 13th day of December, 1955, at 4:55 o’clock P.M. have, levied upon, and will, on the ‘7th day of February 1956, that being the first Tuesday in said month, at the Court House door in the City of Austin, within legal hours, proceed to sell for cash, to the highest bidder. all the right, title and interest of 011ie Edmondson and wife, Augusta Edmondson, as the same existed on the ‘7th day of July, 1964, and at all subse after the July 5 ‘hearing; that the cons w missioners were fully informed of this plan at that hearing; that the plan inchided new management.if the auditor found the company acceptableWhich he didn’t, withdrawing early in September; and that the minutes of the July 5 meeting contain no discussion by the commissioners about sending in their own :appraiser. On Sept. 6 a new law went into effect’ transferring authority to order audits of companies from Smith then chairman of the commissionto the entire board.. On Sept. 15 King was sent in. .Smith told the Observeron further inquirythat the appraiser was not sent in between July and September because the conunission did not have the money to pay the appraisers until after new laws went into effect on Sept. 6. Last Sunday the appraiser, King, told the Observer that he was paid by Shoemake, not the commission. Monday morning t h e Observer. asked Saunders and Smith together how this checked out. Saunders. replied: “The new law does not provide that we may select an appraiser of our choice until Sept. 6, and authorize his compensation.” Before then, he said,. the company could select its own ap 7, praisersany two freeholders. Smith agreed with this statement. Wentz, Smith, and Saunders all said that they were not sure, but they understood that auditor Felix Einsohn the Dallas man who made the July:. September inquirywas to be paid by Shoemake. Einsohn said he had been paid between $20,000 and $30,000 in an interview with the Observer in Dallas recently. He said Shoemake had employed him. Senator George Parkhouse of Dallas had told the Observer BenJack Cage of the Insurance Company of Texas was to be included in the new management group. Einsohn said Cage was not associated’ with him in the audit. None of the commissioners mentioned to reporters the private audit and new management plan permitted by them in July. quent dates existed and still exists, in and to the following described property, levied upon as the property of Defendants, to-wit: in Outlot No. 45, in Division “B”, of the City of Austin, Texds, together with all improvements thereon ; and being the same property which is described in deed from Ernest Best, Sheriff of Travis County, Texas, to the Calcasieu Lumber CoMpany, dated August 2, 1950, and recorded in Book 1079, at Pages 474-476, of the Deed Rec.. ords of Travis County, Texas, and being the same lien described in a’ certain instrument now of record _ in the office of the County Clerk of Travis County, Texas, in Volume 1473, Pages 333-335, of the Deed Records of such county to which deeds and the records thereof reference is here made. THE ABOVE SALE TO BE MADE BY ME, to satisfy the above described judgment for $3,365.14 in favor of the said Plaintiff, together with the costs of said suit, and the proceeds applied to the satisfaction ‘thereof. T. 0. LANG, Sheriff, Travis County, Texas Austin, Texas, December 19, 1965. TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: Notice is hereby given that Marian H. Gurney, doing business under the firm name of Carrousel Children’s Shop, in San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas, intends to incorporate such firm immediately under the name of Carrousel Children’s Shop, Inc., at the same place of business, said corporation to acquire all the assets and assume all of the liabilities of said business. Such change is to be effective as soon 811 *authorized by law.. SIGNED this 30th day of December, A. Dv 1956. CARROUSEL CHILDREN’S SHOP By: MARIAN H. GURNEY, Owner. Waco One supposes it was all too much for A. B. Shoemake, and he put a bullet in his brain. ni ght. He lay near death Tuesday nght. None of the doctors gave him a chance. He had insured his life for a million: dollars and named his company beneficiary-, but his suicide forestalls even that solace for the creditors of his bankrupt U.S.. Trust’ & Guaranty : the million is not forthcoming on grounds of the suicide. Waco D.A. Tom Moore took three notes found’ in Shoemake’s home to Mrs. Shoeinake after the shooting, and she said two of them were in his