Unknown Gender History: Delos Shay Rescues Little Daughter From Mother Who Tortured Her: Michigan

PHOTO CAPTION: CHILD SEVERELY BEATEN—Beverly Rose Shay, 4, is shown happy with her father Delos Shay (left), a sanatorium patient, after being taken from her mother and her war veteran companion, the latter pair were arraigned in police court on charges growing out of the beating of the child in Grand Rapids, Mich.

[“Father Comes to Her Rescue,” syndicated (AP), The Ogden Standard Examiner (Ut.), Apr. 12, 1946, p. 1]

***

FULL TEXT: Grand Rapids, Mich., Apr. 11 – A 23-year-old mother and her war veteran companion, accused of assaulting the former’s young daughter, were held in jail today under $1500 bond while awaiting trial April 17.

The pair, Mrs. Evelyn Shay and Harvey M. Hubert, 31, were arraigned yesterday m police court before Judge Edward G. Burleson on charges growing out of the beating of 4-year-old Rose Shay, in serious condition in St. Mary's Hospital. Both pleaded guilty to charges growing out of the beating of a 4-year-old Rose Shay, in serious condition in St. Mary’s Hospital.

Both pleaded guilty to charges of unlawful cohabitation. Hubert waived examination on an aggravated assault charge, and a plea of innocence was entered for the young mother who stood mute when charged with cruelty to children.

Prosecutor Menso R. Bold said the little girl had been beaten and that the soles of her feet were burned. Detectives George Lynch and Clarence Stoppels reported Hubert had told them he lashed her with a leather belt, and that the mother said she slapped Rose several times.

The child was punished because “she didn't do as she was told,” Lynch and Stoppels said the pair told them.

The burns on the child’s feet were acquired, the officers quoted Hubert as saying, when she was forced to leap from the top of a hot oil stove.

Police said Mrs. Shay’s husband, Delos, is in a sanitorium while Hubert and his wife separated recently.

[“Pair Held for Abusing Little Girl, 4,” Oakland Tribune (Ca.), Apr. 11, 1946, p. 8]

***

FULL TEXT: Grand Rapids, Mich., April 11 —A distraught, tubercular father rose from his sick bed Thursday to fight for custody of his 4-year-old daughter, allegedly beaten and burned into a hideous mass of bruises and sores by her mother and a Jobless navy veteran.

Delos Shay, for two years a sanitorium patient, rushed to the beside of Beverly Rose Shay, who lay with multiple bruises, head injuries and burns of the feet caused when she was forced to stand on a hot stove. He broke down and wept when he embraced his daughter at her bedside.

Mrs. Evelyn Shay, 24, and Harvey M. Hubert, 26-year-old ex-sailor with whom police said she has been living “because of the housing shortage,” were under arrest on warrants charging morals, assault and cruelty to a child.

[“Mother Tortures Girl, 4; Ill Father Asks Custody,” syndicated (UP), Apr. 12, 1946, p. 3]

***