Early Viction Of The Auto Age

In 1904 ten-year-old Marion Kahlert was hit by a bread truck and killed, becoming the District of Columbia’s first victim of a motor-vehicle accident. Her grieving mother commissioned from Italy a statue of the child, dressed exactly as she had been when she died, in her Victorian high-button shoes and Kate Greenaway dress. The three-foot-high marble monument has always been a favorite with tourists, but in 1981 vandals smashed it. Stonemasons estimate that it will cost ten thousand dollars to remake, and the cemetery committee is now seeking donations to pay for the work.