Notes for: Karen Louise Bodine

From Ronny Bodine:

From Independent (Long Beach, Calif.) of Friday, 26 Feb 1965.
"Lori Ann talks a lot about the car fire," the 3-year-old's grandfather, Frank M. Cowgur, said Thursday night, "but she doesn't know her mother passed away." "We're waiting for an opportune time to tell her that her mother," Mrs. Karen Louise Cowgur, 23, died Wednesday night in the flaming shambles that had been her compact car, the grandfather added. Little Lori is staying "indefinitely" with the Cowgurs, of 916 S. Pannes Ave., Compton, following the accident at Woodruff Avenue south of Arbella Street. The child was pulled to safety by a passing motorist. Witnesses said Mrs. Cowgur, employed in Long Beach as a Douglas Aircraft Co. secretary, apparently was knocked unconscious by the crash in which she was badly burned by flames from her car's front gas tank. She and Lori lived in Lakewood at 5323 Woodruff Ave., Apt. A. An only child, born March 30, 1943, in Los Angeles, Mrs. Cowgur also is survived by her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Frazee, of 20828 Nectar Ave., Lakewood. Her former husband, Kent Cowgur, lives in Cypress. Service will be Monday at 2 p.m. at Compton's Neel Mortuary, with the Rev. Dr. John N. Booth officiating. Interment will follow at Green Hills Memorial Park, San Pedro. Witnesses told sheriff's investigators Mrs. Cowgur's car sideswipes another vehicle moments before it hit the light pole.

Children: Lori A. (1961).