After Lots of Snips and Snails, a Little Sugar and Spice

It’s a girl. Finally. Rebekah Anne Charlotte Brown, daughter of Paul and Barbara Brown of Orillia, Ontario, on April 8 became the first girl born into the Brown family in 102 years. The Canadian family’s string of male babies began after great-great-grandfather Garfield Brown’s sister Rhoda was born in 1887. After they had a chance to get used to the idea of a girl in the family, several of Rebekah’s male relatives gathered for a celebratory picture. “One of the uncles kept saying to the men, ‘Come over and see what a girl looks like,’ ” Barbara Brown said.

--A longstanding dispute in Okemah, Okla., Woody Guthrie’s hometown, came to a head when a fan of the singer-songwriter tore down a sign reading “Woody Guthrie Was No Hero.” David Cox, a reporter for the weekly Okemah News Leader, faces a $54 fine for tearing down the sign on the American Legion building. The sign was put up by funeral director Bart Webb, a former city councilman and a Legion member. Webb’s 2-by-3-foot sign reprints an editorial from the Oklahoma Constitution, a conservative Oklahoma City tabloid, that calls Guthrie a “militant atheist.” Guthrie’s detractors in the town of 3,500 say he was a communist, but his admirers say the man who wrote “This Land Is Your Land” ought to be honored. Guthrie’s house was demolished years ago. But a town water tower visible from Interstate 40 proclaims Okemah as the home of Woody Guthrie. Guthrie’s son, Arlo, is to appear in an April 29 concert in Okemah to mark the release of an album by local musicians and schoolchildren made as a tribute to the Dust Bowl balladeer.

--An amateur historian says he is yielding to pressure from Italian-American groups and dropping efforts to have gangster Al Capone’s old house in Chicago listed on the National Register of Historic Places. “I still think the house has tremendous historical interest, but I have no intention of offending anyone,” Mark Levell said. Levell, a computer repairman, took up the cause of having the privately owned house placed on the register in January. His appeal drew the anger of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian-Americans, the Chicago Sun-Times and the neighborhood council. Opponents said the plan fostered stereotypes about Italians and did not help the city’s image.