BROWN

Posted by Cathy Gowdy on Thursday, May 24, 2007 at 08:03:06 :

San Rafael Independent
Tuesday, September 22, 1942
Page 1

Heart Attack Fatal To Ship builder In Early Morning

Believed to have been stricken by a heart attack, Thomas Brown, 29, colored San Francisco laborer at Marinship, died early this morning while at work in the steel plate shop at the shipyard.

Brown, employed as a laborer on the slab in the shop, and a fellow employee, Theodore Oakley, also of San Francisco, were preparing to lift a steel plate shortly before 5:30 a.m. when Brown suddenly fell backward from the platform. He was dead when fellow workers reached him.

Coroner Ray Keaton said that the man sustained a superficial cut on the back of the head, probably when he struck the ground. He said that all indications were that Brown had died from a heart attack but that an autopsy will be held later. The body is at the Frank J. Keaton mortuary in Sausalito.

Brown is survived by a widow and four children.