WALKING A CEMETERY - II

When I came home from Istanbul 2 years later one of the first things I wanted to do was to see if any of the local newspapers carried a story about Gary Bouldin's death. I found the Los Angeles Times did:

Los Angeles Times - Sunday, December 29, 1968

ISTANBUL (AP) - A Californian killed three men, wounded four and finally was shot fatally in a wild gunfight with Turkish police Saturday, Istanbul police said.

Police said security men had taken Gary Ralph Bouldin, 35, and a woman identified as Patricia Ann Seeds, 20, both of Los Angeles, for questioning to a police building where a bureau of the Treasury Police, which usually deals with smuggling and narcotics, is located.

During questioning, Bouldin opened fire on police officials, fatally wounding two of them, police said. Then he fled to a restaurant downstairs and continued to shoot it out with policemen.

Police said Bouldin died while being taken to a hospital. His companion, who was not involved in the shooting, was taken to police headquarters for further investigation. Police did not disclose why Bouldin was being questioned.

(The girl’s father, Norton H. Seeds, said he had not heard from his daughter for a month since she took time off from her studies at San Jose State College to travel in Europe with a girlfriend, United Press International reported.)

But the search of the index also brought up an earlier article on Bouldin:

Los Angeles Times - May 27, 1960
SAN BERNARDINO KITCHEN BLAST INJURES MAN

SAN BERNARDINO (California) May 26 – Chemicals being mixed on a kitchen stove exploded tonight,seriously injuring a San Bernardino Valley College Student. Gary Bouldin, 25, a social sciences major,was seriously burned about the neck and face. His left hand was badly injured.

MIXING ON STOVE
Police said Bouldin was mixing chemicals he had taken home from his college chemistry course to unclog a kitchen sink. The explosion occurred as he heated the mixture on the stove, police reported. Bouldin was taken to San Bernardino County Hospital for emergency surgery. His wife, Beverly, and the couple’s eight-month-old son arrived home shortly after the explosion occurred.

My goal when I started work in the Ferikoy Protestant cemetery was to find out as much as I could about why those people were buried there and not sent back to the United States, what they were doing in Istanbul, where they came from in the States, and who their family might be. What I found on Gary was as much as I thought appropriate for inclusion in the data I was collecting.

As noted yesterday, I eventually put it into book form and a few years later I posted the names and basic vital statistics as I found them on the tombstones onto a website. I mentioned that I had further information on many of these people and gave my e-mail address to contact if the reader wished.

In the meantime, as I have heard from relatives I have added their information to my paper files, so that if further inquiries come I can provide people with everything I know.

So, you ask, why have I chosen to single out this fellow for a blog? Of course, his most interesting story is one reason. The Turkish newspaper called him a "Texas Gangster" and that is a second reason, for using him as an illustration of what kind of misinformation one can find in research. But the most important reason is that earlier this week, I got an e-mail from Paul Garrity, a friend who is posting information on www.findagrave.com. He knew I had lived in Istanbul and thought I might be interested to know that in Montecito Cemetery in Colton, California, there is a tombstone that says the deceased died in Istanbul. The name on the stone? Yep. Gary Ralph Bouldin.

All I can say is: research never ends.