The Jim Thorpe Memorial in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. Photo by Doug Kerr / Flickr
Attorney Sean Roman Strockyj doesn't think the U.S. Supreme Court should agree to hear Sac and Fox Nation v. Borough of Jim Thorpe, a Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act case affecting the resting place of Olympic gold medalist Jim Thorpe:
The petition to move the remains of the greatest athlete this planet ever produced from Pennsylvania to Oklahoma is surely being examined this summer with a special level of intrigue by the justices and their inner circle. Although I will not be shocked if the Court takes the Jim Thorpe case, this would be wrong. In plain terms, Thorpe always had the ability to express his wishes as to how he wished to be buried in a will. However, when he died in 1953, at 64, while having a meal with his third wife, Patricia, he had never written those wishes down. Accounts of Thorpe’s background vary, but he was certainly of Sac and Fox heritage, identified as part Irish, and considered himself a Catholic. This background makes it impossibly challenging to divine exactly where he wanted to be buried or if he would wish to be disinterred. Ultimately, Patricia held the rightful authority to dispose of his remains. Patricia decided to inter Thorpe in Pennsylvania, the state in which he rose to national prominence while associated with the athletic department of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School under the tutelage of Glenn “Pop” Warner. Patricia secured an agreement from the towns of Mauch Chaunk and East Mauch Chaunk to combine and rename themselves in honor of Thorpe and build a dignified memorial. Yet, over half a century after his death, Jim’s elderly children from his second wife are involved in a lawsuit fighting to move Jim out of his namesake borough against the wishes of Jim’s deceased children from his first marriage.Get the Story:
Sean Roman Strockyj: Supreme Court should not take the Jim Thorpe case (The Hill 8/27) 3rd Circuit Decision:
John Thorpe v. Borough of Jim Thorpe (October 23, 2014)
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