Earl Ingram Jr. never forgot Henry Aaron at his brother’s bedside.
Donald Ray Ingram was 11 in 1965 when doctors at Milwaukee’s Children’s Hospital discovered a cancerous tumor at his brainstem. His prognosis was terminal. Donald’s wish was to meet his hero Hank Aaron, and the Milwaukee Braves star gladly obliged. “He visited my brother quite often,” said Earl Ingram, now a radio host in Milwaukee. “But he visited a lot of children in the hospital and he didn’t make a big deal out of it because that’s who he was.”
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Over the course of several months, Hank Aaron and Donald Ingram would develop a strong bond talking baseball in between cancer treatments. Donald died in 1966. Aaron, who himself died in January at age 86, “was a hero to Milwaukee’s Black community,” Ingram said. “Boston had Bill Russell. Philadelphia had Wilt Chamberlain. Louisville had Ali. And we had Aaron.”
Jimmie Christine Watson, 87, of Paris, passed away on Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2020, at her home.
Services are scheduled for 10 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 31 at Bright-Holland Funeral Home, with the Rev. Robert Myre officiating. Burial will follow in Evergreen Cemetery.
Jimmie, the daughter of John Henry Harvell and Lura Naomi Gallaher Harvell, was born on Aug. 22, 1933, in McKinney.
She was preceded in death by her parents; grandparents; several brothers and sisters, including Billy Harvell and C. W. Gallaher and wife, Betty; a special great-grandchild, Little Dylan (Peanut) Watson; the love of her life, Woody Watson Sr., whom she married at the age of 15, and the father of her three children; a daughter, Linda Jane LaForge and husband, Larry; a son-in-law, Earl Ingram; a granddaughter, Marce LaForge; and her dear step-dad, Bill Lawley.