British grandmother here on tragic mission

International News Photos (New York, N.Y.) · July 12, 1949

Mrs. Viola Bates of Rugeley, England, is pictured on arrival at LaGuardia Airport today aboard a Pan American World Airlines plane. She is enroute to Chicago where she will seek custody of two small grandsons whose father killed their mother and then himself. The visiting grandmother faces a legal battle with the boys' American grandmother, Mrs. Anna Gager, who wants to raise her grandsons, Dennis Gager, 4, and Roy, 2, as American citizens. Mrs. Bates will stay with Mrs. Gager but the latter added, "I am going to do all I can to keep the boys and see that they are brought up as good American citizens." The boys' father, Frank Gager, an ex-GI, shot and killed his estranged British war bride, Mrs. Betty Bates Gager, before killing himself last Friday.