"De Boiler Kid"

A good Roman Catholic is Fred B. Snite Jr., handsome, 28-year-old paralytic who has spent the past four years in an "iron lung." Once a week his specially-built trailer takes him, in his cream-colored, 900-lb. cylindrical respirator, to a small church near his winter home at Miami Beach, Fla. The trailer backs to the door, the respirator rolls down a ramp, and Freddy Snite, self-nicknamed "de boiler kid," is trundled up the aisle to hear Mass, partake of Holy Communion.

Last week Fred Snite started on a long journey. To Manhattan by private Pullman, thence in his trailer to the S.S. Normandie's pier, cheerful Freddy went with his father and mother. His destination: the famed Shrine of Miracles at Lourdes, France. With him also went a staff of twelve: five pale-blue-uniformed nurses, a physician, a physiotherapist, two orderlies, two mechanics, a chauffeur. His rich father, who declined to say what their 12,000-mile pilgrimage will cost, declared they were going for "spiritual uplift." But, said beaming Freddy, for whom the most optimistic life span is seven years: "I will make an earnest plea to God and the Blessed Mother for physical improvement, knowing that He can cure me if He desires. . . ." Said Snite Senior: "After our novena, if Fred says: 'Colonel, stop the respirator,' then I'll say, 'Okay, Fred. Whatever you want.'"

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