Two children of one of America’s greatest athletes are suing the town named after him, asking the U.S. Supreme Court for the right to bury him elsewhere.
Jim Thorpe, born in Oklahoma of a white father and a Indian mother in 1887, was a lauded Olympian who seemed to dominate every sport he tried. He won gold medals for the pentathlon and the decathlon in 1912 — only to have the medals taken away when it was revealed he had played professional baseball. No matter: Thorpe went on to have a successful pro football career.
His tombstone reports the famous summation of his achievements by King Gustav of Stockholm, allegedly uttered at the 1912 Olympics: “Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world.” Those unwilling to trust Gustav can turn to Thorpe’s New York Times obituary: “Jim Thorpe was probably the greatest natural athlete the world had seen in modern times,” the paper wrote.
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But, like many athletes, Thorpe did not have a smooth transition to regular life after his playing years. After his retirement, as the Times put it, he “fell upon hard days,” doing time as a Hollywood extra and in the merchant marine, and eventually going broke.
After his death came an argument about money. Some of Thorpe’s family wished him to be buried in Oklahoma but, as the Philadelphia Inquirer explained, Thorpe’s third wife sold his body for $500 to a town then called Mauch Chunk, Pa., a few hours from where Thorpe was educated. Rechristened Jim Thorpe, the coal town went on to a second life of sorts as a Pocono Mountains resort.
In 2010, however, two of Thorpe’s sons and the Sac and Fox Nation of Oklahoma sued the town. The legal question was the relevance of the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act, which Congress passed in 1990 to “to provide greater protection for Native American burial sites and more careful control over the removal of Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and items of cultural patrimony on Federal and tribal lands,” as the National Park Service explained. Indeed, the law specifically “stipulates that illegal trafficking in human remains and cultural items may result in criminal penalties.”
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“For too long, Native Americans have been disregarded in our society,” son William Thorpe said in a statement. “In taking this case, the Supreme Court cannot only help our family finally have closure, but it can help prevent continuing discrimination against Native Americans across the country.”
Share this articleShareA lower court agreed with the sons’ claim; an appeals court reversed that decision. The appeals court reasoned that a wife generally has the right to decide where a husband is buried.
“It is clear that the congressional intent to regulate institutions such as museums and to remedy the historical atrocities inflicted on Native Americans, including plundering of their graves, is not advanced by interpreting ‘museum’ to include a gravesite that Thorpe’s widow intended as Thorpe’s final resting place,” the appeals panel stated, as the Legal Times reported.
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Now, two of Thorpe’s sons and the Sac and Fox Nation of Oklahoma have asked the high court to decide Thorpe’s fate.
Meanwhile, some in Jim Thorpe, Pa., including members of Thorpe’s family who don’t agree with the suit, are keeping the not-quite-home fires burning.
“This guy has never died in our eyes,” said Jack Kmetz, president of the Jim Thorpe Area Sports Hall of Fame, told the New York Times in 2011. “This town has kept him alive.”
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