Died. Helene Mayer, 43, German-born eight-time U.S. women's indoor fencing champion (1934-35, 1937-39, 1941-42. 1946) and onetime Olympic winner (1928) ; of cancer; in Frankfurt, Germany.

Died. Millard Mitchell, 50, veteran character actor of stage (The Front Page, Kiss the Boys Goodbye) and screen (12 O'Clock High, My Six Convicts); of cancer; in Santa Monica, Calif.

Died. John Taylor Arms, 66, dean of U.S. etchers, best known for his painstakingly detailed prints of Europe's architectural classics (Florence's Ponte Vecchio, Paris' Notre Dame, Chartres' Cathedral ); after long illness; in Manhattan.

Died. Clarence Saunders, 72, who developed America's first self-service grocery chain, the Piggly Wiggly Stores, Inc. (1919), and built it into a $34-million-a-year business; of a heart attack; in Memphis. Losing control of Piggly Wiggly after a disastrous Wall Street battle in 1923, he twice tried for a comeback with other supermarkets (Clarence Saunders --Sole Owner of My Name; Keedoozle). This year Grocer Saunders confidently predicted that he would again be "in the $1,000,000 class" with a "Foodelectric" scheme, whereby customers not only wrapped their own groceries but also tallied their own bills.

Died. Frederick G. (for Gunn) Katzmann, 78, prosecutor in the 1921 murder trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti; of a heart attack, following his collapse in the same courthouse where the famed case was tried; in Roslindale, Mass. Two years after the trial, Attorney Katzmann returned to private practice, but so bitter were the feelings aroused among the defendants' left-wing champions that Boston police maintained a 24-hour guard at his home until 1933, six years after the convicted pair were finally executed.

Died. Tom Reece, 80, who compiled a world record "break" in English billiards of 499,135 points (1907) after five weeks' faultless use of the "anchor stroke" (i.e., the cue ball caroms off the red and white balls jammed in a corner pocket, and rolls back to its original position for another shot); in Lancing, England. After Reece's marathon, the game's rules were revised to bar more than 25 consecutive anchor strokes, cutting Reece's best break under the new rules to 1,151 points (1927).

Died. Hjalmar Hammarskjold, 91, statesman-father of the United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold; in Stockholm. As Sweden's Premier during World War I, he shaped his country's traditional neutrality policy, and later, as chairman of the multimillion-dollar foundation (1929-47), annually presided over the awarding of Nobel Prizes.

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