A Tug of War Over Jim Thorpe's Remains

by Chris TomassonPRAGUE, Okla. and JIM THORPE, Pa. -- There is nothing too fancy where Jack Thorpe stands. It's in a rural Oklahoma graveyard surrounded by a chain-link fence and across the street from Garden Grove Church. This is where Jack Thorpe wants his father, Jim Thorpe, perhaps the greatest athlete who ever lived, to be moved for burial 56 years after his death. There are no plans for an elaborate tomb or for any extras. He simply wants his father to be buried underneath a simple marker beside his father Hiram Thorpe and many relatives. "We want to put him to rest where he wanted to be,'' Jack Thorpe said of the graveyard that is a few miles from where Thorpe was born May 28, 1888, and about 40 miles east of Oklahoma City. "We want him to have a proper Indian burial so his soul can be put to rest.'' Instead, Thorpe, a member of the Sac and Fox Tribe who was born on what was then Indian land and is now near the town of Prague, is entombed more than 1,300 miles away in Jim ...