Two days later, on November 27, 1937, Lewis was attacked inside the Rouge plant.

Ella took her two daughters, Little Ella and Helen, and went to the Henry Ford Hospital. Lewis was unconscious. Dr. Sladen wheeled Bradford into the X-ray room, and told Ella he wanted to know everything about the case.

I contacted Dr. Frank Sladen's son, who is now 80. He recalled his dad's close relationship with the Ford family. The son recalled how his father hoped he would go into medicine, but the son lost a leg in the war, and decided to go into education. "I wanted to teach people a better way to handle arguments. Dad didn't understand." His father spoke of Harry Bennett, "a brutal man," who had spies even in the Henry Ford Hospital. Dr. Sladen was careful not to speak against Ford - he learned you got "sat on." (Phone Interview with Frank Sladen, Jr., June 11, 2001).

Allen Brett and his daughter Mary were close by, and helped constantly, staying by Ella's side at the hospital and having the family over for dinner.

I located Mary Brett in Philadelphia. She was Little Ella's best friend. She shared how her father had an idealistic nature like Bradford. When Lewis was in the hospital, she recalls how she and Little Ella would stay up late, coloring in their coloring books - "It was a way to cope with the terribleness." (Phone Interview with Mary Daniels (nee Brett), September 11, 2001).