Family copes with death of LV couple

Friday, Sept. 4, 1998 | 11:16 a.m.

In recent years, ailments associated with aging caused James Lucas to lose vision in his left eye and his wife, Anna, to lose vision in her right eye.

To compensate for those disabilities, the Las Vegas couple would routinely travel close together so they could get the best possible field of vision and look out for one another.

It was that closeness they shared on ill-fated Swissair Flight 111 that has helped their family better cope with Wednesday's tragedy.

"Although it is devastating to lose both your mother and father in one accident, our family is comforted because they were together to hold each other's hand as the plane went down and watch out for each other," said Jim Beckett, the couple's son, of Henderson.

"They were very dependent on each other and they lived very full lives."

James N. Lucas, 72, and Anna B. Lucas, 74, a former ballroom dancing team, were among 229 passengers and crew members killed Wednesday night in the crash of the MD-11 in the Atlantic Ocean seven miles off the Canadian coast.

Late Thursday, the airline released the passenger list that included the names of the Lucases, who were married for 48 years, and 135 other Americans.

It is not known, however, whether the bodies of the great grandparents of nine were among those that were recovered from the waters 40 miles south of Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Services for the Las Vegas residents of 19 years are pending. Interment will be at the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City.

It was a cruel twist of irony that brought the Lucases to their destiny.

At first, Beckett said, the couple had planned a trip to Israel, but they canceled it in the wake of terrorist bombings of overseas U.S. embassies and the U.S. retaliation against a purported terrorist base in Afghanistan.

The Lucases also had scheduled a previous flight to Switzerland, but were forced to cancel it and wound up being booked on the Swissair plane that took off from New York's Kennedy International Airport Wednesday night.

The couple had been world travelers for more than 30 years. James Lucas won their first trip to Europe on the popular television game show "Concentration," during several appearances Feb. 9-12, 1963.

Over the years, the Lucases visited Europe several times, as well as the Caribbean and China, among other exotic lands.

"Dad had said that this would be their last trip because they were getting on in years," Beckett, a scientist with the Department of Energy, said.

"They were a little apprehensive because of all the Anti-American sentiment, but they were still looking forward to the trip."

The Lucases had planned to meet up with a Florida couple that had taken another flight to Switzerland, Beckett said.

Born July 25, 1926, near Charleston, W. Va., James Lucas was the youngest of seven children. He graduated from the University of Miami Coral Gables, Fla., with an engineering degree and for a while worked for an oil company.

He served in the Army during World War II.

Born Anna Brewer on Feb. 26, 1924, in Charleston, Mrs. Lucas developed an early interest in dancing, which she pursued after graduating from high school.

The two met in 1949 after they were hired as instructors at a dance school in Coral Gables.

"They were friends from the start, but at first they didn't want to dance with each other," Beckett said. "Mom thought dad was too arrogant."

But within months the two became a dance team and less than a year after they met, they were married, Beckett said.

Over the years, the Lucases opened several ballroom dancing studios in West Virginia and appeared on the "American Bandstand" TV show during its Philadelphia heyday.

He also managed several nightclubs in the area. While running one such club in the late 1970s, Lucas prepared the house specialty, "hillbilly balls" -- meatballs in a country gravy -- for then-President Jimmy Carter, who later sent him a thank-you note for the meal, Beckett said.

The Lucases moved to Las Vegas in 1979 because the drier climate was recommended for Anna Lucas, who suffered from asthma.

In recent years, the couple enjoyed activities ranging from gardening to surfing the Internet on their home computer, Beckett said.

In addition to their son and great-grandchildren, the Lucases are survived by two daughters, Susan Patterson of Las Vegas and Jeanann Folk of Henderson, and six grandchildren. Also, he is survived by three brothers, Charles, Pat and Evert Lucas.