Bath Massacre: America's First School Bombing (10 page)

Buildings are like people, built of intricate parts and plumbing. When something goes wrong, it must be dealt with immediately lest a simple problem develop into something more complicated. No one knew that better than the school janitor, Frank Smith.

Smith wasn’t sure, but in the fall of 1926 he had a feeling there was a leak in one of the basement pipes. While Superintendent Huyck shined a flashlight along the ceiling, Smith followed the length of pipe with his eye. Nothing. No leak, no rust, no loose joints.

He didn’t notice something else in the ceiling that was out of place.
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Despite his reputation as the activist steward of public funds, Kehoe lacked any personal sense of fiscal responsibility. Up through March of 1921, he made regular payments on his mortgage and interest to the Lawrence Price Estate. And then: nothing.

April came and went. May slipped by. June, July, August. No payments. It continued through the rest of the year and into 1922. Not a word was said, not by the Price family or Joseph H. Dunnebacke, the attorney representing the estate. Finally a letter arrived from Kehoe stating that he couldn’t make the payments. The estate granted him an extension. Another year passed, then another. Kehoe wrote another letter. Would he and Nellie be evicted? Again the answer was a calming no. By all means, the estate would be happy to work with Kehoe.

And still no payments. In August of 1925, Lawrence Price’s estate released 60 percent of its legacy payments to the late man’s heirs. Nellie Kehoe’s share was twelve hundred dollars. The Kehoes arrived at Dunnebacke’s office, collected their check, and left. Although Dunnebacke remained polite throughout, he was amazed that the couple never brought up the subject of their defaulted mortgage.
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The matter took another strange turn one month later. The probate
judge overseeing Lawrence Price’s estate received a letter from Nellie Kehoe. Enclosed was a card on which Nellie asked the judge to write down the appraised worth of the Kehoe property.
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And still no payments.

In March of 1926, Dunnebacke was bound by terms of the Lawrence Price Estate to provide Nellie Kehoe with another five hundred dollars. This time the attorney applied the money to payments on the house, sending the Kehoes a note explaining what he was doing with the small inheritance check. Nellie wrote back, thanking Dunnebacke and asking how much she and her husband owed on their mortgage. She also mentioned that Andrew was deeply involved with school board activities, but at some point they would like to come to Dunnebacke’s office to discuss their debt.
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Instead, in the days following the school board debacle over Ruth Babcock, Kehoe contacted Kelly Searl, one of the best legal minds in the region. Searl, a former Circuit Court judge, had left the bench nearly ten years earlier to again practice law, entering into a partnership with his son William. Ultimately, William left private practice to become county prosecutor.

For now, Searl the elder agreed with Kehoe’s argument that the executors had inappropriately diverted Nellie’s inheritance check. Legally, the money had to go to Mrs. Kehoe. The executors of Lawrence Price’s estate could not make decisions on Nellie’s behalf without her consent.

Notice was sent to Dunnebacke and Richard Price, the estate executor, who had originally sold the property to Andrew and Nellie. They agreed to meet with Searl in the chambers of the probate judge, a man named McArthur.

It was assumed that the probate hearing, held in August of 1926, would be a simple matter during which the dispute would be solved through sound discussion and compromise between legal authorities. Instead, and to everyone’s surprise, the Kehoes were there. They had not been notified of the time and place; apparently Kehoe had done some investigating. Dunnebacke was dismayed; he’d gone out of his way to help the Kehoes, particularly in light of Nellie’s health, and felt they should leave the matter to be solved by legal parties. Yet the hearing continued with Kelly Searl’s clients soaking in every word.

Dunnebacke thought it “peculiar” that the inheritance was in Nellie’s name, the property deed in her husband’s name, and the mortgage held
by the couple. Legally, Nellie had the final decision about how to use her inheritance. Judge McArthur’s findings were simple: yes, the Price estate had acted inappropriately, but applying the five hundred dollars to the mortgage would be in everyone’s best interest.

Searl advised his clients to accept the decision. Nellie indicated that she liked the idea, but Kehoe disagreed. Polite but firm, he insisted that the money go to Nellie immediately; she could then decide how to use it without any legal intrusion.

Nellie acquiesced to her husband; they were issued a check for five hundred dollars.
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Two months passed without a word from the Kehoes. No payments. No agreements or offers made to alleviate the problem. Having exhausted all legal avenues, Dunnebacke decided to file a motion of foreclosure with the county sheriff, Bart Fox. He and his wife drove to Fox’s office on a Saturday only to find that the sheriff was out. Rather than making the trip twice, Dunnebacke mailed his notice to the sheriff a few days later. That afternoon he ran into Nellie’s sister, Elizabeth Price, and told her of the foreclosure suit. He assured her that this legal move was not an attempt to drive the Kehoes off the property; rather it was an attempt to coax them into negotiating a payment plan.

Elizabeth Price’s face knotted. No, she told Dunnebacke, he mustn’t file suit. Nellie’s health was fragile; any added stress could have dire consequences.

Dunnebacke, a model of patience and empathy, agreed not to move ahead with the foreclosure. Long into the night he attempted to contact the sheriff. Unable to contact Fox, Dunnebacke sent a telegram.

Have tried since five o’clock to reach your office by telephone. Don’t serve Kehoe’s summons until further instructions from me. Dunnebacke.

Unfortunately, the telegram didn’t arrive quickly enough; a deputy had gone to the Kehoe residence with a notice of foreclosure. Kehoe came to the door and took the papers.
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He looked them over, then regarded the man at the door.

“If it hadn’t been for that three hundred dollar school tax, I might have paid off the mortgage,” he said.
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Every element of his life seemed to be waging war with Kehoe. The mortgage. Nellie’s health. His political ambitions beaten down. And the fights, the constant fights on the school board, his anger toward Huyck growing. Kehoe’s mind was on fire, taking him in different directions as he assessed the situation. His behavior, once considered eccentric and cantankerous, grew erratic.

Monty Ellsworth, who lived down the road from Kehoe, observed much of this firsthand. Ellsworth was something of a rascally figure himself, who tried his hand at various businesses: bartender, farmer, gas station owner. Although Ellsworth had something of a drinking problem and was plagued with asthma (in this he probably had some empathy with Nellie Kehoe), he was a friendly neighbor who often spoke with Kehoe.

What Kehoe had to say, however, was often odd. In the spring of 1925, Ellsworth bought a tenant house to be moved off Kehoe’s property at a price of $250.00. Ellsworth offered $50.00 down on the building with the remainder to be paid on delivery day.

“No,” Kehoe told Ellsworth, “I am selling it now because I want to use the money.” Although not a standard way of doing business, Ellsworth agreed to Kehoe’s unusual terms, paying full price before moving the building to his land. It’s not clear whether Ellsworth knew of Kehoe’s mortgage problems at the time.
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The two men often talked shop. In February of 1926 Ellsworth asked Kehoe if he was planning on attending a session during Farmers Week at Michigan State College. “No,” Kehoe shot back. “They would just tell the farmers a lot of things that were impossible to do.”

Kehoe continued, saying he had listened to one of the Farmers Week lecturers on the radio. “[The] speaker started in by telling what colleges he had been to and what countries he had been in. I shut that off and went to the telephone and called the college and asked them what in hell they wanted of a speaker who would just get up and brag about himself. That’s the last time I’m going to listen to them this week.”
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Another strange conversation stuck out in Ellsworth’s mind. The weather had been up and down with bitter cold nights that froze farmland followed by warm daylight thaws.

“This is not good wheat weather,” Ellsworth remarked to Kehoe.

Kehoe’s response caught his neighbor off guard. “No,” said Kehoe, “and I am glad of it. The farmers ought not to raise any more wheat until the country needed it badly. The damned fool farmers will never be
any better off than they are now because if they do raise anything they will brag about it to everyone else.” Take, for example, he continued, a northern Michigan farmer who had been at the 1926 Farmers Week. Why, this man had raised a double crop’s worth of potatoes and what did this idiot do? He went down and bragged about it!

Again Philip Kehoe’s voice echoed in his son’s comments. A long time ago the father had argued that farmers should manage their output and set prices to control the market and guide their destinies. Now Kehoe repeated his father’s ideas, yet there was something odd, something disturbing, about the way Kehoe stated his case.
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David Harte had similar thoughts about Kehoe’s behavior. How could a man run an eighty-acre farm wearing a smoking jacket and puffing on cigars all day, he wondered. Why, Kehoe didn’t even bother to harvest his corn or bring in a thresher to do the job. What was with that man, letting his crops rot in the fields?
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In mid-November of 1926 Kehoe visited Lansing where he purchased two boxes of 40 percent Hercules dynamite. He went back a few days later to buy several blasting caps and two more boxes of 40 percent Hercules; he made additional trips for more blasting caps during that time as well. In December he made another trip to Lansing, buying himself a Winchester rifle and one hundred rounds of ammunition.
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