Bath Massacre: America's First School Bombing (28 page)

State Police sent to the peripheries of the tourist lines told people to turn around. Go home. Get out.
³⁵

So many dead. So much suffering. So many unrequited appeals to God. In hopes of providing answers, an anonymous individual donated red-covered Bibles to the parents of each dead child.
¹

The funerals were next.

An initial plan was made to hold a communal funeral service for the children. “[B]ent parents and forlorn relatives will wrap themselves in reticent black, and follow some 50 small caskets to the graveyard for the commencement of eternity for the school children and for the commencement of an era of bleak memories for the village,” wrote Ted Christie, a “staff correspondent” for the
Lansing State Journal.
²

But realistically a mass funeral just wasn’t practical. There simply were too many details in preparing the dead for burial to coordinate something of this magnitude.

Furthermore, many of the families wanted privacy in their mourning.

The large number of dead required an unusual amount of undertakers. The local funeral parlor in Bath couldn’t handle all the work. Each body required care with an attention to detail that demanded time, patience, and empathy, something that needed to be done quickly but not at the expense of sensitivity.

The overflow of bodies went to funeral homes in Saint Johns, Laingsburg, and other nearby hamlets. William DeVinney, a sexton overseeing the burials at Pleasant Hill Cemetery, required extra grave diggers; one crew wasn’t enough to excavate the ground for seventeen graves in time for all the funerals to be held there.
³

Pallbearers were also in short supply. Neighbors volunteered their services in the grim task. Over the next three days Fordney Hart served at four funerals. “You try to get pole barers [
sic
] for forty-five people in a community that size and you have a problem,” he later said. “You can’t use any parents; you can’t use any brothers and sisters. Some of the brothers and sisters were in the hospital anyhow.”
⁴

The Reverend Scott McDonald, normally a stoic presence at such somber occasions, didn’t preside at most of the funeral services, but that was understandable. He, too, had lost a child in the bombing, his eldest daughter, eight-year-old Thelma. But McDonald did his best to fulfill his duties as the town’s pastor, consoling grieving parents just as they consoled him.

His daughter was among the first children buried, just two days after the explosion. The McDonald home was strewn with wildflowers, a tribute picked from the woods and brought to the house by Thelma’s surviving classmates.
⁵

One person standing near McDonald saw the reverend holding his hands behind his back, digging his fingernails deep into his wrists. It was as if McDonald needed some kind of physical pain to counter the wounds inside.
⁶

Another child’s funeral hit a personal note at the
Lansing State Journal.
“Perhaps the hardest news story that [our] correspondent at Bath, Mrs. Le Vere [Florence] Harte, ever telephoned to this office, was transmitted Friday morning. It was related to the funeral arrangements for her own son, Robert, killed in the consolidated school blast.” The article soberly gave the details, noting that “the officiating minister, Rev. S. B. McDonald, of Bath, will have full appreciation of the loss to the Hartes for the reason that he buried his own eldest daughter, Thelma, 8 years old, Friday morning at 10 o’clock.”
⁷

Funerals were done in shifts, as though to accommodate mourners so they could support one another. A family would bury its child in the morning, then attend another child’s funeral in the afternoon.

It was a busy schedule. Most services were conducted in the home, as was the custom, though other memorials were held in either churches or funeral parlors in nearby towns.

Friday

Thelma McDonald, ten o’clock

Emerson Medcoff, ten o’clock

Elizabeth Witchell, ten o’clock

Arnold Baurele, two o’clock

Russell Chapman, 2:30

Earl Ewing, two o’clock

Galen Hart, two o’clock

Elise Robb, two o’clock

Cleo Clayton, three o’clock

Forrest Robert Cochran, time unknown

Emory Huyck, superintendent, time unknown

Saturday

Marjory Fritz, ten o’clock

Doris Johns, ten o’clock

Robert Hart, two o’clock

Clarence McFarren, ten o’clock

Pauline Shirts, ten o’clock

Catherine Foote, 10:30

Blanche Hart, teacher, eleven o’clock

Ralph Cushman, one o’clock

Floyd Burnett, 1:30

Emilie and Robert Bromund, 1:30

Stanley Hart, 1:30

Emma Nichols, 1:30

Nelson McFarren, retired, and Glenn Smith, postman, two o’clock

George and Willa Hall, two o’clock

Francis Hoeppner, two o’clock

Richard Richardson, 2:30

Sunday

Loren Huster, two o’clock

Carlyle Geisenhaver, two o’clock

Lemoyne Woodman, two o’clock

Iola, Vivian, and Percy Hart, 2:30

George and Lloyd Zimmerman, 2:30

Henry and Herman Bergan, time unknown

Hazel Weatherby, teacher, time unknown

The
Lansing State Journal
referred to Bath as “a valley of tears,” an apt description. On Friday, the Reverend George Woolcock, a Baptist minister from Grand Rapids, conducted the funeral service for eleven-year-old Earl Ewing. His voice slowly grew faint during the sermon. Woolcock’s throat tightened. He paused, then stopped, tried again but could not continue.

As Ewing’s casket was carried to the hearse, the crowd of spectators come to see the sights fell silent, a brief moment of respect within the strange parade of humanity that had invaded Bath in the past forty-eight hours. Reverend Woolcock walked protectively next to the casket. His face was wet with tears.
⁸

Three wreaths and three crepe ribbons hung somberly on Eugene Hart’s home, one for each of their children killed: nine-year-old Vivian, eleven-year-old Percy, and Iola, who would have turned thirteen one month and one day after she was killed.
⁹
Seventeen-year-old Perry still clung to life, chunks of iron deeply lodged in his foot. Shoe leather and materials from his socks were also embedded in his flesh.
¹⁰

To the quiet horror of those in mourning, the tourists destroyed any sense of privacy in grief. Families that had multiple funerals to attend were constantly running late, unable to negotiate the massive crowds by foot, horse, or car. Onlookers thronged the streets watching hearses struggle on their journeys from funeral home to house of mourning and finally cemetery. State Police officers did the best they could to help restore some dignity to a grief-stricken people. One clergyman, hopelessly caught up in the snarled traffic, piggybacked a ride on a state trooper’s motorcycle in order to preside over a funeral. After the lawman dropped him off, the minister turned around to fetch Ada Belle Mead and Sadie Drumheller, two middle-aged sisters known for their church singing who now were providing emotional hymns for many funerals.

The insidious noise of cars and people filtered from the streets into the homes of mourners. Perhaps the Hart family suffered the most. During the funeral service for their three children, a throng of curious onlookers lined the sidewalk. Those inside the house often strained to hear
the eulogy delivered by Reverend L. H. Ledford; his words of comfort were consistently undercut by car horns, roaring engines, the screech of wheels, and other agonizingly loud traffic noises.
¹¹

Yet the people of Bath kept their civility regardless of any tactless actions or requests. One driver called out to a woman on the side of the road, asking for directions to the cemetery. The tourist was interested in seeing where the children would be laid to rest.

“Just down the road a way,” she responded. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “That’s where I’m burying two children tomorrow.”
¹²

Other visitors were more brazen in their requests. Paying no attention to tact, decorum, or basic decency, morbidly curious people disregarded mourning families and peeked through doorways or windows. These Peeping Toms had one thing in common: they wanted to see the dead children up close.
¹³

One family, lost in its sorrow, answered a random knock at the door. “I want to see the dead body,” demanded the unwanted visitor.

The request was denied.
¹⁴

In the Cushman house, Ralph lay in a casket lined with white silk. Nellie gently placed a red tulip in his hands.

She had picked the flower from where it grew next to the front porch. For the longest time, Ralph had begged to have the tulip; Nellie had always given him a firm no.

The time had come to let Ralph have the tulip.
¹⁵

Josephine felt different that day. I’m not a kid anymore, she thought. I’m more grown up now, more
something.

Her childhood, she realized, had vanished.
¹⁶

The house overflowed with the aroma of flowers. So many had been sent to the Cushmans that their home seemed like something of an indoor garden. One aunt could only find sweet peas, a wide variety of pinks that added a unique splash of color to the somber plethora of bouquets and floral arrangements.

One of the volunteer ministers, a pastor from a Baptist church in Lansing, performed Ralph’s funeral service. Ada Belle Mead and Sadie Drumheller sang “Rock of Ages” a cappella. Albert, Nellie, and Josephine stood stoically at Ralph’s casket surrounded by family, surrounded by friends, surrounded by prayer.

When the service was over, Ralph and Leon Carrier, Albert’s uncle
and cousin, took the Cushmans to the cemetery. The small coffin was lowered into the grave; more prayers were said. Ralph, tulip in his hands, was covered with the rich brown earth.

Finally Nellie Cushman wept.
¹⁷

A delegation from the Lansing branch of the U.S. Postal Service came to Glen Smith’s funeral on Saturday. Mailmen, accompanied by other postal workers and officials, brought with them a large floral arrangement honoring their fallen colleague.
¹⁸

Emory Huyck’s funeral was held on Friday in Carson City, Michigan, the town where he was born and where his parents still lived. Having been a loyal Mason throughout his adult life, Huyck’s funeral was planned by the Carson City Masonic Lodge. John Setherington, the worshipful master of the lodge conducted the service. A school superintendent from a nearby district spoke of Huyck’s dedication to learning. A Methodist pastor gave the eulogy, taking his cue from the Twenty-third Psalm.

The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green Pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake,

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me, thy rod and staff they comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou annointeth my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
¹⁹

On Saturday Roscoe Hart’s home turned into a funeral parlor for his wife, Blanche, Bath Consolidated’s fifth-grade teacher. She died just three weeks shy of the couple’s eighth anniversary, on June 4. After the service, she was buried at Wilsey Cemetery just outside of town. Six of her former classmates served as pallbearers.
²⁰