-
Nine - The Valley of the Shadow of Death
- University of Michigan Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Chapter 9 THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH Thursday morning, May 19. The sun rose over a killing zone. School grounds littered with vestiges of the bombing. Buckets ‹lled with blood-soaked rags. Coats and hats, shoes and socks like broken ›owers strewn across the lawn. One girl’s bloodstained coat and hat hanging from a tree limb. Schoolbooks, pages ›uttering in the breeze. The inside of one book bore an anonymous student’s warning: “Whoever touches this studies at his own risk.” There were piles of sheets, blankets, and other bedding used in triage and at the lawn morgue. Some of the bedclothes still bore dark imprints of children’s bodies.1 Rubble from the north wing anchored the scene. Women and children gathered near the ruined building in prayer vigils.2 Throughout the day people came to the school, fetching coats, hats, books, and other items pulled from the rubble. Some of the clothes and books were returned to their owners; other items were given to grieving mothers and fathers.3 Area hospitals were ›ooded with offers from potential donors ready to provide any aid—money, blood, skin—to the victims.4 115 As Michigan’s leader, Governor Green knew all eyes would be on him during the crisis and in the days that followed. The aftermath of the bombing raised innumerable questions, all underscored by one key element : money. A community was devastated. Medical supplies were desperately needed. Some parents could not afford to pay for funerals. Rubble had to be cleared away. None of these elements were cheap. Furthermore, Bath needed a new consolidated school. The original facility was built at a cost of $43,000, with an additional $5,000 for equipment such as desks, books, lab materials, and other necessities. Only $8,000 had been paid back on bonds used to ‹nance the school; another $1,200 had been added to the bill, the result of a loan granted to the school board just one month before. On the day of the bombing, the school board’s coffers held only $188 in its general fund and $65 in the library fund.5 A meeting was held late Thursday in the governor’s of‹ce with Rev. Edwin Bishop and William Smith. Both men ran local chapters of the American Red Cross, an ideal body to wrangle donations. It was decided that money for emergency relief would be funneled to the Red Cross; all other funds would go toward rebuilding the school. Green personally offered to pay the funeral expenses of families that could not afford proper burials for their children.6 116 BATH MASSACRE Fig. 13. An impromptu memorial. (Courtesy of Tim Howery.) [3.144.172.115] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 06:16 GMT) After the meeting Governor Green issued a proclamation, appealing to the empathy and generosity of his constituency. It is hardly possible to imagine a more terrible catastrophe than yesterday ’s at Bath. There is a little that we can do to lessen the grief of these stricken people. They have our boundless sympathy. While it is not given to us to assuage their grief, we can help in the material problem that confronts this community. There has been a heavy expense cast upon them that I am sure the good people of Michigan will want to share. Besides the relief that we can give in individual cases, there is the restoration of their school house. The ‹nancial obligation on this small community of a new school house at this time is going to be very burdensome as the district is already heavily bonded. To assist in the relief work and to help in the matter of a new school building, I have appointed a committee headed by John W. Haarer of the City National Bank, Lansing, Michigan, to solicit and receive funds for this purpose. I believe that we will all feel better if we make a contribution to these people who have been so terribly stricken.7 Picking Haarer to head up the fund-raising relief committee was a smart choice. A former Michigan state treasurer, Haarer was a connected man now working as a vice president at the City National Bank of Lansing . Someone of his caliber was needed to make order out of the chaos of donations. Unof‹cially, as noted in the Lansing State Journal, a relief effort began the day after the bombing “when Mrs. Franc D. C. Meyers sent a money donation...