March 2007
“Oh, My God! It’s Our Children!”
On March 18, 1937, the combined junior-senior high school in the small East Texas town of New London exploded without warning, killing nearly half of the students and teachers. To commemorate the seventieth anniversary of that tragic day, survivors remember the horrific events—and the heroic response—that changed their lives forever.
IT IS CONSIDERED the worst school disaster in U.S. history. On Thursday, March 18, 1937, at 3:17 in the afternoon, some seven hundred students and forty teachers were inside the high school in New London, about 25 miles southeast of Tyler, when natural gas that had been leaking into the classrooms from the basement ignited, leveling the structure with a force that could be felt for at least four miles in every direction.
Poverty-stricken families who had flooded the area’s oil fields during the Great Depression had been proud to send their children to one of the wealthiest rural school districts in the nation. Its taxable value in 1937 had grown to $20 million, and additional revenue from fifteen oil wells on district property contributed to top-notch facilities on a 21-acre campus that included an elementary building, a gymnasium, and even a lighted football field. But the crown jewel belonged to children in fifth through eleventh grade (“senior year” at that time): the $300,000 two-story junior and senior high school, an E-shaped building fully equipped with a chemistry lab, an auditorium with a balcony, and an industrial-arts workshop.
On that fateful day, thirteen minutes before the final class was dismissed, a spark from some equipment in the workshop triggered an explosion that ripped through the building, killing approximately three hundred students and teachers. Survivors wandered the grounds only to discover they had lost classmates and relatives, and frantic parents were handed the horrific task of identifying the mangled remains of the dead.
While investigations exonerated all parties of blame, stating that no one could have known that the odorless gas had been accumulating, some parents were furious to learn that the school had canceled its natural gas contract to tap into a free residue gas line, a widespread practice at the time. But when the faulty connection leaked, the results were lethal. The Legislature’s swift passage of a bill requiring the odorization of natural gas provided little comfort to grieving families in the town of one thousand people, and few spoke of the grim incident until 1977, when a reunion broke the four-decade-long silence. On this seventieth anniversary of the explosion, we asked survivors to share their memories.
“Whoom!”
Bill Thompson was in the fifth grade. He still lives in New London: I remember the morning of Thursday the eighteenth being a fairly cool spring morning. It was nice, sunshiny. The PTA, which usually met in the auditorium in the junior-senior high school building, moved out to the gymnasium, which was separate from the school. Normally we would have gotten out early because of that meeting, but just before the last-period bell rang, it was announced that we’d go ahead with our regular dismissal time: three-thirty. In that last class of the day, I asked a student to change seats with me so I could flirt with a little girl in front of her.
Reba Moseley (whose maiden name was Richardson) was in the ninth grade. She now lives in El Paso: Some of my friends and I were complaining that our eyes were stinging that morning. I thought it was just me, because my glasses sometimes bothered me.
Robert Hatfield was in the fifth grade. He now lives in Amite, Louisiana: I didn’t want to go to school that day, but I asked my mother if I could stay home and she said no. So I started on, got ready, walked out of the door, then turned around and went back inside. I said, “Can I come home at study period?” And she said no. So I went off to school, and I was nervous all day. I just didn’t want to be there. In the next-to-last period I was in math class, and I told the boy behind me that I was going home. I asked the teacher, and she didn’t care. I asked the principal, Mr. [Felton] Waggoner, if I could go home instead of going to study hall. He said, “Okay, as long as you get your lessons.” So I started home. I didn’t live but half a mile from the school. Just before I got to the house, I saw my mother come out the front door. Since she had told me not to come home early, I was fixing to get tore up. We were standing about ten feet apart when the school blew up.
W. G. “Bud” Watson was in the eighth grade. He now lives in Kingwood: I was in shop class, which was on the first floor, with about thirty other boys. It was getting close to quitting time, and I was doing some welding in the front of the room when our teacher, Lemmie Butler, must have pulled an electrical switch to get a machine to work. Next thing I knew, I was picking myself up outside of the building. I don’t remember flying out the window, but the building was still coming down.
William Follis was in the seventh grade. He now lives in Nashville: I was sitting in the next-to-the-last seat in the back of class, and the teacher called me up to the front. She said, “Get up here! Hurry up!” I said, “What did I do?” She repeated, “Get up here!” So I started walking toward her. I had barely reached the teacher and sat down when the room went whoom! A blast came across straight horizontal. All these steel lockers that had been embedded in the wall blew kids out of their seats and fell on top of us.
H. G. White was in the fifth grade. He now lives in Lindale: I started turning my head to the left to look out the window, and then I heard a big boom. It felt like something hit me beside the head. Then it was dark. I was not unconscious; I was awake. But I was sitting in a hole and could barely make out moans and groans. Everything slowed down.
Ledell Carpenter (whose maiden name was Dorsey) was in the eighth grade. She now lives in Kilgore: I heard a boom and a hissing sound, just like splintering wood. I jumped out of my seat and started a step or two. That was the last thing I remember for a while.
Juana Fay Toennis (whose maiden name was Beidleman) was in the sixth grade. She now lives in Houston: I went up—I could feel myself go up—and then the silt and cement and stuff came down around me and then I came down.
Margaret Nichols (whose maiden name was Siler) was in the seventh grade. She now lives in Bowie: I had a headache that day, and I had gone out to my uncle’s car to lie down in the backseat. I guess I was asleep when a boulder came through the front windshield. All of a sudden I was covered with dust.
Nathan Durham was in the eighth grade. He now lives in Pasadena: A concrete girder came smashing down on the table in the library, where I had been slunk down in a chair reading Moby Dick. I had gone to the principal’s office earlier that day to see if I could switch my last class to general science, and he turned me down, which was lucky for me. Everybody was killed in general science except one, who was crippled for life. As I sat there under the table, scrambling to pull my legs free, I still had the denial from the principal in my pocket. When I finally got my legs free and stood up, I remember seeing the study hall teacher; everybody loved her. She was calm and directed the kids out. “Don’t get excited,” she was saying. “Don’t worry.” The kids weren’t crying. They were in shock. They were walking down to the stairwell, where you went down to the first floor.
Dorothy Box (whose maiden name was Womack) was in the eighth grade. She now lives in Henderson: I was working in the library and checking out this book to a boy when the blast knocked me under a wood counter. Through the rubble, there was a hole about the size of a cantaloupe—just enough to get my head through. But I couldn’t get through there. It was just enough for me to see the light.
Ledell Carpenter: All that plaster and mortar formed a white haze, like a thick fog. While I couldn’t see my way around, I could hear people talking by the teacher’s desk. So I started stumbling over there, but I was walking on injured children, because I couldn’t see where I was going. I heard some girls by the window talking, so I walked over to them. Two of the pupils in my class were fixing to push another one out, but I thought it was too far for them to jump since we were on the second floor. I said, “Come back down! Somebody will find us and rescue us.”
“There was a deathly silence. Nothing. Like you were in a vacuum. then all the sounds started coming…”
Carolyn Frei (whose maiden name was Jones) was in the fifth grade. She now lives in Lewiston, Idaho: My teacher, Mrs. Sory, pushed Barbara Page and me out a classroom window and crawled through after us.
Barbara Page (whose maiden name was Moore) was in the fifth grade. She now lives in Weatherford: When Carolyn and I got outside, we just stood there. We didn’t know what to do. There was a deathly silence. Nothing. Like you were in a vacuum. Then all the sounds started coming—screaming, moaning—and people began to run all over.
Billie Mathews (whose maiden name was Bullock) was in the sixth grade. She now lives in Kingsville: I had been shielded by my desk, but it was covered with concrete boulders. One boy was screaming, “My leg’s cut off!” We had been in a classroom on the top level, but the whole floor was now ground level—or just about—when we landed. We didn’t remember feeling or hearing anything. We just woke up and there we were. One minute you’re listening to a book report, the next minute you’re stuck under a pile of debris.
