Escapees July-August 2022

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Texas School Disaster Museum New London, Texas

powerful that it sent a 4,000-pound piece of the concrete fl oor 200 feet in the air crushing a nearby car. H azel did not die alone in that explosion. The town lost 270 children from the 5th–11th grades, 16 teachers, four post grads and four visitors for a total of 294 people in an event known as “The Day a Generation Died.” Twenty- fi ve families lost two children. Six families lost three. Rescu ers, many from nearby oil fi elds worked far into the next day, removing the dead and wounded from under tons of debris. A 22-year-old named Walter Cronkite was one of the fi rst reporters on the scene.

Her eyes haunt me. It’s a photo of 13-year old Hazel Pierson. She died at 3:17 p.m. on Thursday, March 18, 1937, in the New Lon don, Texas, Junior and Senior High School. Hazel, and all her schoolmates were sched uled to be o ff school the next day. I imagine they were all excited about having a three day weekend. But it was not to be. Eight minutes before the end of the school day, an explosion leveled much of the two-story brick and steel building. The blast was so

PHOTOS COURTESY OF LONDON MUSUEM.

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ESCAPEES Magazine July/August 2022