… YOU MIGHT REMEMBER THIS TRAGIC EVENT
I was a seven-year-old youngster, living in Brookings, South Dakota when we received word that my first cousin Shirley Roberts, and her infant son, Douglas, had been killed by a Navy jet which had crashed into her home in the community of Signal Hill, which is completely surrounded by the larger City of Long Beach.
The local newspaper, the Brookings Register, carried the story on the front page, with a photo of a firefighter carrying the tiny remains of a baby in his hands.
Please click on the following to read of the event and the only newspaper archive that I could find chronicling the event online:
http://www.newspaperarchive.com/SiteMap/FreePdfPreview.aspx?img=100506665
When Shirley’s husband returned to his home that evening, only to find everything he loved gone, his hair understandably turned white overnight.
Since Shirley was the second child of my eldest uncle, I can recall only one other happenstance involving Shirley. It was when she returned home to her parent’s house, where I was visiting with my parents, after having been in a solo car accident (Shirley and her friends apparently rolling over in one of the prominent ditches that are common to rural dirt roads in the Midwest). I can recall how she painfully limped around the living room due to her injuries.
As a teenager growing up in Long Beach, I used to include a brief tour (included, without additional cost, if the young lady were fortunate enough to be asked out on an infrequent date with the quirky geek, Gil Rasmussen) to the corner of 19th St. and Raymond Avenue, where the concrete foundation of the destroyed residence remained exposed for many years.
Which probably explains why I never got very many second dates (when I felt sufficiently confident to attempt my initial good night kiss “move”).
Shirley Roberts and her infant son were buried in the same plot at the All Souls Cemetery on Cherry Avenue, just north of Carson St.
Thirty-five years after the event, my elderly uncle confessed that his daughter had approached him and requested the use of his brand-new Chevrolet for a vacation trip to South Dakota. Unfortunately, Uncle’s stingy demeanor prevented him from acquiescing to his daughter’s request.
Had he done so, to his lifelong regret, the Navy jet would have struck his daughter’s unoccupied house.
Comments can be made to zakturango@excite.com.
