Geoff Calkins Columnist SHARE December 14, 2015 — Harold Hogue recalls Christmas Eve 1956 when he helped his friend Jack Knox rescue a baby and her mother from the Cumberland River in Nashville. Family members recently tracked that child down and she presented him with an engraved gold watch as a thank you, signed ‘baby.’ (Jim Weber/The Commercial Appeal) A candle burns beside a photo of Marguerite Hunt Schultz, who passed away at 86 this past March. When Judy Hunt Charest was three. (Larry McCormack/The Tennessean) December 14, 2015 — Harold Hogue recalls Christmas Eve 1956 when he helped his friend Jack Knox rescue a baby and her mother from the Cumberland River in Nashville. Family members recently tracked that child down and she presented him with an engraved gold watch as a thank you, signed ‘baby.’ (Jim Weber/The Commercial Appeal)

Fifty-nine years ago, the day before Christmas, Harold Hogue reported for work at the Nashville Bridge Company.

He was not pleased about this, mind you. Who has to work the day before Christmas?

"It was a very cold, gray, overcast day," he said. "We engineers were not especially happy to have to work on Christmas Eve. But now I see God's plan. Had the engineering crew not been working that day, there would have been no one around to participate in the events that were about to unfold that cold holiday morning."

The events began with a commotion on the Shelby Street Bridge. Hogue looked up from his desk. Maybe a reveler had gotten too deep into the egg nog?

No.

A cluster of people were on the bridge, pointing frantically toward the water below. Hogue immediately saw what they saw.

" `There's a woman in the river!' " he yelled to his colleagues.

They rose and sprinted down the stairs and to the river bank. Hogue and co-worker Jack Knox were the first to reach the water. By this time, the woman was clinging to some steel bars that were jutting up from the river.

"I remember it clear as can be," said Hogue. "She was yelling, `Help, save my baby!' "



A Christmas Miracle

Christmas is about miracles. There was the original miracle, of course, the one that is celebrated every year on Dec. 25. And then there are the smaller ones. The miraculous Christmas Truce of World War I. The enduring fictional Miracle on 34th Street. The miracles we all experience in our own lives, in this season, when we take time to appreciate small moments, and our families, and our blessings.

So here is an another. A miracle nearly 60 years in the making. The narrator is Harold Hogue, now 89, a retired FedEx engineer who lives in Germantown.

"The people on the bridge were yelling `There's a baby in the river, too!' " he said. "But neither Jack Knox nor I could see it. A minute later, we saw something blue that looked like paper or cloth floating downstream, but there was no way to tell what it was. Without hesitation, Jack dove into the freezing water."

And so the rescue began. First, the baby, then the mother.

That blue bit of paper or cloth was, indeed, the baby. Knox grabbed it, swam to the shore and handed it off to Hogue, who sprinted up the bank toward the first aid room.

"It wasn't breathing," says Hogue. "I put the baby on my shoulder as I was running."

Here Flo Hogue, Harold's wife, interjects: "Ever since we got married, I've been teasing him about having bony shoulders. I guess they came in handy."

Said Hogue: "After a few steps with the baby bouncing on my shoulder, I heard a little grunt from the baby. I realized then that it was alive, and after that, it began to grunt with every bouncing step I took."

After handing the baby to the company nurse, Hogue ran back to the river. By now, Knox was back in the water, supporting the woman as she clung to the steel bars. But the situation was getting grim. They wouldn't be able to hang on for long.

Which is when Hogue remembered that those bars were jutting out of a concrete pier that had been under construction. If Knox could force the bars apart and squeeze inside them, he could stand on the concrete.

That's exactly what happened. Not long after, Knox and the woman were picked up by a tug boat. A story about the dramatic rescue appeared in the afternoon paper, The Nashville Banner. The headline read, "Pulled From Icy Cumberland."

"Jack was the real hero," said Hogue. "He deserved all the accolades he got. Then life went on for all of us. We moved to Memphis. It turns out Jack died a few years ago. We always told the story to the kids, especially at Christmas. But I never knew what happened to the baby or the mother. I always wondered about that."

But here's the thing about miracles. They can unfold and echo through time. So it was that this past July, at a family gathering in Memphis, one of Hogue's adult grandsons, Michael, asked to hear the story again.

"I didn't think he was even paying attention as I was telling it," said Hogue. "He was fiddling on his phone. But when I had finished the story, he said to me, `The baby's name was Judy and the mother's name was Marguerite Hunt.' "

Hogue was floored. After nearly six decades of wondering, he finally had two names? Michael had found a story about the rescue. Not only that, a little more investigation revealed that Judy, the baby, was alive and living in Hermitage, near Nashville. She was thrilled to hear from Hogue.

"We went up and paid her a visit in August," said Hogue.

Said Judy: "It was very emotional."

And this is when we should introduce the second narrator, Judy Charest, now 59, a mother of two and a grandmother of six.

"I didn't find out about the story until I was 21," she said. "My mother had gotten ill — she struggled with undiagnosed bipolar issues — and she was in the hospital and she told me about it.

"I was born September 17 and this happened on Christmas Eve. Everyone said my mother was just suffering from the baby blues. Well, Daddy came home from work that morning, and he went and took a shower, and when he came out, Momma was gone and she had taken me with her. She went to the Shelby Street Bridge and she climbed as high as she could with me in her arms and then she jumped. When she hit the water, the doctors said that brought her out of the psychosis. She started screaming, `Save my baby!' That's where Mr. Knox and Mr. Hogue came in."

Charest, by the way, absolutely considers her survival a miracle.

"For me, it's a very spiritual thing, and it always has been, from the moment I found out about it," she said. "I never was upset with my mother. I had spent 21 years with her, watching her go into some pretty scary depressions. I understood that sickness. And after she told me the story, she was correctly diagnosed and she took her medicine the rest of her life. My mother was awesome. She was a great lady. And God blessed her many times. She had colon cancer and she beat it. She finally passed away last March, at age 86. But none of that would have been possible if Mr. Knox and Mr. Hogue hadn't been there to do what they did. What isn't miraculous about that?"

And then, to find each other after so many years! Small wonder the August meeting was emotional.

Said Charest: "He's just the kindest, most humble man you could ever meet."

Said Hogue: "I did my small part. God works in mysterious ways."

So Merry Christmas, everyone. May you savor your moments and be kind to the people with whom your life intersects. But since this is Christmas, you should know about the gift Charest gave Hogue not so long ago. A beautiful, inscribed pocket watch. The inscription is dated 12/24/56. It reads, "Everyone needs a hero. Thanks for being mine."