Mary Jo White, Gannett Michigan

Marker was gift from an anonymous donor

45 people killed%2C 58 injured as a result of explosions

A boy who was injured 87 years ago in the Bath Consolidated School bombing and died nearly a year later now has a marked resting place in a Lansing cemetery.

A marker was placed Tuesday at the gravesite in Mt. Hope Cemetery of Richard Fritz, who turned 8 the day of the bombing. The granite stone, the gift of an anonymous donor, was unveiled during a brief ceremony led by Loretta Stanaway, president of the Friends of Lansing's Historic Cemeteries.

"The final injustice of an unmarked grave is put to rest today," Stanaway said. "I hope this will be another layer of closure for those who need it."

Forty-five people — 38 children and seven adults — died and 58 were injured in the blast the morning of May 18, 1927.

Andrew Kehoe, a Bath school board treasurer angry about a school property tax he blamed for the foreclosure of his farm, blew up the school after beating his wife to death and setting his farm buildings ablaze. Kehoe detonated more than 1,000 pounds of dynamite and other explosives at the school. He then set off an explosion inside his vehicle, killing himself and the school superintendent.

There were 504 pounds of unexploded dynamite recovered from the school basement after the blast.

Fritz was among the injured and survived for almost a year before he died eight days shy of his ninth birthday as a result of myocarditis — an inflammation of the heart muscle. Stanaway said it is believed the condition resulted from an infection caused when Fritz was hurt in the bombing.

The stone set at Fritz's gravesite Tuesday features an angel who represents his teacher, Hazel Weatherby. It also includes the notation "46th angel," a reference to the people affected by the bombing beyond those who died that day.

Fritz's sister, Marjorie, 10, who died in the blast, is buried nearby.

Stanaway told the 25 people at the ceremony that she could not imagine what it was like for Fritz when he awoke on his birthday, only to be engulfed by the tragedy at school and "his innocence torn away."

Williamston resident Dan Osborne, whose mother was another of Richard Fritz's sisters, Norma Jean, said the bombing was so painful for her it was rarely discussed.

"It was never talked about (much)," he said. "I picked up bits and pieces."

The donor, who will remain anonymous until the book he is writing on the Bath bombing is published, said in a letter that the grave stone is "one of the most important things" he has done with his life.

"It is treasured because the community of Bath is a treasure," he wrote.

A final note of mystery on the grave sites of the bomb victims is the riddle of the toy cars.

Much like the roses left annually on Edgar Allen Poe's grave in Baltimore, someone has placed the small cars, with police and fire vehicles for the boys and others for the girls, on their graves.

Marjorie's silver one was on her pink stone Tuesday. Her brother's likely will come soon.

Mary Jo White is a reporter for the Lansing State Journal.