Bath School Disaster

The Bath School Disaster



With all due respect and sympathy to the victims and their families of the Columbine, McDonald's, and Virginia Tech shootings, the Oklahoma bombing, and other mass murders, they were not the worst mass murders of children in the US.

On May 18, 1927, 45 people, mostly children, were killed and 58 were injured when disgruntled and demented school board member Andrew Kehoe dynamited the new school building in Bath, Michigan out of revenge over his foreclosed farm due in part to the taxes required to pay for the new school.

Contents of this page:

Dedication:

To my Great-uncle Arnold Victor Bauerle, who died in the explosion at the age of 8. Thanks to Kehoe, the following excerpt from "The Bath School Disaster" by M.J. Ellsworth is all there is to remember him by, other than a picture of him with his brother and sister, his gravestone, a commemorative brick, and a memorial ornament at the Bath School Museum:

Arnold Victor Bauerle, born in Dewitt township, February 15, 1919, was in the third grade. Even at that age he had a great head for figures. He asked to be given numbers which often ran into the millions. His father often told him he would never be a farmer because he ate so slow. He was always busy at something. If not in school, he was playing baseball. Arnold wanted to go to Lansing with his parents on the day he was killed, but he had had whooping cough and had been out of school so much that they thought he ought not stay out of school any more. They were in Lansing at the time of the blast at the school. He is survived by his father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Bauerle, one brother and one sister. Interment was in the Dewitt cemetery.

Details:

Good write-ups are at Wikipedia, Useless Info (!?), and crimelibrary.com, though the first part of the latter is pure sensationalistic speculation on Kehoe's thoughts the day of the disaster. Other links are on the St. John's, MI Independent BSD page. See also these articles from the Detroit Free Press, Associated Press, USA Today, Education Week, the Seattle Times, the Daily Camera, the Holland Sentinel, Robert Lyons' BSD page, and this page. The following Detroit News link existed in August 2000 when this page was first created, but is now dead and irretrievable via the Internet Wayback Machine A good summary is "Just Another Summer Day: The Bath School Disaster" by Debra Pawlak, and a very brief one is at the bathmi.com page. A video report includes newsreel footage, but has poor audio Also, the second video link doesn't work - use this one instead. The Lansing State Journal commented in 2005 and after the VA Tech shootings.

An interview with a former Michigan police officer, now living in Ventura County, California, was apparently published in the 1/16/00 Ventura County Star, and has been moved here (it was lost for a while). An account from a survivor in the Detroit News is here, though the bit about the generator doesn't really make sense. Another account by another survivor is here, and yet another survivor's account is here. An article written from a post- 9/11 viewpoint is here, though I don't know that I agree with calling Kehoe a "suicide bomber"... I also didn't know there have been bomb scares around the anniversary - I don't remember any while I was there from 1965-1977...

Ironically if not for Columbine, most of the above links probably wouldn't exist. Lindbergh's flight occurred a few days later and pushed it out of the papers and nearly out of history.

A list of the victims is here; see also "The Bath School Disaster" under Contemporary Accounts below for similar lists, their biographies, and their photographs. The text of the historical marker placed on the site is here, and a description of the Bath School Museum is here. Graves of the victims are being compiled here.

The 75th anniversary prompted this column by Jerry Harte (whose father was born after his brother was killed in the disaster), articles in the Lansing State Journal and St. Johns Independent, and local stations WLNS and WILX, and some observations by Ken Black.

The 80th anniversary prompted reports by the Detroit News (note that the picture of Kehoe is an inaccurate sketch made afterwards), Lansing State Journal, and a Saginaw, MI radio station (the video includes newsreel footage).

Contemporary accounts:

New York Times

May 26, 1927: "Bath Victims Buried Friday". Note the "his last moments of suffering" comment that implies Arnold didn't die in the explosion itself, but lived for a while afterward, yet died before his family could reach him

June 2, 1927: "Report Bath Relief Work" This gets a bit long and dry at times; the bit about the Red Cross not being an insurance company must've changed between then and 9/11/01, given the money problems the latter event generated

7 - Biographies; with pictures is here but again, note the entire 2.5M book will be downloaded.

Pictures (most taken from "The Bath School Disaster", link names starting with "tb" are from the Toledo Blade):

The school



Before the explosion and after (same picture as at top of page).

"Two views of wrecked school before and after blast" "A before and after picture of the scene of Michigan's greatest tragedy is shown here. The top view was taken shortly after the fine two-story brick structure was completed. The lower shows the ruins brought about by the maniacal twist of a farmer's mind. Rescue workers are shown searching for bodies in the remains of the building, twisted and shattered by an explosion of dynamite."

"The pictures across the top of the page show the ruins just as thousands of Ohio and Michigan residents saw them soon after the bodies of the little children had been removed. One of the freaks of the disaster was that some of the school windows were not broken while windows in houses for a considerable distance were smashed."

"In the above picture is a closeup of a corner of the wrecked building. A cloakroom is exposed on the second floor. The little coats hang just where they were placed by children, many of whom lost their lives in the explosion. An apple on the top shelf was untouched." (How were apples preserved until May in the 1920s?)

Looking Down Into The Crater Of Death (Clinton County Republican News, 5/26/1927)

"More than two bushels of dynamite [were] borrowed, bought or stolen by Andrew Kehoe, on whom authorities place responsibility for the terrific blast."

"These boys defied death in their search for dynamite and other explosives in the building. Undoubtedly, there are more caches of explosives planted in the huge basement of the structure but officials were afraid to dig around too much until experts arrived at the scene to take charge of the search.

Kehoe, an expert electrician, had gone to great pains in his plans and it is considered nothing short of a miracle that hundreds of pounds of dynamite did not explode. Had this happened, the entire building would have been razed and probably the whole town would have been wiped out."

The Kehoe home before and after, along with the remnants of the tools after the tool shed burned down.

"A crowd of tremendous proportion rushed to Bath from Lansing, Detroit, Jackson and other cities when news of the disaster spread. Michigan state constabulary worked heroically to keep the traffic moving but still there were many minor automobile accidents on the road."

"For hours after the explosion, rescuers searched the debris in the hope that they might save the life of another child. Two Lansing automobile firms released large groups of men to assist the rescuers."

"Picture Shows Four Tragedy Victims Recovering" "Four of the child victims of the tragedy at Bath, Mich., where a crazed farmer dynamited the consolidated school, are shown recovering in hospitals in Lansing in the accompanying pictures, taken by Norman Hauger of the Blade camera staff. From left to right, in the top row, are Dorothy Fulton, 11; Ruth Barnes, 17, and Marian Eschtruch, 11, with her nurse, Eva Green. At the lower left is shown Florence Komm, 9. At the right workmen are shown digging graves for some of the 44 children and adults who were killed in the explosion."

State Senator James Couzens, who donated personal funds to help rebuild the school, thus it was named after him.

My great-uncle, Arnold Victor Bauerle, also this picture from "The Bath School Disaster"

"Raggedy Ann Survives, Little Mother Dies" "This Raggedy Ann doll, found in the school wreckage, brought sad memories to one Bath home. Raggedy Ann was paying her first visit to school, chaperoned by a kindergarten child who had begged her parents' permission to take Raggedy Ann to school. Searchers found Raggedy Ann near the body of the little kindergartner." Pictures like this always get to me; I almost lost it in the library when I saw it, and it was this picture that convinced me to copy off the Toledo Blade info

The sign left by Kehoe: "Criminals are made not born"

The flag that flew over the school at the time.

The cornerstone of the rebuilt school.

The statue, "Girl With A Kitten"; another view - the plaque reads "This bronze statue was sculpted by University of Michigan Professor Carlton W. Angell in memory of the victims of the Bath School Disaster of May 18, 1927. School children through out Michigan contributed pennies to fund this lasting memorial."

The historical marker and memorial boulder, and cupola now at the site used to be pictured here and here, but those links are now dead too A nice site with a new set of them is here. Ken Black provided these pictures of the dedication of the park and historical marker.

A wooden plaque made by Scott Cunningham.

Bath School Museum exhibits #1, and #2 (courtesy Ron Bauerle). One has an excerpt from a newspaper article mentioning a witness who saw Supt. Huyck's "face freeze in horror" while he was talking to Kehoe just before the latter blew them up

The memorial tree mentioned in a couple of the articles above. The flag and memorial tree may both be seen in this picture. At first I thought Arnold's memorial ornament wasn't appropriate, but his biography above says he did love playing baseball...

The front cover with the "Girl With A Kitten" statue.

The inside front cover with misc. credits.

Page 1 showing the school before the explosion, and afterwards.

Page 2 showing a picture of School #4, completed 1873 (would be interesting to know where it was).

Page 3, the Program itself.

Page 4 showing the school shortly after its reconstruction in 1928.

The program text (it had no pictures); note the victims list left off Nellie Kehoe.

Former superintendent James Hixson laying a memorial wreath.

A memorial bench plaque.

Personal Observations

One of my grandmother's cousins who lives several miles away on the other side of US 27, told me they heard the explosion all the way over there, and that afterwards children would pray or make statements along the lines of "I love everybody in the world, except Kehoe".

It is unclear why all the dynamite didn't go off; theories range from the wiring being incomplete, wrong, disconnected by a janitor or the force of the first explosion, to the battery used to set it off didn't have enough capacity.

At the risk of being morbid, I'm curious as to what happened to the alarm clock used to set off the explosion, and the "criminals are made, not born" sign Kehoe left at his farm. I hope they weren't destroyed out of grief/anger, or scavenged by some souvenir hunter, or buried in some police evidence file and later destroyed... Update 3/4/02: the following is an excerpt from an e-mail I received from Bath Township historian Gene Wilkins:



The girl with a cat statue - I remember seeing it in the rebuilt Junior High School and later in the new high school while I attended both. There was a rumor that it was made from the pennies contributed by the children of Michigan for it (and the article "Cast in Stone" repeats it), but I find this hard to believe. Likewise, the same article's interpretation of the child's hair/dress being "blown as if by the force of the explosion" and the "grief in her face" don't agree with other interpretations of it as conveying no reminder of the disaster, but simply portraying a carefree child as a memorial to what their lives should have been. You can check out this picture and judge for yourself.

While I was attending the rebuilt Junior High School in the early 1970s, one day there was a rumor that there was still some unexploded dynamite in the school and we had to evacuate it (after nearly 50 years? And I thought the entire old school was razed to make way for the new one?). No dynamite was found, but a structural inspection supposedly revealed that the school was unsafe, and was thus closed. We junior high school students had to share the high school building until a new school could be built (which became the high school, and the old high school became the junior high school); I remember getting up around 5 AM to catch the bus at 6 AM for my shift at the school. I graduated from the new high school in 1977, the same year the class of 1927 had their graduation since they didn't get to have one in 1927. I was disappointed when several years later it was decided to tear down the old school entirely.

While the people of Bath do not dwell on this tragedy, neither should it be forgotten. A friend and fellow classmate (whose family still lives in Bath) has an even stronger opinion:

Poems written afterwards:



The Last Bell (written and published in memory of those who lost their lives in the Bath school disaster) By Mrs. W.H. Blount, Hillman, Mich. Published 5/25/1939, paper unknown. "Mother, there's the school bell ringing I believe our clock is slow." And the mother sighed and answered, "Yes, it's time for you to go." Down the path across the foot-bridge, Where the yellow cowslips grew, "Ah! The purple Johnny Jump-Ups, For my teacher, just a few." Mother watched her treasured darling, Till he passed the signboard "Slow", And the big bell in the belfry Still was swinging, to and fro. Heavy is her heart this morning, Like a pall, fear o'er her hung, And her tasks are still unfinished, And her song is yet unsung. Up the steps, soon all are seated. One, to teacher "posies" bring, When a little hand is lifted, "Teacher, won't you let us sing?" And the teacher smiled and nodded, "What will your selection be?" "Oh! it's 'Jewels in the Knapsack' And it's on page fifty-three." "When He Cometh", sang the children, And the teacher looking down On their happy upturned faces, Wreathed in locks of gold or brown, Or the one whose flaxen ringlets 'Gainst the "midnight" tresses shone, Thought, what jewels for a Saviour, They His loved ones and His own. "Like the stars", the chorus swelling, Laughing faces, not one frown; They shall shine in saint-like beauty, Dazzling bright gems for His crown. "He will gather" white robed angels, Bore them on their wings of love, To the Father, who was waiting In that Blessed Home Above. Forty children and their teachers, Knelt before the Saviour King. In His loving arms He clasped them, As the Last Bell ceased to ring.

The title song from the album Bath, Michigan by Landis MacKellar of Vienna

bath, michigan in nineteen hundred and twenty eight disturbed by an increase in the property tax rate andrew kehoe, a deranged man, blew up the school in bath, michigan (in bath, michigan) fifty children, give or take a few and their teachers died when it blew fifty pounds of dynamite he hid in the basement, kehoe had a right to buy that dynamite (for on farm use) just before this deadly deed he strangled his wife and girdled his trees slaughtered his stock, burned the house down, put a second bomb in his car and headed into town he headed into town (ten miles away) drove up to the school just after the first bomb went off people running round like chickens with their heads cut off beckoned the school board president over to his model-A ford flipped a switch and killed four or five more he killed four or five more (and wounded many with the shrapnel) george marks, the postman, who lost a leg but survived was the last to see andrew kehoe alive just before he died, george marks would say kehoe smiled, and i won't forget that smile 'til my dying day it didn't begin with people out of work vietnam veterans and post office clerks it began for no reason worth trying to understand in nineteen twenty eight in bath, michigan it began in bath, michigan.

Comment by Landis MacKellar: In 1993, I was involved in writing a book on the Ruth Snyder-Judd Gray murder case in New York City. As part of my research, I read all the newspapers for 1927-28 and learned of the events described here. Prior to the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the Bath, Michigan incident, now universally forgotten, was the worst act of mass murder in American history. Patterson Smith, who supplies me with antiquarian books, sold me a copy of an extremely rare item, a slim volume entitled The Bath School Disaster, which was written and privately printed by a local merchant named M.J. Ellsworth. By bad luck, the volume went into storage with the rest of my personal effects when I moved to Europe in 1994, as a result of which, the song was written from memory. Lacking my primary source, I exercised a bit of poetic license regarding the details, as a result of which, there are a number of factual inaccuracies in the piece. For example, the incident occurred in 1927, not 1928. The broad outlines of the story are, however, correct.

An excerpt from an "X-Files" fan-fiction partially set in Bath and mentioning the Disaster is here; due to the NC-17/X-rated nature of the rest of the "work", I will not provide the URL where it came from The excerpt itself is PG-rated, but I have four major problems with it:

Pleasant Hill Cemetery is half a mile north of the I69 overhead pass (and there isn't enough traffic on Webster Road to create a thought-disturbing "roar"),

there hasn't been a dirt road paved over in years,

there's no 7-11 in Bath that I know of, and

the author repeats the false legend about the "Girl With A Cat" statue being made of the pennies that were collected to pay for it.

Other Links:

An initial search back in 2000 turned up no links dedicated to the Bath School Disaster (thus the reason for this page), but some more searching revealed it as being mentioned in the following links. They came from google.com and yahoo.com

To reduce the size of this main page, excerpts from the links are on a separate page. They fall into the following categories:



VA Tech pages (later, but see Google News and Google Web in the meantime - note that many of them are (anti)gun control blogs.)

A genealogical query page that mentions Andrew in a couple of them used to be here, but is now defunct; an archived version may be found here.

Note that once I've captured the info from these sites, I don't track them any more, and I have been informed that some of the links no longer work. If you'd like to try to see the entire original page that the excerpts came from, please copy the URL then paste it into the search engine at the Internet Wayback Machine, but not all of them will show up there either

I also received this e-mail directing me to the Southeast Michigan Ghost Hunters Society and specifically the pictures page. I include this here in the interest of completeness. As for my personal opinion, as an engineer I'm skeptical (couldn't the "orbs" just be fireflies?), but as a Christian I'm also learning that the spiritual world is not subject to the laws of science, and there are many things about it, and God, that can be neither proven nor disproven (I wouldn't really want a God who could be proven scientifically, or completely explained). However, I also feel that "superstition is the worm that crawls from the grave of dead faith" (as somebody else put it), and as the Bible says, "it is appointed for men to die and after this [comes] judgement", and therefore departed souls probably do not wander the earth as ghosts. But I also believe that "a man with an experience is not at the mercy of a man with an argument". Another ghost hunter's experiences are posted here.

The April 2003 "Touched By An Angel" series finale involved a boiler explosion at a school killing nearly all of the children in a small town - needless to say, this hit awfully close to home for me An alternate link without pictures (but still a large text file) is here, and a Usenet thread where I posted my objections to the show is here. Since the traffic in the group is so light, I doubt there will be many replies to it, if any. One of my biggest objections is that the school looked a little too intact to have killed everybody in it

While more children (186) died in the 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis, note that it was (1) non-US and (2) involved more than one perpetrator. However, the victims of the BSD probably went through similar emotions as the Beslan victims "Children Bear Emotional Scars from School Siege"

References:

For more information, please consult the following:

Feedback:

If you have comments on the Disaster, please sign my guestbook (or just view it if you want).

If you have comments on this page itself, or would like to be notified when I update it, please e-mail me: Ron Bauerle (rdbauerle@juno.com).

Thanks for reading and remembering.

visitors to this page.

08/03/00

08/06/00

08/11/00

09/04/00

04/21/01

04/22/01

........

........

09/15/01

10/20/01

........

10/29/01

........

01/01/02

........

03/04/02

........

........

........

05/11/02

05/20/02

........

........

........

05/27/02

........

07/04/02

........

08/03/02

........

........

........

........

05/07/03

........

........

........

........

10/21/03

04/23/07

........

04/28/07

05/20/07

Compilation copyright © 2000-2007 by Ronald D. Bauerle; copyrights held by original authors and sources are still so held. The material published on this site may not be reproduced for commercial purposes. Historical researchers are free to use this material for reference and research purposes. All other rights reserved.



God Bless America