I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you. Hebrews 13.5

            The morning of May 18, 1927 was sunny and fresh in Bath Township, Michigan.  The school children were looking forward to summer vacation as they prepared for school that day. The Bath Township School was brand new. It consolidated several one and two-roomed schoolhouses into one central, modern, gleaming location.  Revenue for the new schoolhouse was collected by raising property taxes.  Most folks were proud of the new school, and were accepting of the increased tax rates on property as necessary. Some, to be sure, were disgruntled.

            None more so than Bath Township School Board treasurer, Andrew Kehoe.  His farm had been foreclosed on.  He had made a string of bad choices, and investments – but blamed the new property taxes for his financial ruin.  And so, after bludgeoning his wife to death and leaving her corpse in a wheel-barrow, he planted a series of bombs intended to completely destroy the new school and kill as many school-children as possible. 

            He was not entirely successful. One group of bombs he planted failed to ignite, and only half the school was destroyed.  A suicide car bomb he drove into the middle of rescue efforts did explode, killing himself, and injuring many others.  It was the most deadly, devastating act of domestic terrorism in the United States until the explosion at the Murrah building in Oklahoma City years later. 47 eventually died from the blasts that day.  38 of them were children.  Hundreds were injured, scores permanently so.

            That very year, M.J. Ellsworth, long-time resident of Bath Township and neighbor of Kehoe put together a history of the event.  I have a facsimile edition of his book, published in 2001.  It is an altogether unique and eerie document.  He has photos of the school before the disaster, and after. He has photos of Kehoe’s farmhouse, and the implements that, if sold, would have paid off the debt that so enraged Kehoe.  He has a photo of the wheel-barrow bearing the corpse of Kehoe’s wife.  He has a photo of the bombs Kehoe was building in his chicken coop.  The most memorable photographs, however, are of the victims.

            Ellsworth has included school, and family photos of every child killed in the disaster, with oral memories of them, offered by family and friends, as well as the location where each victim is buried. 

            Floyd E. Burnett was a great baseball player, and always good to get his chores done around the farm.  He was eleven years old when the blast killed him, and he is buried in Bath Cemetery beside his mother. Cleo Clayton was an eight year old second grader when he was killed by the car bomb. A large bolt that Kehoe had used for shrapnel tore through Cleo’s stomach and severed his spine.  He is buried in Diamondale, Michigan.  Thelma Irene McDonald was Preacher and Mrs. McDonald’s eight year old daughter.  She was already in third grade.  Thelma had cried to go to school from the age of three.  She loved school and intended to be a school teacher one day. She is buried in Springport, Michigan….. and on and on for every victim.

            There are so many faces of smiling, happy children, so many descriptions of punctured organs and severed limbs, so many questions for God, and so few explanations given.

            In fact I can think of no explanation. Ellsworth certainly doesn’t offer any. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one. God never explained to Job why he suffered – but we know. Jesus never explained to Mary and Martha why he lingered while Lazarus died – but we know. We know some other things.  We know that God is not evil, and tempts no one to do evil (James 1.13). We know that evil is in the world because humans introduced it. We know the innocent are with the Lord.  We know that some explanations will be beyond our comprehension. We know that we are never promised explanations.

            Ellsworth ends his collection, The Bath School Disaster, with a short piece written by ninth grader Martha Hintz.  Escaping injury herself, she was taken with other classmates to a nearby home for safety. She gives a harrowing account of all she saw. After it seemed safe to leave, she and her brother headed home.  She (and the book) ends with these words:

As we made our way homeward the well-known passage came and lo, how true it was, “He will never forsake thee.”

            This we know to be true, and so, this is how I will end as well.