Nice story Gephardt

Close Encouters of the Ghost Kind

In preparing for this years “close encounters of the ghost kind”. I came across a story about a train school bus wreck. Most of the tales recount a school bus full of small children were killed somewhere in Texas. The story goes on how these ghosts actually help passers by in times of need. The story in fact comes from Utah and it was a bus of high school students on their way to school on a wintery morning in 1938. My wife and I did a little research and not only found the wreck site, but a memorial that speaks of it in the South Jordan cemetery. We found the graves of three Young women that perished that day. Many of the students graves can be found in multiple cemetery’s in the south west part of the Salt Lake valley. 

Rela Marie Beckstead, 15 years old, Helen Lloyd, 17 years old, and Lois Johnson 17 years old, all died on December 1 1938. Three young women that have for the most part been forgotten in time and history. You have to research to know their story. But their story is one that many have carried on in tales of ghosts and lore. Not scary ghosts but kind helping ghosts. You see not all ghost stories are scary. Here is a brief glimpse in to their tragic deaths.

December 1, 1938 Dawned as a snowy, Foggy, eerily quiet day. While a school bus headed through the dense winter storm towards Jordan high school, a loaded Denver and Rio grande freight train rolled north towards Salt lake city. At 8:43, near the railroad crossing at 10200 so and 400 west, the driver stopped the bus. He opened the door to look beyond the thick fog, but he did not see or hear the 80 + car “Flying Ute” train approaching at over 50 miles per hour. he sat back in his seat and pushed the gas pedal down, the buses rubber tire strained up the gentle grade and pulled slowly forward across the tracks. The Engineer and train crew could barely make out the bus ahead of them. the crew frantically applied the brakes, but the collision was inevitable. The wreckage of mangled bus left 23 students and the driver dead. 15 students survived the accident and most faced a lifetime of serious physical injuries and emotional scars. 

On Nov. 30, 1938, Wanda Sheels Naylor had planned to leave Jordan High School and spend the night at a friend's home. Wanda, now silver-haired and with delicate hands that trembled gently in the cool wind, said Monday that she and her friend would have ridden the bus back to school the next morning. It was something the teenage girls had done many times before, but when Wanda mother called, they gave up on the sleepover.

"My little sister got sick and my mother needed me at home," she recalled.

The last minute change-of-plans saved Wanda’s life.

The next morning, Dec. 1, the bus Wanda would have taken from her friend's home rolled to a stop at a railroad crossing at 10200 South and 400 West in South Jordan during the first snowstorm of the year. The bus driver opened his doors to look for a train but saw nothing in the thick fog. The driver pulled onto the tracks at 8:34 a.m.

At the same moment, an 80-plus car "Flying Ute" train emerged from the storm traveling more than 50 miles per hour. The engineers slammed on the brakes, but it was too late — the train plowed into the bus.

She waited at the old Jordan High School for her friend to arrive.

"They never came," Wanda recalled. "And I was inside because it was snowy. We went into the school and went to our first class, and the teacher was crying. Ms. Hawkins was her name. Then the bell rang very loud two or three times. They wanted all students in the auditorium, and that's when we were told of the tragedy."

The collision killed 23 students and the bus driver. Newspaper images of the accident show mangled metal twisted beyond recognition around the front of the freight train, which was operated by the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad.

Wanda knew everyone on the doomed bus.

The following poem was written by Naomi Lewis at the age of seventeen. Oddly enough it was penned the night before she died in the bus/train wreck.

Earth’s Angels.

 I like to think that the wind

Is Angles in the trees,

Stanley noble Angels

that no one ever sees.

When the world is peaceful

and people are living right,

They rustle the branches gently

throughout the entire night.

But when the world is wicked

Then sorrow bursts from the trees,

and it sounds like the wailing,

woeful hum

of hostile atrocious bees.

Buy in my imagining

It’s angels sorrowing in the tree.

At night they call a council

Of angels on the earth,

Each angel chooses a mortal

to guide to his preordained worth.

So I like to think that wind

Is angels in the trees

Stanley noble angels

That no-one ever, ever sees.

No one can tell you what their thoughts were that fateful morning. No one remembers what they were wearing, or what they had for breakfast that day. But if you go to the South Jordan Cemetery in Utah You can visit their graves, feel the peace, and if your lucky enough maybe they can help you. 

As my wife and I were leaving he cemetery, a gentle breeze picked up. It rustled the autumn leaves, and for a moment it felt as if they were there. Saying thank you for remembering, for coming. Walking to the car I said in my mind, thank you Naomi, Rela, Lois and Helen for allowing us to learn this bit of history and feel the comfort of the rustling branches.