Another Tragic Family Saga Continues: Fire

Interior of Gardiner garage, still showing signs of accident to this day
[Photo Courtesy:  Kris Baldwin Ohmann]

This from a witness of the accident, Ron Cleem:

"I was nearby when it happened and rushed over when it started burning. 

"Frank was welding in the garage when the accident happened.  He tried to save the garage by running out of the building with a pan of oil or fuel that had caught fire.  He ended up being severely burned doing it, and died as a result of his burns. His wife Helen just died this last year I think, and she always hated seeing that building which bought up tragic memories. Frank lost a brother in 1954 when the drunk driver hit a group of kids in St. Vincent, and a sister who was in high school,  in a car accident in 1955. So much tragedy, like Lena Paul Fitzpatrick Nordstrom experienced, so much heartache for his mother..." 

Obituary:  Frank Willard Gardiner, Noyes, Minn., passed away at the Emerson, Manitoba hospital Tuesday, March 5, 1957, following an accident when a gasoline tank he was working on exploded, showering him with burning gasoline. He was 30 years, 5 months and 4 days of age.

The accident occurred shortly after 4 P.M. Monday, March 4 to the rear of his father's home at St. Vincent in a garage. He died the following day at 2:15 P.M.

Deceased was born September 29,1926 at Neche, N.D. He attended Grade School at St. Vincent and also the Pembina, N.D. High School, Pembina being located just across the Red River from St. Vincent.

He was married April 26,1947 to Miss Helen Louise Graves, at Auburn, Washington. To this union two children were born, Frank Willard, Jr., age 4 years and Robyn Kathryn, age 3 years.

He is survived by his wife and children and parents. Six sisters, one brother: Mrs Lorraine Hosch of Noyes; Mrs. Leonard Jerome,Hallock; Mrs. Glen Davis, Greenville, SC; Mrs. Wayne Copeland, Harian, Iowa; Mrs. George Dennis, Humboldt; Jacquelyn at home; Arnold at Great Lakes Naval Training Station, Illinois.

He was preceded in death by a brother and sister, Gloria and Martin, both of whom figured in accidents which took their lives. One, in the McGovern accident a few years ago at St. Vincent, and the other in connection with the Slator hit-and-run driving accident at St. Vincent, also.
Mr. Gardiner lived in Seattle, Wash., from 1947 to 1948, returning to St. Vincent in 1949, remained there until 1950. He traveled two years through Southern states with Anderson Bros. Pipe Line Company. He also spent six months in Montana and then moved to Noyes, this county where he purchased the Border Café¹ and operated the same until his death. He also did some commercial trucking.

Anatomy of a Town Tragedy - Revisited

Trivia: Slator served his time in same facility he had worked in

I wrote some time ago about a tragedy that hit not only my hometown, but my family.

I also wrote about how I was contacted by the grandson of the man responsible, and through that contact learned some valuable details behind what happened.

But all this time, I have never seen the man's face...until now.

When I was visiting up home recently, an old friend and classmate of mine gave me copies of several pages of a scrapbook her mother had kept of important memories to her family and her hometown area over a period of many years. Included in that scrapbook were many pages of news-clippings concerning my cousins' and uncle's tragic deaths. It was a tragedy that hit the area hard because so many people were involved between the two parts of it, either directly or indirectly. It was difficult for anyone to grasp losing your entire family within a three month period. A pall hung over the area for quite some time, and even to this day, people are moved by it just hearing about it all.

Anatomy of a Town Tragedy - 1954

It was the the late 1940's. Life was good. It would be nearly 10 years before it would all end in a series of tragedies, one of them that affected not only this family, but the entire town of St. Vincent and beyond...

This is a photograph of my uncle John Fitzpatrick, my aunt Lena, and their three daughters...my cousins Marlene, Alice, and Elaine (the twins) - it was taken around 1946 when tragedy was the farthest thing from anyone's mind.

It is now several years later, in 1954. It is early spring, and Elaine is walking to Catechism class at St. Anne's Catholic Church with one of two small groups of kids. Unbeknownst to the groups, bearing down on them was a very drunk man named John Slater. Witnesses that day later say that the driver was weaving all over the road. When he approached where the two groups were walking, one on each side of the road, he hit one group, then swerved wildly and hit the other. Among several victims, my cousin Elaine died at the scene within minutes. My grandfather ran down the street, knowing something was horribly wrong. The scene was chaos, shock, and death where moments ago was peace and laughter...

It is now June of the same year. It's the midst of a hot spell. The ladies aid is meeting at the North Star Church. Down the road a ways, at the Fitzpatrick farm, Marlene and Alice are about to cool off in the dugout, their father working nearby.

There were no witnesses to what happened next, only conjecture.

At some point, uncle John must have noticed something was wrong. Maybe there was a cry for help. Maybe he heard loud splashing. Whatever it was, he knew his daughters were in trouble and jumped in to help.

John was my mother's older (and only) brother. He had been an athlete in high school. The girls knew how to swim. John, now in middle age, was a strong man and known to be a good swimmer. For whatever reason, none of those factors were enough.

Later that day, when --- stopped by, no one could be found at first. Finally a hat was noticed floating on the dugout's surface. The Webster brothers, from the next farm over, were called upon to search the pond. They found all three of them at the bottom.

Although no one to this day has confirmed it to me, I have often wondered if they found at least one of the daughter's arms in a frantic embrace around their father's neck. Sometimes a drowning victim will panic so badly, they will pull down their rescuer and take them with them into a watery grave. On the other hand, there were (mostly) unsaid rumors that grief may have played a role. Maybe at some point my uncle gave up. Maybe it was even a darker scenario. He was known to have never been the same after Elaine died in the drunk driving accident. We will never know.

And what happened to my aunt Lena? She had a nervous breakdown. Little wonder, considering that she lost her entire family within three months. She later remarried, and had a happy second half to her life, thankfully. That is when I met her.

I never knew my uncle, or my cousins - I was born five years after they passed away. I often heard the stories of that summer, and many times saw their graves at the cemetery. It would have been nice to have known my uncle, and my cousins, and grew up near such close relatives. But it wasn't mean to be.
_______

Around 2001, I was contacted out of the blue by Kevin Slator. He sent me an email by way of introduction. He explained that he was the grandson of the man who killed the cousin I had never met. He wanted to collaborate with me on family histories where our two families had intersected, i.e., the accident. He ended by saying he would understand if I did not want to.

I wrote back to Kevin saying that was your grandfather, not you, and I was very interested. We ended up having a fascinating correspondence over many months, where I learned a wealth of information from Kevin about the incident that affected both our families so deeply. Kevin had done extensive research, which he summarized in a series of tables; be sure and check them out below, to see a chronology of what happened, and a "Who's Who" of the people involved in the story...