The Tragedy
[an account by Claude E. Eldridge, my mother's father]
[an account by Claude E. Eldridge, my mother's father]
Early in April, Lois Ruth [my mother], who was training as a nurse in Loma Linda (Calif.) Sanitarium [where I was later born], was taken very sick [with her second bout of tuberculosis], and was confined to her bed about three weeks. Our older daughter, Florence (Mrs. Lloyd R. Wilkins), lived about 15 miles distant, in Arlington, Calif., close to La Sierra College [my undergraduate alma mater, which, when I attended was known as the La Sierra Campus of Loma Linda University but is now known as La Sierra University], where she was teaching some forenoon classes in Physiology. On the afternoon shift she worked in the Loma Linda Sanitarium, where she had recently been appointed head nurse over a department.
Because Lloyd had a new Kaiser car, Florence planned to bring Lois Ruth (about 350 miles) to Phoenix as soon as she became able to be moved. Friday, April 28 [1950], about 8 a.m., they started, and we were expecting them to arrive here about 4 p.m. But they never arrived.
Around 5:30 p.m. our phone rang, and the operator said, "Indio is calling Claude Eldridge." Instantly I sensed trouble, knowing that Indio was en route.
"Hello, Dad," came Lloyd's voice. "Get seated. There's been an accident." I was prepared for that, but not for what followed.
"Lois Ruth is all right," said Lloyd. "Her legs are injured, but they'll be all right in a few months." That was very bad news, but I never dreamed of what was coming.
"There were four in the car," said Lloyd. "Flossie [Florence's nickname], Lois Ruth, Mrs. Keyes, and Mrs. Wareham [my father's first wife, Mary]. Lois Ruth and Mrs. Keyes are here in the hospital in Indio. I am speaking from the hospital."
"Where are the others?" I asked.
"In the mortuary," he replied. For a split second I didn't grasp it. Then it struck me like a shot.
"In the MORTUARY?!" I almost screamed.
"Yes," replied Lloyd, "They're dead -- Flossie is dead!" Then I DID scream.
"Shall we have the services in Arlington or Loma Linda?" asked Lloyd. "What do you think?"
"I can't think," I managed to gasp.
"Well, call me again in an hour here at the Indio hospital after you have had time to think things over," he said, giving me the phone number.
Meanwhile my wife had been standing there, listening to my end of the conversation, but knowing very little of what it was all about. I was literally overwhelmed and fell on the floor, as Abbie (Mrs. Eldridge) [my mother's mother] seized the receiver, soon getting all the details. But my outcries were so loud that she had to tell me to keep quiet so she could hear Lloyd. Florence and Mrs. Wareham were both dead, and the others, terribly injured and then in the Indio hospital, were about to be transferred immediately to Loma Linda, about 75 miles.
We planned to go immediately. Abbie phoned to Delight Clapp [a distant cousin] to ask her to look after Norma and Lawrence, Paul's children [Paul is my mother's brother], who live with us. Delight and Pauline Hopkins, both teachers at the Academy [Arizona Academy, a Seventh-day Adventist high school in Phoenix at that time, which later moved and was re-named Thunderbird Academy] and both special friends of Lois Ruth, were soon at the house, and it was decided that Delight would take care of the two children. Then the teachers both left.
We were phoning about trains (our car was not dependable) when Delight and Pauline returned, bringing with them Lucille Haskins, another teacher from the Academy and an old Atlantic Union College [my mother's undergraduate alma mater] friend of Florence's. They had a new plan. Lucille would take care of the children, and Delight and Pauline would take the new Chevrolet car belonging to the principal of the Academy, George Smith, and drive us over to Loma Linda at once! The offer was spontaneous. We never dreamed of such a thing. It was marvelous how helpful friends were.
We were soon packed and on our way. The two teachers had both worked hard all that day. but they alternated and drove all night. At Indio we stopped at the hospital and learned that the injured had left for Loma Linda about suppertime. It was around 3 a.m. We also went to the mortuary and asked to see Florence, but they persuaded us not to. They assured us that her face was not too badly mutilated.
Inquiring of the police we saw on the street in a prowl car, we learned about where the crash had occurred, and as we drove along we came to the overturned tank trailer on the right side of the road, about eleven miles west of Indio.
It was just about 6 a.m. Sabbath morning when we arrived at the Loma Linda Sanitarium. Lois Ruth looked ghastly. We feared she would not last long. She had been in shock, and soon went into another shock. They had given her plasma at Indio, and they gave her four transfusions in a few days. For eight days she ate practically nothing but vomited a lot. Her sufferings were unspeakable. Both femurs were fractured. The right side was a clean break, but the left was badly shattered -- a compound fracture. For thirteen days we lingered around, wondering for a time if there might not have to be another funeral. Most of those days we stayed with Mrs. R. L. Ward [her husband, Dr. Ward, was our family doctor in subsequent years when I was a child] and family, in Redlands. (It was that family near whom we had lived in Buckeye for about 18 months when we first came to Arizona.) Redlands is about five mile from Loma Linda, and Sister Ward ["Sister" is an honorific that used to be used frequently to refer to Adventist women; "Brother" was similarly used for men] had to drive her two children every day over to the Loma Linda Academy [where I later attended from 1st through 12th grades], so it made it handy for us. We can never forget the kindness of the Wards.
Nine days after the accident, Lois Ruth was encased in a cast which reached from her armpits to her toes. Later the bones slipped out of place in her left leg, and they had to open the cast and the flesh and put a plate on the left femur. She said that operation caused her the worst suffering of all. Then the bones in the right leg slipped, and they decided to discard that cast, so often disturbed, and put her into another. Six times she had to go to that operating room. Dr. Vernon Nickel, orthopedic specialist of Los Angeles, did the work.
She is supposed to stay in this last cast for three months; and many more months may elapse before she will be able to begin to start to try to learn to walk again, if she ever does [She did walk again, and quite well, but not until nearly a year after the accident, and, for the rest of her long life, she could never bend either knee more than about 90 degrees]. Only time can tell. Friends tell us that she must have been spared to do some great work for God. But for several days, she hardly wanted to recover. "Why couldn't it have been me to have died?" she said. Because the trip was started all in her behalf, she has felt to blame herself for it all. And then it was she who had invited Mrs. Wareham to go, and Mrs. Wareham was killed. But she has finally gotten hold of herself, and is strong in faith and trust in God. Mrs. Wareham, about sixty, was a special friend, and the mother of Bethel Wareham [my half sister, who was 30 years older than I], a former student of Lois Ruth's at Canadian Missionary College [located in Lacombe, Alberta, Canada, and now known as Canadian University College]. Bethel is now a missionary nurse in the Juliaca clinic in Peru, the very place where our Florence used to nurse in South America. Mrs. Wareham lived at Loma Linda, where she used to be a nurse, and where her husband [my father] is now a male nurse.
No one can account for the accident. Florence had been driving twenty years, and never had an accident before. She had been driving every day, and all over the roads in that part of the state, and had been over that very road only a few weeks before, when, early in March she and all her family came over to Phoenix for a short visit with us.
Some have thought that the left front tire blew out, causing her to lose control of the car. It has been suggested that the tie-rod might have come apart. And that very day there was a terrific wind, tending to press her car towards the wrong side of the road. But the Kaiser was so terribly demolished that it was impossible to tell just what had taken place. The crash occurred at about 10:45 a.m., Friday April 28, on a straight and almost level stretch of road, right out in the desert. It was not a head-on collision. The Kaiser, traveling east, was meeting the truck and trailer, traveling west. But according to the driver of the truck, the Kaiser suddenly swerved and smashed into the rear wheels of the truck, stripping all those eight rear wheels clean off the chassis, and overturning the trailer tank. It was an oil truck and trailer outfit. The driver of the truck was unhurt; but the Kaiser on the left front end was smashed together like an accordian.
Mrs. Wareham was sitting next to Florence, and Mrs. Keyes was on the extreme right end of the front seat. Lois Ruth was lying down on the back seat, with her head to the right side of the car. She and Mrs. Keyes were thrown clear out of the car onto the pavement. The others were apparently killed instantly. Just before leaving the Sanitarium that morning, Lois Ruth was lying with her head to the left side of the car, but she reversed her position before they started. Had she not done so, it is probable that her head would have received the impact that fractured her legs, and she would have been killed.
Mrs. Wareham was sixty years of age, but Mrs. Keyes is very much younger, and a special friend of Florence's. The two women were going for a nice trip. Mrs. Keyes was not so seriously hurt, and is now up and around and making good progress towards recovery.
Florence's funeral was conducted by Pastor F. L. Abbott of the La Sierra College church at 10:00 a.m. Wednesday May 3. It was a large funeral. One of our friends said he counted over nine hundred persons who filed past the casket at the close of the service. Among them were the members of the faculty of the college, several ordained ministers and hundreds of children and young people. Marjorie Schweder, assistant superintendent of nurses at the White Memorial Hospital of Los Angeles, and Myra Kite of Tacoma Washington, were also there, both girls being long time friends of Florence and our family. Many magnificent floral tributes represented many groups and individuals, among them a huge broken wheel, made of flowers, from the New England Sanitarium where Florence trained.
Lloyd's sister, Viola (Mrs. Milton Walker) who sang at Florence's wedding in Worcester, Mass., church, rendered two solos, "Sometime We'll Understand," and "Beyond the Sunset." They were beautiful. Every word was clearly distinct; and those who know "Vi" will know the quality of her music. She was a stranger to practically that whole congregation, which includes many talented musicians; but she held them almost breathless with her artistry. How could she do it? Well, she sang from her heart; for she had long known and loved Florence, even before she became her sister-in-law, and the Lord certainly helped her at that time.
The Walkers live in Mountain View, Calif., where Milton is machinist at the Pacific Press [a Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) publishing company which has since moved to Idaho]. Viola has been helping Lloyd with his three children--Carol, 8 1/2, David, 6 1/2, and Cherie, 3 1/2. Lloyd plans to sell out at Arlington and move to Mountain View close to his sister, Viola, who will help him with those motherless children.
After returning to Phoenix, Abbie (Mrs. Eldridge) had to go to bed for more than two weeks. She is still not really well. It has been a devastating experience for us both, and we are still feeling it deeply, especially at times. But we do trust God. We love Him, and believe Romans 8:28 ["We know that in all things God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose." RSV]. We recall Job's loss of ten children at one stroke, and we, too, can say, "The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."
Florence was in good health, talented, trained and experienced. At 38, she had many years' expectancy for usefulness, as an asset to the cause [the SDA Church] as well as to her family. We cannot help wondering, "Why?" But we recall that the apostle James, one of the three special apostles, shortly after receiving the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, when the young church needed him so much, was killed with the sword of Herod (Acts 12:2) "Why?"
And there was John the Baptist, to whom Jesus bore such a great testimonial, (Matt. 11:11) beheaded to satisfy the peeve of an adulterous woman. But in the chapter in "DESIRE OF AGES" [a book written by Ellen G. White, one of the founders of the SDA Church] dealing with that story, we read on page 225, "God never leads His children otherwise than they would choose to be led, if they could see the end from the beginning, and discern the glory of the purpose they are fulfilling as co-workers with Him." We must believe this.
We believe Florence was ready. We found her over-night case, containing a few things she needed for two nights away from home. There on top of her garments was her Bible. She knew that we have many Bibles around our house, but she didn't want to be without her very own copy of God's holy word, even for two nights.
Verily, the second coming of Jesus and the resurrection of the just are something to look forward to. No wonder the apostle called it "the blessed hope!" May God help us all to be ready--ready without an instant's warning, always!
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