Coming Home

By John Acree

She does not remember much.

“The roof on our house went up,” recalled Ethelene Hatchett Boyd. “Our 4-year-old was in the bedroom in the back calling us. ‘My nose hurts,’ she said. I thought she just wanted to get into bed with us. Then we smelled something frightening.

“We tried to use the phone, but it wasn’t working. When we saw the fumes turning different colors on our gas stove, we knew we had to get out. I took two steps and collapsed at the foot of the snowman the football team had built for the baby.”

The day was February 18, 1969. Etheline, her husband, Ron Harchett, and their young daughter, Gloria Jean, lived in a small house on Unona Avenue between Nebraska Highway 33 and 13th streets.

At about 6:30 a.m., a number of cars on Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Train No. 64 derailed near their home at a speed of about 52 miles per hour. The derailed cars struck standing cars on a side track north of the main track.

 A tank car loaded with 29,200 gallons of anhydrous ammonia was completely fractured on impact with the derailed cars, which released the deadly ammonia into the atmosphere. A gas cloud was formed which blanketed the surrounding area for a considerable time due to the weather conditions.

Three men who had been riding illegally on the train were killed as a result of exposure to the deadly cloud, along with six City residents. Ron and Gloria Jean were among the dead.

Louis Erdman and his wife, Maxine, fled their home after it was punctured by debris. Louis made it between approximately 30 feet before falling to the place where he was found dead. Maxine made it to a neighbor’s home and was later found dead.

The home of Lyle and Sonya Safranek was closest to the impact. Firefighters found Lyle deceased in the street. Sonya and their 1-year-old son were found in a snow bank a short distance from the front of the house. Rescue worker Clarence Busboom said, “We had come past this place maybe 15 minutes earlier, but because of the thick gas hadn't been able to see anything.” They were hospitalized and survived.

The Kovar home was struck by parts of the train cars. Robert Kovar went out to the porch to investigate what happened and collapsed outside. He was taken to the hospital by rescuers and later died. His daughter, Roberta, 19, heard the crash, covered herself with bed covers and was rescued about an hour later.

“Maybe there was a pocket of air where I fell,” Ethelene said. “I don’t know why I survived and my family didn’t. But I felt like I had died, too. I lost all of my pieces, all of my parts. I ceased to be.”

Ron had been a football player at Doane University. Ethelene was an education student.

“I was like the walking wounded for the first several months after the accident,” Ethelene said. “I didn’t even talk. Doane was like an incubator. They consoled me, gave me warmth and the love and caring to go forth. Doane gave me the will to go on.”

Ethelene still carries the scars of that fateful morning of nearly 50 years ago. Her voice is deep, and she has had lung problems ever since as a result of the exposure to the ammonia. She was two months pregnant with Tracy Rondell at the time of the accident.

“Tracy died three years ago,” Ethelene said. “She had the same complications I have had all of these years with my lungs. Her voice was deep just like mine. Tracy was in the hospital at least once a month.”

Ethelene, who is now a resident of Davenport, Iowa, was back at Doane for just the second time since her eventual graduation in 1972, accompanied by Tracy’s three children. She was back as a guest of the University for the Second Annual Scholarship Endowment Dinner Thursday night at the Perry Center.

“I didn’t acknowledge anything until about 10 years ago,” said Ethelene, who was 19 years old at the time of the accident. “I just locked it all inside of me. But I am slowly healing and coming out of it.

“The love of everyone here at Doane pulled me through. I have been so blessed to have such support.”

Ethelene and James Beatty were instrumental in the formation of the Les Grant-Ron Hatchett Scholarship Fund in 2007, a scholarship that was designed to give students of color an opportunity to graduate from Doane. She was among several alumni who were honored for their contributions Thursday night.

“At the time when I came here, there were only about 28 black students,” Ethelene recalled. “We were a very close group, like brothers and sisters. We came from very different areas.”

Ethelene and Ron came from “the deepest, darkest ghetto in Chicago. But I started seeing more than just what was around me in Chicago.”

Ron had been the captain of the football team at her high school and she was president of the drama club.

“We did a play called ‘The Green Pastures,” she said, “and Ron played God.”

Ron came to Doane first, but Ethelene soon followed.

“I’ve just healed enough in the last few years to think back fully and to start remembering details,” she said. “I see how much Doane is responsible for the person that I am today.

“Doane and the students braced me up on either side. They just stood with me until I could stand on my own. I am becoming aware of how much Doane has given me and I want to share that with others.”

Through the efforts of Ethelene and others like her, over 250 students at Doane have received support, ranging anywhere from $2,000 to $11,000, and Thursday’s banquet sought to recognize those efforts in a concrete way. Numerous students who have benefit from that generosity were in attendance as well.

“This is a symbolic celebration of the generosity of the donors and the abilities and appreciation of the students,” said Dr. Fred Brown, the 10th President of Doane University. “This is a beautiful pairing of the past and the present.

“Tonight is really about a sense of belief, about those who care about this institution. This is a special place, a place that is different. This place has both a heart and a soul that resides in a sense of community, a sense that we can reach out to students and change their lives.”

Through the various scholarship funds, individuals like Ethelene make not only a commitment to the University but to the lives of its students.

“This is a special place, a really magical place,” Brown said. “And the magic starts in the simplest of ways between the professor and the student, who somehow begin the process of transformation, in the heart as well as the brain.

“This is a place where you not only know things but you learn how to find things. Your donations go to these people and make them able to be with us here in this magical place.”

Peter Strobel, class of 2019, is himself a recipient of the Dr. Fred D. Brown Scholarship in History Fund.

“Seeing you here, I see generations who want to invest in the story,” Strobel said. “And it all revolves around the concept of faith. Faith involves something that you do not see. By keeping the faith, you inspire students to continue this.

“It is humbling to see all of the stories that came before me, people being able to explore their dreams without being told what they had to be. And you know things will turn out all right because you are working with wonderful people.”