Doug Gregory
from an email

I am a high school English teacher in the small rural Alberta town of Stettler. Stettler is a lot like New London; much of its livelihood has come from oil and gas. As well, Stettler has another tie to New London.

My mother, Margaret Evelyn Nelson survived the blast that destroyed the school and took the life of her step-mother Mrs. J. Nelson. And it was her older brother Don, who was supervising his step-mother's class at the time of the explosion.

As a child, growing up in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, I heard a variety of stories about the explosion, and can still remember my mother's tears, when, sometime in the early sixties, a former student made the headlines by confessing to setting the explosion. If I recall, the man was declared mentally unbalanced and the confession was disregarded. Still, the pain and sorrow of that March afternoon was evident in my mother's tears.

I also remember visiting the school sometime in the late sixties. My mother showed me around the school and even introduced to me to a former teacher still on staff. Leaving the school, we stopped and viewed the cenotaph, the names of the dead, not unlike the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C., etched in stone as a solid reminder of a day when many lives were broken.

Today, the story of the New London School Explosion lives on in my classroom. Depending on the make up of a class, I will bring out an article and photos and give it to my students to read. The article, describes in detail, the explosion and its aftermath. It mentions Don Nelson and his efforts to help find trapped victims. It also describes his finding his brother Don and sister Evelyn soon after. In discussion, I lead the students in various directions, but usually set a couple of traps, by asking "What kind of idiot would go back into the rubble to try and save people?" This, of course elicits many responses that usually rebuke me for being cold and heartless. Someone, eventually, mentions the discovery of his brother and sister. The first trap has been sprung. Then, I will ask, "Okay, I'll go with all that, but really, this is sixty years after the fact, and somewhere far away, what's the big deal today?" (Trap two has just been set). Now they begin discussing how tragedy effects lives, not just immediate lives, but into the future. The families of those people are still around. (There goes trap two). This is when I mention that the Nelson family mentioned in the article is family. In fact, my mother and uncles. Needless to say, it always works and is a great way to get students interested in looking beyond their front doors and understanding how the past affects the presence. As one student once said, "It's like in Schindler's List. Each life saved became many lives saved in the future. If your mother had not been saved, you wouldn't be here now, Mrs. Gregory wouldn't be down the hall, and your daughters would not be here and any children they might have, won't be born."

Sadly, though, my mother has not shared in this experience. She died in the autumn of 1991, and all her brothers, (except for one who lives in Longview), and her one sister, have also passed. Yet, as long as I and my family live, their story will live on.