Ron Nelson
from an email

My Daddy, Joe Bailey Nelson, was one of the first responders. He and my sister were coming back from Kilgore when the explosion occurred. He stopped to pick up my Mother, going directly to New London. He worked for Humble Oil and my family lived in Sexton City at the time (I did not appear on the scene until 1946 at Gladewater). As you probably could guess, my Daddy never, never, never talked about that day or the days that followed. My older siblings went to school at Rocky Mount.

We are not related to the Nelson (school teacher) who died in the explosion.

The Humble people were a tight bunch and many of them knew each other from Navarro County. The Bonners, Callaways, and others I can't remember right now were good friends of my parents. The Callaways lived next door to my parents at Sexton City and the Bonners were friends from Navarro County.

I grew up in Talco and the Cecil Griggs family was close to my parents. They had a son named Billy, who was about 8 or 9 years older than me. Are they related to you?

About my stories. I do have both first hand and second hand accounts that I have documented. My sister was about five years old at the time of the explosion, but she has a very detailed and graphic recollection of that day, that night, and subsequent days. Her recollection really does match up well with the newspaper accounts (e.g., the lights that were brought in that night to help with the recovery effort, etc.). Her most vivid recollection is at the morgue in Overton, specifically the garage that was used as a morgue. She was not suppose to be there. Daddy was identifying bodies for some friends who could not do it themselves. My sister "escaped" from the car and went looking for Daddy. Her height at that age was table high. You can imagine what she saw. She did document her memories in graphic detail. Other stories are second hand (again, neither Mother or Daddy every talked about it). I hesitate making these stories public. Most of the people mentioned in my stories are now dead, but maybe some of the family is still alive. I do not want to embarrass anyone or invade anyone's privacy in this matter. What has been your experience in this matter? Most of what I have has not been part of the public record. Both my Daddy and his twin brother, Jim Nelson, who lived in Overton, did some things to help out their friends that even the family of the friends did not know about (and probably do not know about to this day). I know some of my parents friends never recovered from that day. Even though their physical lives continue, they were dead mentally and emotionally. Some literally disappeared from the community, never to come back.

I will tell you that my Daddy cried emotionally that night, something he did not do. He had been helping to shore up some walls to go and recover some students (who were alive). The walls collapsed. When they finally got to the kids, they were all dead.

Most who read about New London are naturally horrified about the event. What they are missing is how this affected the people around New London. The people were so tight in the oil community (and the Navarro county connection), that even if their children were spared, they were affected deeply by the loss of life. Some of the families knew each other for years. My family knew Mollie Ward's family (Clyde Seale) forever.