Last victim of Bath School disaster receives marker

• Marker was gift from an anonymous donor
• 45 people killed%2C 58 injured as a result of explosions

LANSING –

The grave of the last child victim of the Bath School bombing disaster received its marker in Mt. Hope Cemetery this week.

It was 87 years after the explosion that injured Richard Fritz on his eighth birthday.

He survived for almost a year, succumbing to myocarditis eight days shy of his ninth birthday. The presumption has been that the condition was the result of an infection caused by the bombing, according to Loretta Stanaway, president of the Friends of Lansing's Historic Cemeteries.

His sister, Marjorie, 10, also a bombing victim, is buried nearby.

At 11 a.m. on Tuesday, the granite stone, the gift of an anonymous California donor, was unveiled during a brief ceremony led by Stanaway.

Fritz's stone features an angel who represents his teacher, Hazel Weatherby, who is imagined to have carried his soul to heaven. It also includes "46th angel," a reference to all the people affected by the bombing beyond those who died that day.

Stanaway told the group of 25 people that she could not imagine what it was like for Fritz that day when he awoke with birthday dreams, only to be engulfed by the tragedy at school and "his innocence torn away."

"The final injustice of an unmarked grave is put to rest today," she said. "I hope this will be another layer of closure for those who need it."

Forty-five people died as a result of the tragedy. Fifty-eight were injured.

A disgruntled farmer, Andrew Kehoe, had placed more than 1,000 pounds of dynamite in the school building, setting a timer so it would explode when classes were in session on May 18, 1927.

Williamston resident Dan Osborne's mother was Norma Jean Fritz, Richard Fritz's sister. He says the memory of the tragedy was so painful, it wasn't a topic of family conversation.

"It was never talked about," he said. "I picked up bits and pieces."

Most people think of Kehoe as a despicable murderer. He did, after all, cause the bombing deaths, as well as the death of his wife and the Bath school superintendent.

But Stanaway urged everyone to think more deeply.

"We don't know where (such) evil comes from," she said. "At some point we hope he himself found cleansing."

The California donor, who will remain anonymous until the book he is writing on the Bath bombing is published, said in a letter that the grave stone is "one of the most important things" he has done with his life.

"It is treasured because the community of Bath is a treasure," he wrote.

A final note of mystery on the grave sites of the bomb victims is the riddle of the matchbox cars.

Much like the mystery of the roses left annually on Edgar Allen Poe's grave in Baltimore, someone has placed the small cars, with police and fire vehicles for the boys and others for girls, on their graves. Whoever it is makes sure a car remains, year after year.

Marjorie's silver one was on her pink stone Tuesday. Her brother's will likely come soon.