Mary Elizabeth Eden

     Did you know that revolving doors have swinging doors beside them because of the fire at The Cocoanut Grove? Did you know schools have fire drills because of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire? Did you know we started adding chemicals to natural gas so we could smell it after the New London School explosion? Fire codes exist for a reason. Sometimes it's to prevent another tragedy. 

  On Christmas Eve of 1924, the citizens of Babbs Switch, a tiny town in Oklahoma two hours Southwest of Oklahoma City, had a lot to be thankful for. The community was largely centered around farming, and it had been a very good year for crops. No one knew the dust bowl was another six years away. Families from all over the community, about 100 people all together, had gathered in the one room schoolhouse to celebrate the Christmas season and exchange gifts.  

  The tree had been freshly cut but that had been days before. It was decorated with real candles burning at the end of each branch. It was tall and stuffed full of gifts and one of the teachers had decorated behind the tree with long flowing muslin cloth. 

  If you guessed a terrible fire was about to happen, you'd be correct. A student had volunteered to play Santa that year. He had passed out most of the presents when he reached deep inside to snatch one last gift. As he did, one of the long bell-shaped sleeves of his Santa costume disturbed a candle causing it to fall and in no time the dried-out tree had become a bonfire. The fire caught the muslin decor like a wick and quickly spread the flames to the ceiling.  

  As the flames raced across the ceiling, parents began frantically grabbing their children to make their way towards the only door in the building. Nobody used the fire extinguisher on the flames because... there wasn't one. A few managed to make it outside before the panic-stricken mass hurled themselves against the door that only opened inwards. As many deaths would be due to crushing injuries as to the fire. 

  With the mass of humans blocking the only door, desperate men began tossing furniture through the windows only to find they were all covered on the outside with wire mesh to deter burglars. And to make matters worse, the busted windows flooded the room with oxygen fanning the flames even higher.  

  There was only one way to get them out. The doors had to be opened. The few that managed to escape before the stampede, pushed with all their might against the doors that were being pushed from the opposite direction by people still trapped inside. The flames lapped at those in the back of the pile as the doors were pushed open forcing those unlucky souls backwards into the fire. 

  It must have seemed like an eternity to those trapped inside surrounded by heat, fear, smoke and screaming but finally those left alive were able to burst out onto the snowy ground, never more grateful for the freezing cold air.  

  By the time everyone who would survive was out of the schoolhouse and the flames were extinguished, thirty-six people were dead, eighteen of those were children. Two families, mom, dad and children, would be completely lost.  

  Those who remained were left with the gruesome task of recovering the bodies. One by one, the victims were laid out on the frozen ground of the school yard. Most were only identifiable by a shred of clothing, a toy in their hand or a piece of jewelry. In the end, all the missing, but one, would be accounted for.  

  From the beginning, four-year-old Mary Edens' parents didn't believe their daughter was among the dead. She had attended the Christmas party with her parents, Lewis and Ethel Edens and her aunt Alice. When the fire broke out, she had been sitting on the lap of her aunt. In the chaos, the family was separated. 

     Mary remained with her aunt while Lewis was swept out with the crowd of people fleeing from the building once the doors were opened. He desperately searched for his family. He finally located Alice, severely burned and clinging to life. He asked her where little Mary was, and she assured him she was safe. She claimed she had carried her from the building alive and well then handed her to someone but to whom she could not recall. Alice died the next day. 

  Maybe Mary had been so frightened by the fire that she escaped into the woods around the schoolhouse. Every able-bodied person in town searched those woods praying to find her. With all the tragedy, everyone hoped for a miracle. They needed this. If they could find her, there would be reason to celebrate, even if it were the only reason. Sadly, the search was in vain as they were unable to find her. 

  But the Edenses were not deterred. Alice's last words combined with the fact that they could account for everyone, alive or dead, but Mary, gave Lewis and Ethel hope. And they would cling to that hope. If she wasn't somewhere in town then maybe a passerby had taken her. 

     Maybe they were traveling through, had seen the flames and stopped to help. Maybe they thought Mary was now an orphan and took pity on her. Maybe they were raising her somewhere where she was safe, happy and healthy. Maybe they would see her again one day. 

     Decades would pass by but Lewis and Ethel never let go of the hope that they would find little Mary. They would go on to have two more daughters, Betty and Etta, adding two more people who firmly believed, someday, Mary would come home.

     The community never forgot about Mary either. For many years at Christmas time, the anniversary of the fire, stories would run in papers across the country about the tragedy that befell Babbs Switch. Over the years the legend of Mary Edens became an intricate part of that story. Oftentimes the articles written would be accompanied by the question: Where is Mary Edens?

     Many times that story would encourage various women to come out claiming they were Mary Edens. Lewis and Ethel would interview them, and some had been very promising, but for one reason or another they would all be ruled out. Lewis and Ethel continued to hold on to hope.

     Then one year the story finally ran in the right paper and reached the right person. In 1956 a man named Elmo Place read the article in his local paper and something about Mary’s story struck a familiar bell for him. He knew of a woman named Grace Reynolds that was looking for her real family. 

     She had long ago told him a story of how she had no memories of her earliest years, as if there was something she was trying to forget. She does remember never feeling like a part of the family she had grown up in, often being shuffled from one family member to the next until she was finally adopted when she was 15 years old. Could Grace Reynolds be little Mary Edens?

     Elmo used his connections to contact a man he knew in Oklahoma. That man contacted the Edenses with Grace’s story and before long Grace and the Edenses were communicating. To them, this felt right. They knew in their hearts that they had finally found Mary just like they always believed they would. 

     Unfortunately, in those days, there were very limited resources for actually proving beyond all reasonable doubt that Grace was Mary. But they did have some means. They could do blood tests for starters. No, it wasn’t DNA, but it was close. 

     With blood typing, authorities may not be able to say if Grace was their daughter but they could say if it was impossible she was their daughter. For example, if one parent is type A and one is type O it is impossible for them to produce a child with type B blood. 

     Grace would be tested and her blood type would prove to be compatible with Lewis and Ethels. But that wasn’t all. Little Mary had stepped on a nail when she was two leaving a scar on her foot. Do you think Grace had that same scar? She did! The Edenses were elated. They felt in their hearts that Mary was finally home where she belonged.

     Everything was wonderful. The joyous story was featured in newspapers across the country. The reunited family even appeared on TV to share their happiness with the world. It was what Lewis and Ethel had always hoped for. For the first time all the Edenses, Lewis, Ethel, Betty, Etta and a grown up Mary were together and it felt good.

     There was just one tiny problem. Grace wasn’t Mary. The publicity surrounding her had led to her picture being in the Stockton, California papers. And when a woman named Dorothy Link saw it, she knew the truth needed to be told. 

     You see, Dorothy was Grace’s real sister, and she was furious that Grace would be insinuating that their mother was a kidnapper. Grace’s other sister, Inez, was even more upset. She said she’d like to punch Grace in the mouth. That’s pretty spicy for the 1950’s. They quickly contacted the paper and were put in touch with the man in charge of the story, Mel Bennet.

     Mel’s heart sank. Everyone, including him, was rooting for the Edenses. They wanted Grace to be Mary so badly that they didn’t look into her story before they published their article. This had to be made right. The journalist contacted the owner of the Babbs Switch newspaper, the Democrat Chief, Ransom Hancock and together, along with another reporter named Eugene Kuhn, they began investigating.

     It didn’t take long for them to turn up the evidence they needed, Grace was indeed NOT Mary. Dorothy helped them contact their mother, Goldie Gaither who swore in the presence of a notary that she was Grace’s birth mother and Tom Gaither was her father. They took it so far as to track down the midwife that delivered Grace on a farm in Cotton Plant, Arkansas and she backed up the story as well. Grace was either a merciless liar or very misguided person.

     Now came the unenviable task of breaking the news to the Edenses. Ransom Hancock felt honor bound to be the one to tell them. He had no way of knowing how they would react but I would wager a bet that he didn’t anticipate what happened next.

     Ransom traveled to the Edenes’ simple farm and pulled Lewis aside. There he shared the hardest story he ever had to tell. Lewis was sad to hear the truth but his first thought was of Ethel. His wife had already lost her daughter once and he saw no reason for her to lose her again. He then asked a favor of Ransom…don’t tell. Ethel had been through enough. Please don’t tell.

     Ransom and the other journalists involved had a decision to make. Do they share this huge news story? One that was possibly bigger than when they found Mary in the first place. Or do they sit on it? They chose the latter. Out of respect for Lewis and Ethel, Ransom put all the proof in an envelope and placed it inside a safe in his office. And that is exactly where it stayed for forty-two years. 

     And Mary/Grace stuck to her story, even writing a book about her life as a survivor of the Babbs Switch fire and growing up without her parents until they were reunited in 1957. Again, she was either a merciless liar or very misguided person.

     Lewis passed away in 1978 and Ethel followed him six years later. They are buried in the same cemetery as the victims of the Babbs Switch fire. 

     By 1999, Ransom Hancock had passed away as well and had left the newspaper, and the secret, to his son, Joe. Since Mary’s parents were deceased and Lewis had already told her sisters the truth, Joe felt enough time had passed for everyone to hear the true story of Mary Edens. 

     He interviewed Mary’s sisters and they were supportive of the lie their father had told. Sometimes people lie for good reasons. Then again, sometimes they lie for other reasons. Joe spoke to Mary, I mean Grace, for the story too. She was indignant. She just couldn’t understand why people didn’t believe her. 

     She continued to insist, to the day she died, that she was Mary Edens. When she passed away in 2008 she was buried under a headstone with the name “Mary Elizabeth”. Even in death she stuck with her story.

1. What do you think? Did Mary die in the fire or was she raised by another family somewhere?

2. Do you think it was right for Lewis to lie to Ethel even if his heart was in the right place?

3. Why do you think Grace Reynolds claimed she was Mary Edens?

Let me know in the comments.