The Unspeakable Sorrow
On December 22nd, 1942, Samuel A. Stafford got on a bus in Aliquippa Pennsylvania. He was the heir-apparent of the Vulcan Crucible Steel Company, but his father, Samuel G. Stafford, had insisted that he work every job in the company, from the lowliest mail clerk through to the line steel rollers up to the executive offices. Samuel G believe, in this time of growing labor unrest, that a company owner’s son had to understand what it meant to work every job.
Samuel A. Stafford took it a step further. He believed that he should leave his expensive Packard in the driveway of his Sewickly home, and take the bus with the workers. And that was what led to his death in one of the most horrific accidents of 1942, the famed Aliquippa Avalanche that ended up kiling him and 25 other factor workers on their way home one day just before Christmas as World War II began to engulf the planet.
The route home was through south from Aliquippa, what was called the Dead Man’s Turn on Constitutional Avenue paralleling the railroad tracks and abutting a large mountainside.
As the driver turned, a mudslide filled the roadway ahead. He veered instinctively towards the guard rail to the left. Mud poured down, and for a moment, it seemed as if they’d be stuck, but safe.
Then two large boulders weighing at least 100 tons came flying off the mountain, newly freed by the mud and stone that had preceded them. Stafford’s bus, one of five in a row, was the only one stuck in the mud. The boulder landed squarely on the bus, the second boulder close behind. He was crushed like a pancake, mangled almost beyond recognition as the bus had nowhere to go at it jammed against the railing.
Only one escaped, a passenger badly injured who had sat at the back of the bus. (New York Times headline here).
His family remained at home preparing dinner. Forensic examination listed the accident as having happened at 5:10PM. When father didn’t return as usual at 6, his wife, Grace Stafford, and his children, including Samuel Jr. (the author’s father) began to be concerned.
It was not until an officer appeared at their door that they realized that he was dead, and that this Christmas season would be a devastatingly sad one.
The casket was never opened during the funeral.
Later, nothing was ever discussed. Vulcan Crucible Steel, the company he was to take over within weeks, got orders in the hundres of millions of dollars in support of war production in the weeks ahead. Samuel G. Stafford, the president who’d hoped to retire so his son could take over, bought a cemetary plot for his son, then promptly died a year later. Some say it was from heartbreak, age 68.
Samuel, the young boy, went on to serve as a scout in World War II and became a nationally known journalist in Washington DC. His son, Daniel, founded HedgeLender LLC of Pennsylvania, the leading US provider of stock secured loan programs.
No man lives forever. We all go when our time is up. Let us all use the time we have to leave something of value to those who lease this earth after us.
