Schools

Holbrook's Tragic Train Crash Remembered

The 1935 train-bus accident that shook the community 75 years ago is discussed.

If you've driven past the Sachem Central School District offices on Union Avenue in Holbrook you may have noticed a small rock lying adjacent to the flagpole.

It reads "In Memory of Alice V. Bedell, Edna M. Bedell and Robert F. Seekamp … Dec. 20, 1935." 

There's no explanation for the stone, no information at district office as to why such a monument would be nestled in a distant area away from the parking lot, not facing the building as it stares off into what is normally a busy road.

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What happened nearly 75 years earlier in Holbrook, not far from that spot, deserves more than just a stone. Three lives were lost in a tragic bus-train accident that sent shivers through Suffolk County. It was major news across New York, grabbing front cover headlines for the NY Daily News, the NY Daily Mirror, Suffolk County News and the NY Evening Journal. 

Shortly after 8 a.m. on the morning of Dec. 20, 1935, a westbound Long Island Rail Road six-car train crashed into a school bus, headed for Sayville High School, at the Broadway Avenue grade crossing in Holbrook.

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On what was normally a cheery day, the last before Christmas break, "the school bus was reduced to a torn and twisted mass of wreckage and an entire village, looking forward to the coming holidays, was plunged into gloom by the terrible tragedy," the Suffolk County News reported.

Some photos show piles of the vehicle's remains. It was a catastrophic blast to the town.

In many twists of fait, this accident may not have happened if a handful of key characteristics were not present.

If sisters Alice and Edna Bedell had gotten on the bus on Union Avenue like normal, things may have been different. Instead, they stopped at the Holbrook Post Office to mail Christmas cards, according to multiple reports.

"Ordinarily they board it on the other side of the tracks," reported Grace Robinson of the New York Daily News. "Yesterday they walked back along the route, mailed their cards and boarded the bus opposite the Holbrook Post Office, a few yards from the intersection."

If William Stryker, the owner of Stryker Bus Company, had not stayed home to take care of his ailing wife and handed the keys to August Blaske things many have been different.

If L.G. Griffin, the train engineer, had sounded his horn – though he swears he did – things may have been different.

And finally, if the Long Island Rail Road hadn't cut $22 million in safety costs in the five years prior to the accident to save money diverted towards dividends, maybe something could have been different.

It was a myriad of unpredicted chess moves that placed the northbound bus on Broadway and the westbound train headed towards Ronkonkoma in the same spot at the same time that crisp December morning.

Most of the Bedell family has passed on since the accident, but Judy Amana, the niece of Alice and Edna and daughter of their brother Lester, still holds onto the many newspaper clippings from the disastrous day.

"It looks like I held onto them for a good reason," she said.

Younger than they appear, the sisters were two years apart in age. Alice, 18, died five hours before Edna, 16, who was listed in critical condition in initial reports. Their aging beauty shoots back at you in every picture taken of them.

Lester and Mary Bedell, their parents, rushed to the scene, which happened barely around the corner from their Holbrook home. Amana said they were both prominent figures in the community. Lester, Amana's grandfather, served on the school board of the Holbrook School District, which existed long before Sachem was centralized in 1955.

While the Bedell's clearly took the brunt of the accident, there were others involved. Eleanor Nagel was 16 and unconscious for three days after the crash.

In "Memories from Holbrook," a book written by Gurtha H. Strand in 1985, Nagel wrote a passage about her experience. In there, she said she doesn't recall the accident much, but was told she screamed out, "Watch out Alice, the train is coming," during her four-month stay at Southside Hospital in Bay Shore.

August Ring was 15 at the time of the accident. He was home with a few bumps and bruises by the end of the day and is shown in a New York Daily News photo looking rather miserable.

"The Bedell kids got on, and Seekamp," Ring told the Daily News. "Eleanor Nagel, too, was aboard. Suddenly all three girls screamed. I looked up. The train was right on top of us. I heard a crash … I can't remember anymore."

Seekamp, 16 when he died and a resident of Holbrook, was buried in Brooklyn, where his family lived until 1932. Not much else is known about him or his family.

Blaske, 32 and living on Lincoln Avenue in Sayville then, was said to be charged with second-degree manslaughter, though there is no record or mentioning of him being convicted. He had filled in for Stryker on certain bus routes before, but had never done the morning ride.

Multiple doctors and emergency personnel were called to the scene shortly after the blast rifled through the heart of Holbrook. Not even the strong of heart and soul could prepare them for the horrific picture.

"As the steel body [of the train] was torn apart, the bodies of the occupants were hurled out beside it," the Suffolk County News wrote. "All of them lay very still, for all were rendered unconscious.

"The chassis was carried 25 feet from the track and had to be removed by a wrecker. The body of the vehicle, so twisted and misshapen and crushed as to make any escape from it alive almost unbelievable, was hurled up on the north embankment."

As for the loss in the community, it was tremendous. Schools cancelled holiday shows and festivities. Dr. Herbert A. Falk, the Superintendent of Schools in Sayville, visited the accident scene as soon as he heard, according to the Suffolk County News.

"All the pupils are known to practically everyone in the small community, and the tragedy brought a sense of personal loss and suffering to every adult as well as to every child as they clustered in silent groups about the scene," the paper reported.

While Griffin's claims of sounding the trains signal horns were important since Ring and Grace Heine, a witness, said they did not hear it, it does not escape the fact that the LIRR was lacking in warning lights, bells, watchmen and so forth.

George Le Boutillier, Vice President of the LIRR then, admitted to the Transit and Public Service Commission, that the money salvaged from safety insurance for the public flowed into dividend channels, the Daily News reported.

Only a "Stop-Look-Listen" marker was visible near the place of impact.

"He contended the tragedy could not be blamed on his railroad," Robinson wrote in a Daily News story.

Civic leaders, including the late Herman Beebe, who was the president of the Holbrook School District school board then, petitioned for nearly a decade to have proper safety material installed at grade crossings in the community. If someone heard their plea, maybe this article would never have been written. Seventy-years ago puts the victims in the 90s if they were still alive today. They missed World Wars, the Internet, John F. Kennedy, Elvis and just about every other major historical bit of information from the 20th century. 

As you pass the stone on your travels through Union Avenue, remember it's there for a reason. Think about the Bedell sisters and Seekamp. Think about what Holbrook went through 75 years ago.


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