ONLY SHE KNOWS

Last week’s story in the West Bend News about the little girl that was hungry is one of the best that I ever read in some time. Many questions come to my mind from this article.

Perhaps the first thing is why are not Christians checking on our neighbors? An incident happened in 1934 in Grabill that still has me wondering. An entire family of 12 children were killed on the railroad track. There was much speculation as to what might have happened, and I still wonder. 

They found that their little cabin had no food in it. They’d gone that day to eat with their aunt, so I guess they were not going to be hungry for a while. I just wonder why no neighbors knew that they were in such dire circumstances.

I consider Grabill to be a town of churches, especially in those days. 

Churches in those days had three services, two on Sunday and one on Wednesday night. The people were so serious about their religion that the town closed Wednesday afternoon to prepare for Wednesday evening prayer meeting. I would compare them to the Pilgrims or the Quakers. 

But in recent times this came closer to home. I had a buddy that went to our church. He was quite talented and had been quite successful in life but in his book he wrote that he went home one day and there was no food in the house. I can’t believe I didn’t know. I knew his dad had a struggle to make ends meet but I had no idea that they were in such dire circumstances. 

I can’t believe somebody in our church didn’t help them. He tells in his book that one of our church members gave his dad a dollar, which they took as an insult. Perhaps in those days one didn’t ask for help. I saw this boy at church and was at his house many times and it was a kind of a shock to learn of their circumstance. 

The train accident made world headlines and they said Hitler made comment of it. 14 people are buried in a mass grave in the Odd Fellows Cemetery in New Haven, Indiana. I went looking for this grave. I found a lady that knows the story of everyone buried there, but she’s not telling. She stands on top of a mausoleum in the heart of the cemetery. 

I never did find the grave of that family but after meeting the lady I wasn’t interested anymore. There are many things that happen that we will never know exactly what took place or the motive behind it. Only Judge Judy can tell what your motive in doing something was.

—James Neuhouser