By DOUG DONNELLY<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Advance Editor<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It had been 60 years, but for some reason, he couldn\u2019t shake the memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A retired law enforcement official, this former Ottawa Lake resident kept thinking back to 1956 when his father, who was on the Whiteford Township Fire Department, came home late one night with horrific news. Seven children were killed in a house fire off State Line Rd., on the Michigan side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of those killed was 9-year-old Brenda Joyce Cooper. She was a classmate in a Whiteford Township school \u2013 Maplewood School \u2013 of that firefighter\u2019s son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou know, he didn\u2019t say much about it,\u201d said the man, now 79. \u201cNo one talked much about it, even at school. We knew there was a fire and she died. That was about it. I don\u2019t think they ever mentioned it at school.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The man, who asked me not to use his name if I wrote about this because of his law enforcement background, is still shook by the tragedy. His wife said he had a dream about it and that\u2019s what stirred up the memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He\u2019s not sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt may have been,\u201d he said. \u201cIt just was on my mind, you know? Maybe it\u2019s because I\u2019m older. I just kept thinking about her and her family. I wonder whatever happened to them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The story made headlines for a couple of days. Both The Monroe Evening News and The Blade of Toledo carried front page stories on April 26, 1956.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Accounts say the father, John Cooper, came home from work and took his wife, Lora, to work at the Candlelight Cafe in downtown Toledo. He didn\u2019t come directly home. Reports vary as to what he did. One story said he stopped to watch a fight on television, then went to an all-night auto parts store where he was considering buying shocks for his car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While he was away, he left his six children and one of their cousins alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t unusual, especially given it was 1956.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometime before midnight, a neighbor, Herman Stokes, was returning from work when he saw the house was on fire. He went to the house, located at 2500 State Line Rd., and began yelling for help. He tried to get inside, but the doors were locked. Other neighbors tried, too, one being injured when attempting to break a window. All said the fire was hot and raging. In a short time, the house was fully engulfed in flames and destroyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stokes ran house to house trying to find a telephone to call for help. None was available and he was forced to drive to his home, a 5-minute trip, to use his telephone. It was too late. All seven children were dead \u2013 bodies burned beyond recognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jacqueline, 6; John Jr., 4; Shirley Jean, 2; Georgia Marie, 1; Carter, two months, and their cousin, Harrison, 9, died alongside Brenda. Five of the bodies were found in their beds. Two were lying near the front door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The mother\u2019s aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Ector, lived two houses away on State Line Rd., which was then a dirt road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe doors were locked and all the windows were shut,\u201d Mrs. Ector told The Blade. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t hear anything inside except the crackling of the flames.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe beat on the screens at the bedroom windows where the children sleep. There wasn\u2019t any answer. Finally, we broke the front door down. We couldn\u2019t see inside because of the smoke and flames. Then the roof went up in a ball of fire. We had to get back or else we would have been scorched.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The family had lived at the six-room, one-story house since 1953.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The father, who worked at a fertilizer company in Silica, Ohio, arrived home at 1:30 a.m. that morning. He was detained by police and lodged in the Monroe County Jail. The mother was never jailed but spent the night in Monroe with the county prosecutor being questioned. No charges were filed. He was freed within hours. It was a tragic accident, everyone agreed, but not criminal. The fire was probably due to faulty wiring, reports said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The story was quickly moved off the front pages. The deceased, all black, were transported to a funeral home and, days later, buried in an unmarked grave at Forest Cemetery in Toledo. What happened to Mr. and Mrs. Cooper is a mystery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The former classmate found out about the unmarked grave not long ago when he attempted to learn more about the fire and family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t think that was right,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He did something about it. He bought materials, had the names of the dead engraved, and delivered the stone to the cemetery. It\u2019s now in place, marking the remains of his childhood friend, Brenda, and her siblings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe would play together at the playground,\u201d he recalled. \u201cWe were all friends. No one cared if we were white or black. We\u2019d push each other on the swing and play on the teeter-totter. She was a classmate. I feel bad for what happened. Still do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI started wondering about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The man went knocking on doors a several months ago in the neighborhood but couldn\u2019t find anyone who knew the story. Over the last few weeks, I\u2019ve spoken with several people who grew up in that same neighborhood, and no one recalled hearing about it, except one person who said he remembers his mom talking about some kids who died in a fire years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Imagine such a tragedy in today\u2019s world would not only make headlines, it would be all over social media and would certainly cause a furor for a variety of reasons. These events, however, took place 70 years ago. No remnants of the fire remain on the property off State Line Rd. \u2013 no signs of the almost unbelievable disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the Ottawa Lake native started his research he didn\u2019t remember Brenda\u2019s last name. He spent hours at libraries trying to find newspaper clippings, then hours walking Forest Cemetery to find the grave. He didn\u2019t get permission, he said, to put the gravestone in place once he found out where the family is buried \u201cbecause there wasn\u2019t anyone around to ask.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Forest Cemetery officials appear to be fine with it. Someone there noticed the new headstone and posted it on their Facebook page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cemetery is historic, dating back to 1839. It\u2019s vast with small lanes going in every direction. There are nearly 10 acres and thousands of headstones. Now, there is one more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brenda\u2019s former classmate doesn\u2019t want her heartbreaking end to be forgotten. That\u2019s why the headstone was important to him. He visits now and then to say a prayer. If any relatives of the Coopers \u2013 it\u2019s not known if they live in the area \u2013 ever go looking, they now have a place to mourn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t doing anything special, just remembering my classmate,\u201d the Whiteford graduate said. \u201cShe shouldn\u2019t be forgotten. I thought the headstone was the right thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By DOUG DONNELLY Advance Editor It had been 60 years, but for some reason, he couldn\u2019t shake the memory. A retired law enforcement official, this former Ottawa Lake resident kept thinking back to 1956 when his father, who was on the Whiteford Township Fire Department, came home late one night with horrific news. Seven children […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-ottawa-lake","category-whiteford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blissfieldadvance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blissfieldadvance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blissfieldadvance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blissfieldadvance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blissfieldadvance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blissfieldadvance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":234,"href":"https:\/\/blissfieldadvance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions\/234"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blissfieldadvance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blissfieldadvance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blissfieldadvance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blissfieldadvance.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}