On Christmas Eve 1924, the teacher, Mrs. Florence Terry Hill, greeted her pupils and parents as they arrived at the schoolhouse for the Christmas program. The school looked good. It was freshly painted (with paint incorporating turpentine thinner).  New steel grates had been installed over the windows to prevent any more breakage as had occurred in the recent windstorm. The tree was trimmed with red and green tallow candles, giving a warmth to the room that contrasted with the cold night and light snow outdoors.

The school was that of Babbs Switch, Okla., on the southwestern plains.

The evening went as planned until Santa, Dowell Bolding, reached for a small gift on the tree, bent a branch, and inadvertently set the tree ablaze.  People nearby tipped the tree over and tried to smother the flames, but only succeeded in spreading them. There was a panic. People piled up at the rear door, trampling one another. They tried to escape via the windows, but couldn’t get the new gratings loose. A reporter wrote, "Spectators who witnessed the tragedy said entire families died wrapped in each other’s arms."

It was slow getting burn victims to hospital in Hobart, because most folks had drained their radiators before coming inside the schoolhouse. Thirty-seven people were counted missing. The next day, Christmas, the bodies were retrieved from the site, while volunteers dug graves in Hobart’s Rose Cemetery. Twenty victims rest there today, under red granite markers. Others are buried in family plots.

Subsequently the state legislature passed a fire code for schools that, among other things, prohibited candles on Christmas trees. The school board rebuilt, a grand school intended as a memorial.  It lasted only until 1943, then closed due to consolidation. A roadside marker on Highway 183 marks the spot.

This is a sad story. Now it gets weird. There were 37 counted missing, but only 36 bodies found. A young mother who escaped the blaze wrote in her baby book, "Our precious Darling Baby was taken from us Dec 24 1924 at the Babbs switch school house fire. Mary Elizabeth Edens age 3 yr 6 mo 2 days."

Little Mary Edens was thrust out one of the schoolhouse windows--someone having managed to pry loose a grate--by her Aunt Alice, who died of burns. Mary was seen no more. Her family believed that someone, perhaps a childless couple, took advantage of the confusion to kidnap her.

That is exactly what happened. In 1956 the Daily Oklahoman published an article headed, "Is Mary Edens Still Living?" In San Bernardino, California, an accountant and Lions Club member named Elmont Place read the article.  He then wrote to Wayne Fite, president of the Hobart Lions Club, "I have, among my clientele, a prominent young businesswoman [she ran a dress shop in Barstow] whose life story has been entrusted to me. . . .  She does not know who her father and mother were nor has she been able to find out anything as to possible relatives."

This situation had to be handled delicately. Over the years the family had paid a fortune to detectives and had been repeatedly disappointed. The two Lions made discrete contacts, comparing recollections, including that the woman in question, as a child, had been "very fond of bacon rinds." Back in Oklahoma, her Aunt Bertha recalled snatching bacon rinds from her hand and telling her they were bad for her.

Mary Edens Grossnickle, as told in her book, Mary, A Child of Tragedy, was reunited with her parents. And she told her story on the Art Linkletter Show on March 27, 1957.