THE CROSSING By Kevin Vaughann Photos by Chris Schneidern Rocky Mountain News

CHAPTER 18: LOSING EVERYTHINGAboutthis series

In just seconds, 20 children died,and a community was devastated.

At 7:59 a.m. on Dec. 14, 1961, ahigh-speed passenger trainsmashed into a school buscarrying 36 students in the farmcountry of Weld County. It was theworst traffic accident in Coloradohistory. Only 16 children and thebus driver survived.

We cannot know how today’stragedies — Columbine, OklahomaCity, Sept. 11 — will ripple over alifetime.

But 45 years after that bittermorning outside Greeley, we cansee — if not fully understand —how a single moment has thepower to uncoil through decades,shaping people for the rest of theirlives.

Onlineat RockyMountainNews.com

n Slide show: Family photoschronicle the short, young lives ofJan and Marilyn Paxton, who lovedto dance, and Kathy and PamHeimbuck, who loved theiranimals.n Discuss: Share your thoughts onthe series and read others’comments at RockyTalk Live.n Sources: Read an annotatedversion of the story with sources ofinformation listed.n Earlier chapters: See previousinstallments in the 33-part seriesat RockyMountainNews.com/theCrossing.

n Contact reporterKevin Vaughan:vaughank@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5019n Contact photographerChris Schneider:schneiderc@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2270

n Crossing memorial: A fund hasbeen established to erect a stonemarker near the spot where 20children died on Dec. 14, 1961.

Contributions to the Auburn BusMemorial Fund can be made incare of Timothy Geisick atCompass Bank, 3501 West 12th St.,Greeley, CO 80634, or at anyCompass Bank location inColorado. For more information,call 1-970-356-3760.

Ed and Betty Heimbuckand Jim and Alice Paxtondidn’t know each other wellas the winter of 1961 approached,but their lives were mirror images.Both couples farmed.Both cherished their two daughters.

COURTESY ALICE PAXTON

Close family: Jim and AlicePaxton snuggle with theirdaughters, Jan, left, andMarilyn.

The Heimbucks had Kathy andPam. The Paxtons had Marilynand Jan.

Ineachfamily,thegirlswerewild-ly different.Kathy Heimbuckloveddresses and jewelry. Pam Heim-buck didn’t need much more thana pairof jeansandbootsanda cow-boy hat. Marilyn Paxton ap-proached everything as though itwas a major project. Jan Paxtonfloated through life, never tooworkedupaboutanything.

The Heimbuck girls namedtheirPekingese“LittlePete.”

The Paxton girls named theirPekingese“Toyling.”

Both had another dog, a mutt,they’dadopted.

Then, on Dec. 14, 1961, all fourgirls died when a Union Pacifictrain torethroughthe last few feetof theirschoolbus.

In the years that followed,through the struggle to find a newlife, the Heimbucks and the Pax-tonsfoundeachother.

‘In my mind constantly’So much time has passed. And

so little.“I feel close to the girls always,”

Betty Heimbuck says, sitting ononesideof thecouchin theimmac-ulateLaSalle home whereshe andEd have lived since they left thefarm two decades ago. “They’re inmy mind constantly.”

“I know some people wouldthink, ‘My God, it’s been 45 years,get a grip,’ but it doesn’t seemthatlong.”

And so, always,thegirls are onlya memory away. Like the day Pamchattered away at her mother’sfeet until Betty could no longertake it.

“Pam, my ears hurt,” she saidthatday. “Pleasebequiet.”

And Pam looked up and said,“Yes,butmy mouthlikesto talk.”

Or the days when Betty woulddivide up the chores, assigningsome to Kathy, some to Pam and

some to herself. On those days,prettysoon she’d hear Kathy’s ex-asperated voice: “Mom, where’sPam at?” She’d look out, and thebarn door would be open, andPam would be off someplace onher Shetland pony, Dopey. LittlePam loved Dopey, and she tookhim a treat every day — a carrot,an apple,a cookie.

They remember how differentthegirls were.

Kathy was a little lady. Nice per-fume. Cooking and sewing withher 4-H club— the “Auburnettes.”

Pam was a tomboy. Toy pistols.Jeans. Standing next to Ed andsaying, “Daddy, saddle my pony.”Learning,one day, to do it herself.

Bronzed shoesAlice Paxton’s girls are nearby,

in her heart,too.She lives alone now — Jim died

in November2005aftera short,dif-ficultillnessbroughton by a stom-ach infection.

But the memories of their girlsare on display in the glass casejust off the kitchen in her tidyhome on the east side of Pierce,north of Greeley.On one shelf restseven pairs of shoes, all of thembronzed. A pair of baby shoes foreach girl. And dancing shoes —two pairs of Marilyn’s, three pairs

that belonged to Jan. Aroundthem sit dance trophies, musicawards, colorized school por-traits.

Jan was the first to pick updance. She was 4 or 5 when shewent to her first dance class, andpretty soon Marilyn joined her.They tap-danced. They danced“modern.”Jan eventriedballet.

In dance, as in everything else,theywereso different.

Marilyn, the quiet, studious girlwho was always involved in herwork,tookvery precisesteps.

Jan, the carefree girl who didn’tlet much bother her, prancedaround.

“She had tennis shoes,” Alicesays, talking about Jan’s attemptat ballet. “She’d walk around onher tiptoesin her tennisshoes.”

As she says this, Alice laughs,and lifts her hands up and walksthroughthe air withher fingers.

A terrible ChristmasOn Dec. 14, 1961, Kathy Heim-

buck was 12, Marilyn Paxton was13, and both were eighth-gradersatMeekerJuniorHigh.PamHeim-buck was 9, a fifth-graderat DeltaElementary School. Jan Paxtonwas 11, a sixth-grader.

In the fewsecondsit tookfor thethundering train to bash into thebus,all four weregone.

Finding a way to existaftersuchloss was a struggle for both cou-ples. Eleven days after the acci-dent, they faced Christmas with-outtheirgirls.

The Heimbucks also had tosteel themselves for Pam’s birth-day on Dec. 27, then Kathy’s onDec.30.

The reminders were every-where. Each afternoon, Blackey,the landlord’s puppy who’d beenadopted by Kathy and Pam, wan-dered out to the road around 3:30,waiting for the school bus and thegirls whonevercamehome.

Ed went back to work in thefields where he grew beets, beans,grain, corn and hay. When Bettyfelt thewallsclosingin, she soughtconsolationfromKatherineBrant-ner, another mother who lost twochildrenin the crash.

After the accident, the Heim-bucks remained on the farm

where they’d lived all their mar-riage, down the road from the Au-burn school. In 1963, Ed took a jobin nearby LaSalle with a companythat manufactured fertilizer. Itwas, he acknowledges now, an ef-fort to get away from the accidentand thesadness.

But in 1964, he went back tofarming the 80-acre plot whereKathy and Pam had romped withtheir animals. Then in 1968, heand Betty moved to a farm closerto LaSalle and began growing po-tatoes.

They retired in the mid-1980sand movedinto town.

For the Paxtons, the journeywas no easier.

“We had a terribletime after the

girls were killed,” Alice Paxtonsays. “We didn’t know what wewanted to do. We took it awfulhard. It just ruined our wholelives.

“Nothing was ever the same af-terthat.”

Each afternoon, Chip, the Ger-man shepherd mix who’d beenadopted by Marilyn and Jan, didthe same thing Blackey did at theHeimbucks’ house. He wanderedout to the road around 3:30, wait-ing for theschoolbus.

FriendshipIn the months after the acci-

dent, the Paxtons sold the farmnear Auburn. Jim drove a truckfor a year, then wentback to farm-

ing. Alice couldn’t just sit aroundthe house, so she went to town towork.

She took a job at Cook’s DrugStore,thenat DenverDry, thenatHested’sDepartmentStore, thenat StateBank.

She took night courses in ac-counting.

Eventually she got a job in theaccounts receivable departmentat the Monfort meatpackingplant, where she worked for 10yearsbeforeretiring.

“I just had to make somethingof myself,” she says. “I just had todo something.”

Jim eventually returned totrucking, driving his rig until theday he got sick in August2005.

Neither couple ever had anymorechildren.

Along the way, the Heimbucksand the Paxtons found each oth-er.

They were barely acquaintedbefore Dec. 14, 1961. After thatday, they understood each otherbetterthananyoneelsecould.

Theyspentholidaystogetherfordecades.

Thanksgiving at the Heim-bucks.

ChristmasatthePaxtons.Together, they relished the

memoriesof theirgirls.They freely expressed their

hard feelings for bus driver Du-ane Harms, the man they all be-lieve took their girls from them.

And they share something else —disdain for that psychologicalterm so often tossed around aftertragedies:“closure.”

For them, there was no magicmoment, no line in their liveswhere they said, “I’m OK now.”Theirwoundsstillhurt.

“There’s never closure,” Bettysays.

“They say time heals, and itdoes. But it takes a long time andit’sgradual.”

“It’s always there,” Alice says.“Itnevergoesaway.”

It’s been 45 years, and it’s stillDec.14, 1961.

They’restillat the crossing.

TUESDAY: Dec. 14

Memorials: BettyHeimbuck rests her handson studio photographs of herdaughters, Pam and Kathy.Below the photographs is ashadow box containing playpistols and a gun belt thatbelonged to Pam. Betty andher husband, Ed, drawcomfort from the memoriesof the two daughters theylost at the crossing.

MarilynPaxton

PamHeimbuck

JanPaxton

KathyHeimbuck

20 NEWS ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS MONDAY 2/12/07 NEWS 21