10 YEARS TOGETHER: Clayton Vecellio of Lewis Run recalls hearing talk of this fire, which happened on his 13th birthday. In fact, today is Clayton’s birthday.
Clayton writes, “On the evening of Nov. 28, 1942 fire raced through the crowded night club, Cocoanut Grove in Boston, Mass., with 490 people perishing.
“One of the 181 living victims of the fire was 21-year-old Coast Guardsman named Clifford Johnson who was a farm boy, from Sumner, Mo. He got out of the fire the first time, but he went back in four times trying to save his girlfriend. On his last time out he was completely covered in flames.”
Clayton detailed Clifford’s injuries, which we didn’t have the room (or the stomach) to include here, but he was quite badly injured and even contemplated suicide.
Medical cost estimated “by the city, the federal government and the Red Cross was $110,000. This was in 1943. Can you imagine the cost today?
“For six months he had been unable to move at all.” He sat up in July 1943, walked in September 1943, and “On Nov. 26, 1943, two days before the anniversary of the Cocoanut Grove fire, Mr. Johnson put on his dress uniform and was taken to the Brighton Marine Hospital in Boston to convalesce.” On Sept. 5, 1944, he was honorably discharged from the U.S. Coast Guard and returned to Missouri.
He went back to Boston City Hospital for an infection, and “he met a pretty nurse named Marion Donovan. They immediately fell in love and on Sept. 10, 1946, they were married.
“The important thing to remember about Clifford from this point on is that he and his wife had 10 years together, which no one expected him to live through at all. But they are years that seem to lose their sweetness when the final act of Clifford’s life is told. This is a fact of such bitter and outrageous irony that none of the people who knew and love him can bear to talk about it.”
Getting a job as a game warden in Sumner brought him what was probably the best years of his life. His work kept him outdoors in the woodlands and countryside that he always enjoyed.
On Dec. 19, 1956, Clifford was driving home from work in a Jeep. There was a soggy snow on the ground and thick rising fog. His Jeep struck a soft shoulder and turned over.”
The gas tank broke, leaking gasoline on the hot engine — and catching fire.
“And so Clifford died a terrible death in fire.”
