Your Experience

Sarah Coons Lindsay:

On April 6, 1968, I was 13 years old and an 8th grader at Test Junior High School. At the time of the explosion I was standing on the corner of 7th and Main by Neff and Nusbaum Shoe Store, waiting for the light to change so I could cross the street. My friend, Kathy Park (now Kathy Stephen of Centerville, IN) and I had ridden the city bus from South 23rd Street to go to Morrison-Reeves Library. For some reason we got off the bus several blocks before the library and had walked along Main Street, window shopping. I remember that the sky was clear blue and that the downtown seemed particularly crowded that afternoon. Kathy made us stop to look at the shoes in Neff and Nusbaum's window. I have often wondered if those brief few moments spared us the sight of horror if we had already crossed the street.

When the explosion occurred, I remember moving back against the side of Neff and Nusbaum. We were against the window and glass fell on us. Kathy was younger than I was and I remember feeling that I had to make sure she was OK, too. The sky was filled with black smoke. We went to the door of the shoe store, and Mr. Reddington let us in. Of course no one knew what was happening and the events surrounding the assassination of Martin Luther King only 2 days before made some feel cautious. He was locking the front door as he let us in and directed us to the basement of the store. Several other people who had been in the store were also down there. After a few minutes, Mr. Reddington came down and told us we should leave, that there had been an explosion at Marting Arms. The mother of a girl I knew was there, and I asked her if she could give us a ride home. We went out the side door of Neff and Nusbaum's and went to her car. Traffic getting out of the downtown area was practically at a standstill. We were in bumper to bumper traffic on North A Street when a man approached the car and began talking to the mother who was driving us. I remember so clearly that he said, "I hope Jim Trimble didn't go to his office today." We later learned that he was killed.

I also remember seeing a girl I knew from school standing on a corner. She had been on the bus with us, wearing a long "fall", which was like a hair extension, sort of like a wig. But when I saw her on the corner, the fall was gone and her hair was short! Sort of an amusing memory among tragic ones!

I was dropped off at home and ran to the backyard where my parents, Julia and Dick Coons, were working. They had heard the explosion, but, like many, thought it was a sonic boom. Unfortunatley my friend Kathy's mother, Betty Park, had heard the news and had called her father, who owned a women's clothing store in downtown Richmond. He had gone out looking for us. By the way, when I arrived home, I was still clutching the library books I was planning to return to the library.

The events of that day and the days right after are still very clear in my mind almost 40 years later. I remember my mother driving out to a bowling alley to pick up my brother and his friend because, at first, no one knew exactly what had happened and she wanted him home. There was a neighbor who stopped in front of our house to say he was headed to the hospital to give blood. The radio was on constantly and I heard that the brother of a school friend had been killed. The next day the stained glass windows at First Presbyterian Church were boarded up because they had broken in the explosion. During the service sirens were heard as ambulances headed to the hospital. I remember my father, who was dean of boys at Richmond High School, telling sadly about the father of a victim cleaning out his son's locker and walking down the hall carrying a trombone.

Although I was fortunate that I did not see any victims, the events of the day still are with me almost 40 years later. Several years ago my mother sent me a special section of the Palladium-Item commemorating one of the anniversaries (I think it was the 30th). I sat in my living room in Arlington, Virginia, reading the stories and found tears coming to my eyes. The full impact of the day, not only for the victims and their families but on the city of Richmond and its future, really hit me, and I realized how truly lucky I was.

Through the years things have happened that have suddenly brought the memories of April 6, 1968, back to me. Sometimes it is a siren, sometimes it is smoke in the sky from a distant fire, sometimes it is an explosion at a construction sight. I live only a few miles from the Pentagon, and, on September 11, 2001, as the sky filled with smoke and the streets of Arlington were crowded with traffic leaving Washington, D.C., I relived the events of April 6, 1968.

Thank you for putting together this historic project. It is truly touching to read the stories of others who were impacted much more than I and realize how important it is for them to have this story finally told.