April 2017

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Page A12 APRI L 2017 FUNERAL HOME & CEMETERY NEWS S ec t i on A
jured. 1,159 houses were condemned, their inhabitants
now homeless.
The identified dead were released to family and subse-
quent funerals were held when the family was able. The
sixty-three-unidentified dead were held, hoping a name
could be attached and another family to have closure.
On June 22, 1947 at 10:00 am, a funeral was held for
these victims. Five thousand people gathered to mourn
their fellow residents. Sixty-three slate-grey identical
caskets were transported in separate hearses from Camp
Wallace. Fifty-one funeral homes from twenty-eight
cities participated. The floral association provided cas-
ket sprays for each casket. Pallbearers were from local
groups such as the VFW and American Legion. Local
labor groups, volunteer fireman and others.
Two acres of land in the northern part of town became
the Memorial Cemetery, a final dignified resting place for
these poor souls, unknown to man, known only to God.
Protestant, Catholic and Jewish clergy led the prayers.
Three neat rows of graves, topped with granite markers
with numbers. These numbers correspond with records
listing anything known about them and their personal
effects.
Some of these victims are likely to be 19 members of
the volunteer fire department listed as missing, school
children who were watching the burning ship at the
time of the explosion and thirty-one crew members of
the “Grandcamp”.
A marble statue of an angel, sprinkling flower petals,
watches over the graves.
“The Texas City disaster taught us, yet again, how re-
silient ordinary people can be, how they define beyond
any political notion of the word, what it means to be a
patriot.” –Reporter and author Bill Minutaglio
Steven Palmer entered funeral service in 1971. He is an honors grad-
uate of the New England Institute of Applied Arts & Sciences. He has
been licensed on both coasts, he owns the Westcott Funeral Homes of
Cottonwood and Camp Verde, AZ. Steve offers his observations on cur-
rent funeral service issues. He may be reached by mail at PO Box 352,
Cottonwood, AZ 86326, by phone at (928)634-9566, by fax at (928)634-
5156, by e-mail at or through his web-
site at or on Facebook.
Observations
“It was the last. We thought it was Judgement Day”
–Jewel Turner on seeing Texas City after the explosion
“When I got there, they were loading bodies into dump
trucks and ambulances. I kept searching, but I couldn’t find
Dad,” remembers LeonardT. Belk. “There was so much de-
struction, so much death. It’s hard to describe the sorrow.”
Belk was describing the horror of April 7, 1947: the
day that Texas City, Texas was almost obliterated. Sev-
enty years later, many do not remember the deadliest
industrial accident the nation has every experienced.
The families of Texas City who lost relatives, friends,
or neighbors, will never forget.
The day was a like any other at this Galveston Coun-
ty deep water port city. A French Liberty ship, “Grand-
camp” was tied at the dock. Its hold contained sisal
twine, peanuts, drilling equipment, some small ammu-
nition and 2,300 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer.
In agriculture, ammonium nitrate is a well-known
fertilizer. Its other use is as an explosive for construc-
tion, mining and in quarries. It was also the compound
Timothy McVeigh chose to blow the federal building in
Kansas City in 1995.
Crew members were in the hold loading more 100
pound bags of the white fertilizer pellets when they
smelled smoke. In the stack of the bags, smoke was
drifting out. Water available in the hold and fire extin-
guishers had no effect. The smoke was getting thick and
overwhelming, the crew abandoned the hold.
It was decided to batten down the hatches, cover them
in tarps and turn off the ventilation system and turn on
the steam system. They didn’t want to damage the cargo
by spraying it with water. The crew removed the small
arms ammunition.
The heat grew, the ship’s whistle sounded and the Tex-
as City Volunteer Fire Department was called. The tele-
phone operators were on strike, but the firefighters were
summoned by other means. A fire boat from Galveston
was requested.
At 8:30 am, the compressed steam, and pressure from
the burning fertilizer, blew the hatch covers from Hold
4. A golden yellow flame producing orange smoke rose
far into the morning sky. The fire department hosed
down the deck but the intense heat quickly dissipated
the water into steam. Shortly after 9:00 am an explo-
sion happened aboard the ship with a force so pow-
erful that it knocked two sightseeing airplanes from
the air. Those on deck, firefighters and crew, perished
on the spot, their bodies destroyed. The explosion was
heard 150 miles away. The nearby Monsanto Chemi-
cal plant had 450 employees, 145 dying due to the
explosion, the plant destroyed. Nearly 6,350 tons of
steel shrapnel from the ship rained down on the dock
and on Texas City causing further death and damage.
A fifteen-foot wave, which was detected 100 miles off-
shore, sent injured and dead into the water. The ship’s
anchor was thrown two miles away burying itself ten
feet in the ground at the Pan American refinery. In
Galveston, the concussion knocked residents off their
feet and shattered windows downtown.
Three small medical clinics could not handle the
many injured, the city auditorium became an impro-
vised trauma center. The seriously injured were taken
to major hospitals up to fifty miles away.
The attention on the dock was centered on the
“Grandcamp”, but there were several other ships still
moored nearby. The “Highflyer” was adjacent to the
“Grandcamp”. The explosion severed mooring lines to
the “Highflyer”, now heavily damaged. As the day be-
came night, the “Highflyer” crew noticed smoke com-
ing from its hold. Tugboats tried to tow the ship out
to sea. The anchor chains were cut but they were still
unable to move the ship. At 1:00 am, April 17, flames
were shooting from the “Highflyer’s” holds. Tugboats
cut lines and abandoned their efforts. At 1:10 am an
explosion equal to or even greater than the “Grand-
camp” took place in the holds of the “Highflyer”. Inju-
ries were less as experience had taught the rescue work-
ers to leave the area. The dark sky provided a dramatic
shower of flying and burning metal and contents of
the hold and objects on the deck.
The toll, after many days of searching, resulted in
405 identified and 63 unidentified dead. One hun-
dred were listed as missing, their bodies probably va-
porized in the explosion and subsequent fire over sev-
eral days. All but one of the twenty-eight volunteer
firemen were killed. The high school gym now served
as a morgue. Anywhere from 3,500 to 5,000 were in-
By Steven Palmer
Judgement Day
in Texas City
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Funeral Service Insider’s Compensation Survey
is Now Open
liams is known for his support of vocational education,
hiring students as well as apprentice funeral directors.
The city of Paris renamed a park for him in 2002 in rec-
ognition of his service to the city.
The majority of the staff of Maxey Funeral Home have
been with the firm for over 20 years. In addition to Mr.
Williams, they include Ray McGuire, 30 years, Dorothy
Smith, 39 years and Simone Hines, 21 years. The new-
est employee is Joan Mathis , who has been a Maxey em-
ployee for a year and a half.
Williams credits the firm’s success and longevity to their
superior service and professionalism. They service a large
area and will go to great lengths to accommodate the
families they serve.
Maxey Funeral Home
celebrates 100th
Anniversary
WALL,NJ— Funeral Service Insider’s annual compensa-
tion survey is now open. Every year, funeral service pro-
fessionals eagerly look forward to the results of the survey.
The confidential survey serves as a resource to determine
how funeral homes are paying their staff, whether salaries
are going up or down, how funeral homes are compen-
sating employees beyond salary and much more. Results
are coupled with insights from top experts to help funeral
homes determine how to pay and motivate employees.
“This survey always provides the funeral service commu-
nity with valuable ideas about how to pay staff, how pay
levels are fluctuating and what to expect in the future,” said
Thomas A. Parmalee, editor of Funeral Service Insider.
“We’re seeking to get as many responses as possible.”
Those that do not subscribe to Funeral Service Insider,
can get a free copy of the published report based on sur-
vey results as long as they respond and provide their email
address at the end of the survey.
Visit to take
the survey.
Funeral Service Insider is published by Kates-Boylston
Publications, which also publishes American Funeral Di-
rector and American Cemetery & Cremation magazines.
The company has been helping funeral professionals suc-
ceed and serve since 1877. Visit
for more information.