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Date: 6/29/2023
EAST LONGMEADOW — Fifty years ago, two former East Longmeadow High School students laid a plaque on the high school campus to remember classmates who had died in a car accident. Over the years, a nearby tree began to swallow the marker. This year, members of the East Longmeadow Historical Society stepped in to save the memorial and the memory of those three teens.
In the early hours of May 8, 1971, East Longmeadow High School senior Joseph Stranch, and juniors Gary Hanlon and Donald Thomas, were riding in a car driven by their friend, James McCalligett of Somers, Connecticut, when their car struck a tree. Three of the teens died at the scene, while Thomas later died of injuries sustained in the crash.
“It was quite the impactful thing,” said East Longmeadow Historical Society Chair Tom Behan. “It was quite the tragedy.” Behan, who was several years younger than the teens at the time of the accident, said he remembered when it happened, and people were still talking about it when he reached high school.
Two years after the tragedy, former East Longmeadow High School students Charlie Mauer and Michael Keane, who would have graduated with Stranch, had a memorial made to remember their friends. The $200 gray granite plaque, made by Chicopee Memorial Company, was installed on the lawn of the high school, in front of a tree donated to the school by the class of 1971. It simply read, “In memory of Don — Joe — Gary. 1971.”
At the time, East Longmeadow High School Principal Ralph Shindler was quoted by the Springfield Union as saying the memorial was “a tremendous gesture ... It’s a step that is usually not taken when memory fades.”
In the half-century since that gesture of remembrance was made, the tree has grown significantly and the base of the tree has all but consumed the plaque.
Behan said that he, East Longmeadow Historical Society member Bruce Moore and Chris White, were recently “made aware of the fact that the plaque was there, and the tree was engulfing it. In another couple years, it may have been gone completely. We didn’t want it to be lost.”
The three decided to save the plaque before it was completely swallowed and forgotten. Over two nights, Behan, Moore and White dug around the one-foot by two-foot rectangular block, cutting away roots and removing dirt, but the ground would not give up the memorial.
“We had no idea [the plaque] was 10 inches deep. It was completely engulfed by the roots,” Behan said.
Once the three had freed the plaque from the tree, they filled the hole back in and placed the stone about a foot from the trunk, framing it with a bed of rocks and pebbles.
Behan said the job required no money, just an investment of their time and tools.
In six months, the town will vote on whether to rebuild the high school, which may require the memorial plaque to be moved once more. Historical Society Secretary Andrea Driscoll, said, “If and when the high school is rebuilt, it can easily be moved, which was not the case before.”
Behan said of the plaque, “It was something the students did to acknowledge their classmates.” Thanks to the work of Behan, Moore and White, those classmates will continue to be remembered by generations at East Longmeadow High School.