BEATRICE – Whether it was an incredible coincidence….or a gift from the heavens….a Beatrice Church will mark an anniversary this weekend of a tragedy that could have taken lives, but didn’t.


March 1st of 1950, the West Side Baptist Church exploded…apparently triggered by a natural gas leak in the boiler system. Where the miracle comes in…15 choir members were all late for a 7:20 p.m. Wednesday choir practice…just five minutes before the blast demolished the wood-frame church.


Pastor Jon Palmquist says a Sunday service at 10:45 a.m. will reminisce about that day and give thanks.
"I'll read some testimonies of people who were in the choir at that time. Just this week I talked with a sister of one of the survivors. I was hoping she could come, but I've got a written testimony of her, talking about her recollections of that miraculous event, really. We'll play a clip of the Unsolved Mysteries..uh, Robert Stack as he interviewed people from the church back in the 70s about this, after it happened. I'm going to have a clip of Paul Harvey's "Rest of the Story"...we're going to play that, as well."


Palmquist, himself, learned about the explosion from reading a Paul Harvey account, as a junior in high school. There remain a few relatives of those who avoided tragedy that day. Palmquist says the fact no one lost their lives after being late for various reason…is divine intervention.


"You might call it a huge coincidence, but when you put all of the coincidences together, we can't attribute it to anything else but God sparing the congregation from that happening there. It's become more and more apparent to us how God just....created a miracle that night."

News clipping of Choir members
News clipping of Choir members  

 
Photos of the demolition make clear no one likely would have survived, had they been inside. The church faced onto Court Street 75 years ago, just like the rebuilt church does, today.


"The men of the church, they cleared off the rubble, and then over about a two-year period they rebuilt this church on the site. As I've been reading back, I think it said they constructed this building because of all of the volunteer labor, and everything...the cost was just $35,000....they put it together within about two years time and they were debt-free about two years after that....so, It was quite a thing for a church, at that time."


Over the years, the congregation at West Side Baptist church has numbered close to 100. Historical mention of the church sometimes refers to it as West End Baptist….but the real name is West Side Baptist Church.
The blast 75 years ago was heard all across Beatrice, knocking out windows and electrical power…even knocking KWBE radio off the air briefly, at a time the station was located downtown.


"One of the ladies I talked to this week, her sister....she said her mom was at the movie theatre downtown at the time of the explosion and word got out that the church blew up....and her daughter was supposed to be in the choir....she was one of the choir members. The mom comes rushing down and she's just sure that her daughter, is gone. They could hear it downtown....you could hear it all over."

Former West Side Baptist Church Building
Former West Side Baptist Church Building  

Palmquist said it will be a celebration this Sunday.  "We're going to offer prayers of thanksgiving to God during the service and we're looking forward to, hoping even maybe some former members who have moved away....maybe some of them will come back and just reminisce, as well. We're looking forward to a good time....kind of a reunion." 


The service is this Sunday, 10:45 a.m., at the West Side Baptist Church.