A bittersweet undertone at Sanderson July 4 homecoming
Sanderson’s holiday is tinged with sad memories of flood 50 years ago
By John MacCormack
San Antonio Express News
July 4, 2015 Updated: July 5, 2015 11:44am
SANDERSON — With street dances, an old-time parade, kids running free at the courthouse, and many fond memories and reunions, the Fourth of July homecoming is this fading town’s annual party to itself.
On this one weekend, when Sanderson’s population doubles or more, the motels and cafes are full, and the downtown shines with new paint, patriotic bunting and unfamiliar cars with out-of-state plates.
“On the Fourth of July night dance, everyone in town gathers at the courthouse, and you’ll see people you haven’t seen in years,” said Rachel Marcovitch, 43, now of San Antonio.
“That’s the best feeling, to be under the lights and pecan trees on the lawn with the band playing, and seeing people you love and care about. And unless you are from here, you just don’t understand it,” she added.
Once a robust railroad and ranching hub, Sanderson began a swift decline three decades ago when Southern Pacific pulled its crews. Its current population of about 800 is roughly a third of what it was in 1960, and the main street is lined with empty stores.
But for this one weekend, Sanderson is bustling and reborn.
This year there was a bittersweet undertone to the annual festivities, as the town turned its attention to a tragic chapter of its past.
A half-century ago, an early-morning flood swept through the streets, carrying away houses, railroad cars and children. The flood of June 11, 1965, claimed 26 lives, destroyed 75 houses and ripped up 16 miles of track.
It also changed the once-segregated town in ways only later understood.
On that dark day, with Sanderson cut off from the outside world, the church bells rang without ceasing.
Bodies were swept down Sanderson Creek to the Rio Grande. An infant’s body was found in Laredo, almost 300 miles away, a man’s in Eagle Pass, 176 miles to the south. Two of the lost, John Wesley Johnson and Jesus Marquez, were never found.
And even now, five decades later, some are still haunted.
“People are still so emotional about it. They’ll never forget, but I think 50 years has dulled the sense of loss,” said Bill Smith, 67, the town historian.
“We’ve got a few who survived the flood just barely and they don’t like to talk about it, a life-and-death situation,” he added.
At 7 a.m. Saturday, in a commemoration timed to coincide with the terrifying arrival of floodwaters that carried propane tanks and railroad ties, a solemn ceremony unfolded at the new community center.
While semitrailers rumbled by a few yards away on U.S. 90, Scripture was read, prayers recited and the old high school bell was run 26 times — once for each of the lost — by graying men, who as Boy Scouts had provided critical help.
One man played “Amazing Grace” on his harmonica, and another, the school band director, sang “The Flood of 65,” recently composed. Afterward, the more than 200 who had attended lingered in the glow of the moment.
“You can see that the community has kind of pulled together. Everyone is so glad to see each other,” said Ernestine Rogers, 86, who once ran Harvey’s Restaurant.
She had just been reunited with her old cook, Juan Salazar, after four decades and had not recognized him.
“He made the best pies you ever put in your mouth, about 15 a day,” she recalled.
A few hours later, the grand parade rolled slowly through town, featuring everything from slick new Corvettes and fire engines to vintage tractors and frisky mules. Children scrambled as people threw candy from floats.
The memorial ceremony and other events were the culmination of almost a year of work, as townspeople have been collecting stories, photos and historical objects, some of which were on display.
“We contacted everyone in town and asked if they would like to share their stories. Some had never spoken about it. We put their stories in a little book that is available at the visitors center,” said Dale Carruthers, president of the Sanderson Bank.
“We also had people walk into my office and offer me photos from old scrapbooks, some never before seen,” she said.
One of the prize recoveries was a full-page article in a 1965 Boys Life Magazine describing the toil and heroics of Scouts and Explorers.
The strip shows the plucky Scouts carrying vital messages on bicycles through flooded streets, treating the wounded and even carrying people from flooded houses to safety.
The anniversary is also prompting some survivors and others who responded to look back on that terrible day, with some returning this weekend to Sanderson for the commemoration.
At the time, Conrad Buchanan was a young Southwestern Bell employee stationed in Fort Stockton, 65 miles away. And very early on the morning of June 11, 1965, he was sent south to find out why the toll line was down.
“I will never forget. Right when you get into Sanderson, you kind of top a hill, and when I looked down, Sanderson Creek looked like the Mississippi River,” recalled Buchanan, 70, now living in Clyde.
Around him, the pavement on U.S. 90 was washed out, railroad cars were stacked upside down, and a concrete railroad bridge was destroyed.
“The concrete was busted up like a box of crackers,” he recalled.
Eventually, Buchanan made it into town and found Sheriff Bill Cooksey.
“He was very upset with himself. He said, ‘I was down here watching this creek, and right about 7 a.m. it looked like it had crested, so I went to my house to eat breakfast, and while I was there that wall of water came through Sanderson,’” said Buchanan.
“I told him, ‘Mr. Cooksey, if you had been down here then, you would not be talking to me now.’ He said, ‘Maybe, but I’m supposed to be protecting this town. We’ve lost so many people,” recalled Buchanan, who spent the next eight days working nonstop to restore service.
The worst job was rigging a telephone line to a garage that served as a temporary morgue.
“They were putting bodies in there. They didn’t have a funeral home. For a 20-year-old man, it was all very shocking,” he said.
“In telling you this, I remember it like it was yesterday. It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” he added.
In those days, the town was divided. Anglos lived mostly in the northern part and Hispanics to the south and east, around the tracks. The city cemetery was also segregated.
Fidela Borrego, who lived with her husband, Joe, and two kids below the main street, recalled that it had rained all night. When morning dawned, there was no sense of danger, nor had anyone sounded any warning.
“When we awoke, my little boy said, ‘My sandbox is floating away.’ We looked out and noticed the water was rising and I told my husband we might be having a flood,” said Borrego, 75, who now lives in Monahans.
“When the water started coming in the door, I said to him, ‘We need to get out of here,’ and he said, ‘I’ll call my boss, Dudley Harrison, he has a truck,’” she recalled.
By the time Harrison, owner of a local garage and Ford dealership, arrived, he had to wade through waist-deep water to get to the Borregos’ house.
“It was me, my husband, my two babies and a little niece. The car was already floating away, and we were climbing onto the roof,” she said.
One by one, Harrison and Fidela handed the panicked children up to Joe on the roof.
“By the time we got them on the roof, the water was up to our necks. Dudley pushed me up to my husband, but we couldn’t pull him up. Finally, I grabbed his belt and my husband grabbed his arm, and we pulled him up,” she said.
From their vantage point, the Borregos witnessed an unfolding catastrophe. They watched a family in a nearby house climb into the attic in a futile attempt to survive.
“The water just picked up the house and took it. The people were in it. We learned later that other people had died,” she recalled.
Finally, about 11 a.m. the water began to recede and people came with ropes and walked them to safety.
With their car and house ruined, the Borregos left Sanderson and eventually settled in Monahans, where Joe had family and a garage job was available.
“We still remember. It was like it was yesterday. We thank God we are safe, and we pray for those who didn’t make it,” she said.
Danny Hodgkins was a 17-year-old high school student and an Explorer Scout when the flood hit. With the water still rising, he and a buddy quickly jumped into action.
“We started going door to door, screaming and hollering for people to get out,” he recalled.
When the water dropped, he and other Scouts started taking orders from Sheriff Cooksey at the courthouse, helping people get out of their homes and retrieve their belongings.
“They were completely mentally and physically exhausted, so we pitched in and helped were we could,” he said.
Soon, accounts of casualties and missing persons began to mount.
“I had worked at Harvey’s Restaurant, and one of the ladies there had quite a few kids. Her family had pretty much washed away,” he recalled.
“Everyone in Sanderson knew everyone, and when you see that happen, you’re just kind of blown away,” he added.
In the weeks that followed, Hodgkins and the other Scouts did whatever was necessary.
“We were walking Sanderson Creek, looking for bodies. We did find some. Children with their clothes completely ripped off and two other bodies from the cemetery. Not a memory I relish, but something that happened,” he said.
“Unidentifiable. And once I did find them, I didn’t want to know a name,” he added.
After high school, Hodgkins town left for college, and later made a career with the Port of Corpus Christi. Although he lives in Boerne, his heart remains many miles to the west.
“I’m saddened that Sanderson is not the town I grew up in. It just breaks my heart to go there, where the only place you can buy anything to sustain life is the Stripes store at the end of town,” he said.
“Sanderson did rebuild and come back. The flood didn’t destroy it, the economy destroyed it. Mechanism and automation changed the need for personnel on the railroad,” he said.
Looking back, he said, the Great Flood also changed Sanderson in subtle but enduring ways, coming just as a wave of civil rights legislation and social change was sweeping the country.
“I guess it solidified and galvanized Sanderson. It let us know we were all God’s children, and at that time, the Hispanic and Anglo community were still separated, and not as blended as they are now,” he said.
“We suffered together and we rebuilt together. We have grown closer and tighter, and become a better community than before the flood,” he said.
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