It’s been almost eighty-two years since the disaster happened. As my AP History teacher would say, when 45 people died they call it a disaster, but when five people die it’s a massacre. In truth this “disaster” really was a complete and total massacre.

The date was May 18th, 1927 and it started out as a normal day for the students at Bath Consolidated Schools. This “good” day however, would soon turn into a day that would not be forgotten by any of the people who where there to witness the event.

I’m not sure if there are survivors still alive from this disaster, but I know one thing, it will always be something in my mind. As a seventeen year old girl from a small town in northern Michigan, around 147 miles north of Bath, Michigan, you would think I would have no clue about this disaster.

The thing is I had family members who were part of this disaster. I could probably ask half the students in my school about this disaster and not one would probably have any clue about it.

You see the Bath School Disaster, is actually one of the worst school, no it is the worst, mass murder in a school in all of U.S. history. I don’t think there are very many people who know that.

Andrew Kehoe was the perpetrator of this horrid mass murder. Not only did he kill many students and teachers, he killed his wife and all of his farm animals. He was a man upset about taxes.

So in return, he bombed the school, his farm, and his own car. All of this over taxes. It was only two years away from the Great Depression. It makes me wonder, if that happened then, what’s stopping it from happening now?

As the great George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Is that not true for now? Is the world getting to the point where this could happen again, just because people cannot remember the past?

I’m not putting down taxes or anything, but we need to be careful. We do not want to have a repeat of the Bath School Disaster. I will be one of the few people who remember the Bath School Disaster. May it be because I’m related to a person who was affected by the disaster, or because I know what happened that day? I can’t be sure, but I do know one thing, I will not forget, because if I do, I may not remember.