Two years have passed since a gunman entered an Amish school in Nickel Mines, dismissed the teacher and all the boys and shot 10 girls, killing five, before killing himself.
An Amish buggy travels in the fog this morning along Mine Road near the one-room New Hope School, whic
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The brutal massacre of innocent children stunned the community and shocked the world.
Even now, some residents say, it seems as if such horror could not have occurred in this quiet crossroads town surrounded by farms in Bart Township.
"Passing the site almost daily," notes an Amish resident of Nickel Mines, "it seems at times almost like a dream. I can't believe it happened."
The Amish community has done what it could to erase the worst memories of Oct. 2, 2006 — two years ago Thursday.
The old school is gone, replaced by New Hope School in the spring of 2007. The affected families work hard at forgiving the gunman, protecting their children and looking to the future.
But the school's students remain bound by an unforgettable nightmare.
"It's going to take a whole generation of kids to grow up and not remember that day," says a health care worker who is close to the school families. "Even now you say '10/2' and everyone knows what you're talking about."
The students lost an ally when the teacher who comforted them after Oct. 2 left this year to teach Amish vocational school. A new teacher has taken her place.
Several of the children who were in the school that day have graduated to vocational school or farm work. New scholars have taken their desks.
School will be closed Thursday in recognition of what happened two years ago. Parents of school children will gather in the evening.
One of their primary topics of conversation, as with any group of parents, will be their children.
On the sunny Monday morning that Charles Carl Roberts IV, of nearby Georgetown, brought sudden death to Nickel Mines, he also brought physical and psychological distress that at first threatened to overwhelm the little crossroads community.
Roberts killed five of the girls outright.
The five girls Roberts wounded remain hurt in various ways.
He shot two girls in the head.
Rosanna King, now 8, was the worst hurt. Doctors thought she would die. Many in the community view her survival as a miracle.
Herman Bontrager, an Akron businessman who speaks for the Nickel Mines Amish, says Rosanna "is going to a school for children in her physical and cognitive condition, but she's not able to do anything for herself."
Sarah Ann Stoltzfus, now 10, the other girl with a head injury, has progressed well beyond doctors' expectations.
Though she still has vision problems, she is a "straight-A student, spunky and full of it," according to the health care worker.
Barbie Fisher, Rachel Ann Stoltzfus and Esther King, the other three wounded girls, are still recuperating. Each has had additional surgery and therapy.
The Nickel Mines Accountability Committee continues to allocate, as needed, more than $4 million in donated funds for medical procedures and counseling for the surviving children.
Many of the 15 boys Roberts ordered out of the classroom feel responsible for leaving their friends behind. Some have suffered profound psychological pain.
"In the long term, some of the boys have had serious medical issues," says the health care worker. "Other boys, who weren't even in the school but live in the neighborhood, have had trouble."
Acknowledges the parent of a school child, "Some of the boys are emotional. I don't know that the pain will ever go completely away. These children will carry scars for a lifetime."
But life does go on.
In the past two years, all of the families who lost girls to the gunman on Oct. 2 have welcomed new babies into the world.
Two new families moved into the school district this year, adding new girls to a school that is still out of balance (20 boys, eight girls) because Roberts shot only girls.
And there is a constant sign to the community that something larger was at work in the Nickel Mines tragedy.
"Rosanna is our reminder," says the school parent. "I feel God spared her life for a reason. She reminds us that the Lord was still in control on that day."
The parents of New Hope School, when they gather Thursday evening, will discuss something besides their children.
They were at ground zero when the unbelievable occurred. They constantly support each other as unexpected aftershocks hit home.
"The journey is a long one — to work on how to deal with a loss like this and the ongoing pain," says Bontrager. "It means working on forgiveness over and over, among other things."
Staff writer Jack Brubaker can be reached at jbrubaker@LNPnews.com or 291-8781.
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