We still remember – Blessed Hope Missionary Baptist Church holds its annual memorial service in honor of 18 members who died during a Sunday school field trip in August 1962.

On Sunday morning 18 candles burned inside Blessed Hope Missionary Baptist Church.

For more than six decades the small church, located on Hutchinson Ferry Road in the St. John Community, has held an annual memorial service to honor 18 church members–one adult and 17 children–who died in a boating accident during a Sunday school picnic on Lake Talquin on Aug. 18, 1962.

Laura Collins, one of the event’s organizers said the church began holding the memorial service in 1963–one year after the tragedy. They have held the service annually ever since–except during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The service began with a call to worship by Pastor Darrell Britt and included a devotional service, several selections from Blessed Hope’s choir, a memorial tribute and a poem.

Britt also gave the sermon.

Family members of the drowning were also acknowledged during the service.

“Funerals for Victims Will Begin Thursday,” reported The Gadsden County Times on Aug. 23 1962.

Eleven year old Jerome Maples was the lone survivor of a boatload of 8 children and their Sunday school teacher when the overloaded 14-foot craft submarined at Lake Talquin Saturday afternoon while on a Sunday school outing.

The boating tragedy happened around 1 p.m. about 200 yards from the boat landing operated by Jessie Robinson near Idle Wilde Fish Camp on Lake Talquin

Other family members and relatives were also at the outing, some cooking or playing on shore.

According to the article, Maples, who has since passed away, said, “The boat went down front first with everyone screaming, ‘I can’t swim’ but somehow I got back up and a white man came by in a boat and helped me by handing me the end of a fishing pole.”

A witness said the bow of the boat began to take on water and Joseph Bouie, the teacher and operator, gunned the motor in an effort to raise the bow. Instead the craft dived under the water, spilling the fully clothed occupants, and then resurfaced empty.

Bodies of all of the victims were recovered by divers within a few hours after the accident. The bodies were said to have been closely grouped in water six or seven feet deep. Bouie is said to have been clutching a little girl when his body was recovered.

Bouie, who was 25, was a husband and a father of two young children who were not at the picnic.

His son and daughter Kristi Bouie-Harrison both attended the memorial service this past Sunday.

Kerwin Jones-Wilson, who helped organize the memorial service, said she grew up attending Blessed Hope.

“These were my aunties and uncles who perished in this tragedy and my mother told me this story all my life,” Jones-Wilson shared. “She was five and she cried and cried and cried because she wanted to go on the Sunday school field trip and they wouldn’t let her go.”

Jones-Wilson said because of the tragedy she and other family members were forced to learn how to swim.

“They made sure we all could swim,” Jones-Wilson said. “That’s mandatory in our family.”

She also noted that sometimes important laws are born from tragedies.

Because of the tragedy that happened in Gadsden County in 1962, Florida passed a legislation that all water vehicles must have a personal flotation device,” Jones-Wilson added.

Seven of the drowned children were from the family Ester and Mattie M. Watson.

The oldest son of the Watson family, Johnny Lee Watson, said he was 18 at the time of tragedy and he witnessed the drowning of his younger brothers and sisters.

“I was on the banks, and as a matter of fact I had gotten up early that morning with Deacon Bouie, the Sunday school superintendent, and we had gone fishing,” Watson shared.

He said he was on the banks cleaning the fish, and his older sister was there cooking them.

“While I stood on the bank and the boat was going down all I could say and cry was, “Lord, why not me?” Watson said. “The Lord took all of my brothers and sisters away and I cried, “Why Lord?”

Watson said for years he ran from the Lord, but after looking back over his life he said he realized that God is still good.

Commissioners Brenda Holt and Ronterious Green attended the service.

The church is in Holt’s district and Lake Talquin is in Green’s.

Holt announced that a monument will be erected at Lake Talquin and at the church in memory of the 18 people who died.

The name of the 1962 drowning victims are as follows:

Mandy L. Green, 10

Quilla A. Green, 10

Terry Watson, 5

Jennifer L. Watson, 6

Bernard Watson, 8

Leonard Watson, 9

Ethel L. Watson, 11

Delores A. Watson, 12

Essie B. Watson, 14

Gloria A. Battle, 6

Rosa M. Battle, 9

Queenie E. Grimes, 9

Annie Young, 8

Louis Jordan Maple, 12

Dorothy Baker, 11

Rosa M. Huntly

Joseph Bouie, 25

E rin Hill - Gadsden County News Service

A news article shows pictures of some of the victims.

Johnny Lee Watson, the eldest son of the Watson family, recalls his memories of the day seven of his siblings drowned on Lake Talquin.

A poster board filled with news clippings of the tragedy stands as a reminder that the members of the church still remember.

Zoe Ford forms a bouquet of roses in memory of the drowning victims as Shannon Pete-Brown reads “In the Garden,” a poem dedicated to Blessed Hope Missionary Baptist Church.

We still remember – Blessed Hope Missionary Baptist Church holds its annual memorial service in honor of 18 members who died during a Sunday school field trip in August 1962.

Local heroes light up the first day of school at R.F. Munroe

Gadsden County Times – Legals – 8/31

Gadsden County Times - Legals - 8/31

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We still remember – Blessed Hope Missionary Baptist Church holds its annual memorial service in honor of 18 members who died during a Sunday school field trip in August 1962.

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Local heroes light up the first day of school at R.F. Munroe

Gadsden County Times – Legals – 8/31

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