Betty Jean and Gladys

With many thanks to our Facebook followers for research assistance on this sad case:

It was a photo I had seen time and time again, searching through the bin at Miss Pixies for something more tangible to research.

"Betty Jean and Gladys", I had quickly skimmed over at one point, wouldn't be an easy research case. I set it back down.

But on this particular day, I was drawn back to the photo, maybe because I hadn't had much luck in finding any other labeled photos on this trip.

Rather than skimming for names on the back, I read the full caption. Only then did I realize it may not be as hard a research case as I had imagined.

"Betty Jean and Gladys died in fire 6/23/79 at approx 2am Saturday. These pictures were salvaged."

Who had written this matter-of-fact description on the back of this photograph? It seemed, to me, to be a very emotionally-void statement; perhaps one written by the firefighters at the scene, who managed to snag some heirlooms before surrendering?

No, I think. Firefighters wouldn't know names.

I come to rest on the assumption that a family member or friend labeled the photo: the matter-of-fact description serving to educate future viewers, and the added "these pictures were salvaged" detail serving as a reminder that memories can remain after tragedy.

Originally, the photo was simply of "Gladys and Peaches". I think to myself, whoever edited the caption must have been the type of person who wholeheartedly attempts to memorialize even the most personal of tragedies.

The fire, it would be determined, happened in Riverdale, MD, and engulfed not a small apartment, as I had imagined in my head for no good reason, but an entire 2-story house.

The news was posted in the Panama Canal Society of Florida newsletter of September, 1979 - a society that Gladys Kennedy was apparently a member of, meaning she once worked with the U.S. government to construct, operate, maintain, or protect the Panama Canal.

Gladys was Gladys Kennedy, a woman "very active in the community", the newsletter reads, who "taught sewing from her home."

Betty Jean was Elizabeth 'Betty' Alrick Carroll, Gladys' daughter, a graduate from Balboa High School and a secretary at a legal firm in Washington, D.C.


Gladys and Betty Jeanne are buried in Knox County, TN - perhaps closer to family, as the newsletter stated that Helen Barnes, of Tennessee, was the only known survivor. Helen, perhaps Gladys' daughter, was born in the Panama Canal Zone and moved to Virginia as a young woman. Unfortunately, Helen passed away in 2018.

With Helen as the only survivor, I realize it wasn't family who had written that matter-of-fact caption. Perhaps a neighbor, the only one left to pick up the pieces after destruction, was the one to do the salvaging. Years later, with no one left to remember, the photo ended up in a box at a vintage store.

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