On Saturday, April 24, 1965—in the parking lot of the Taylor Town shopping center on a pleasant spring afternoon—an accident on the spinning “Flying Comet” ride occurred before the horrified eyes of shoppers and amusement park patrons. This accident resulted in the death of three children: Sharon Hawkes, her younger brother Grant Hawkes, and Nancy Lee Matthies.
As the ride reached its maximum speed, a shackle broke, causing one of the cars to plunge to the ground from a height of 20 feet. Four of the children spilled onto the paved parking lot, killing the three children and seriously injuring two other Matthies kids. I never forgot this, and twenty years later, I printed microfiche of the Detroit News reporting of the accident at the Dearborn Public Library. My idea was to do a series of drawings based on images from this printed material.
It’s been 60 years since that devastating afternoon just two blocks from our house on Trafalgar. I completed four drawings in an attempt to document that day. It’s an event in my life that I will never forget.
