The Drowning

The boy in this picture is named David Rodgers.  He was my next-door neighbor when I lived with my mother after my father died in 1970.

David used to walk down to my mother's house or ride his pony to the house and come into our house with some of the other kids in the neighborhood.  My sister was a little older than David, and the children came around because of her.  They all rode ponies together, up and down the road all day and as late as they could in the summer time.  That was a fad on our road in those days.

David and I became good friends.  He did not have a father at home, and he and I spent a lot of time together.  We would go fishing together, or I would take him and his cousin to the creek, and they would just play around the creek in and out of the water.  They loved to catch small snakes and play with them.  Then they would let them go.

I had known David about 2 years when I married.  He liked my wife, Shirley, a lot.  He would come to our apartment and stay all night, sometimes along with his cousin.

Shirley and I lived in the little town of Falmouth, Kentucky, in a little apartment upstairs in a dwelling house.  An elderly lady lived there, but I cannot remember her name.

Here I am looking at the creek where the
drowning took place.  The county was at
this time building a new bridge for this small
creek to take better care of the water that flows through.

One Friday evening we heard sirens all over town.  We wondered what was going on, but we soon forgot about it and went to bed.  The next day was Saturday, and we always went to my mother's house on Saturday to visit with her.  As we crossed a little bridge on the way to her house, I saw several men down around the creek, and my brother was with them.  I asked my brother what was going on, and he asked if I had talked with our mother.  I told him we were on the way there.  He told me just to go on and talk with her.  This scared me, because I was afraid something had happened to my sister.

When we got to my mother's house, we heard the tragic story of how my cousin and his son, David's step-father-to-be, and David himself were in a car gong somewhere, and they drove into the creek, not realizing that it had risen several feet.  In the dark they could not see the rising water.  My cousin is the only one who lived in the accident.

The men who were searching found my cousin, his son, and the other man; but they did not find David for 26 days.  I had told the coroner that I wanted to see the body when they found it.  When they found David's body, the coroner called my brother, Vernon, and asked him to come with me to the coroner's office, which he did.

I identified the boy's body, because the family did not want to see his body.  I was viewing him for them and for myself, because the casket was not opened at the funeral.

After that, we had the funeral, and I preached the funeral.  In that funeral service I told how that one night in my bedroom I was talking with David about the Lord, and he trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as his Savior and that  I had assurance that he was in Heaven at that very moment.

What a sad day, that I would have to preach the funeral of this young man who was my very good friend.  About a year later, however, I was told that a young lady at the funeral had heard the gospel that day through my sermon and trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as her Savior that very day.  I do not know why the Lord would allow this young boy to die so that this young girl would trust the Lord, but it is all in his hand.

This was in 1973.  In 1976 my wife and I had our second son, and I named him after this young boy.  I gave him as a middle name the name David, and that is what we call him to this day.  He knows the story of this young boy, only 11 year old, who died in this terrible drowning; and he knows that God works all things according to the purpose of his own will.