Naturally, when the school was built, teachers had to be found. In 1946 the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from Debuque, Iowa, accepted the offer to teach at St. Anne’s School.

 

 

Monsignor Bradley purchased additional property and Mr. J. Ogden Markel added four new classrooms in 1955. The additional classrooms made it possible to eliminate double sessions which had been necessary for some classes, and had increased the capacity of the school to more than seven hundred students. Three new classrooms were added in 1964.

For more information on St. Anne's School go to: www.saintanneschool.net

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Neighbor Escapes Flying Debris As Jet Plane Crashes Nearby

One of the luckiest men in Santa Ana today was Louis C. Knox of 1314 S. Parton St., who told a Register reporter he was standing on the front lawn of his home when a Navy jet fighter crashed almost directly across the street. Knox, who said he had been painting the new veranda of his house , said he heard the whine of the plane as it plunged down from 15,000 feet. " I ran outside and saw the plane coming down", he said. "It looked like it was coming right at me and I didn’t know where it was going to hit". "Then it looked as though the plane exploded as pieces began falling from it. It just seemed to nose straight down and crash into the house."  Knox said he just stood on his front lawn as the plane smashed into the home of Mr. and Mrs. Ray Stedman at 1305 S. Parton St. "The pieces from the plane and the house just seemed to whiz right past my ear." Knox said," and I just stood perfectly still until it quit. Somehow , none of them hit me or I guess I’d be in the hospital today. " I ran in the house to see if my wife was all right , then ran back outside and went over to the Stedman’s. I saw that the plane had buried itself in that big crater and I knew there wasn’t any point in looking for the pilot."

Knox said the concussion of the crash actually buckled the sidewalk in front of his house." I don’t know how I kept from getting hit by all the stuff that was flying around." He added. " I found pieces of concrete, brick, metal, and even chunks of 2 by 4’s from the house scattered all over my yard, garage and in the house.""The neighbors, who weren’t home at the time, really got hit because the blast threw everything over on this side of the street. It broke out some of my windows of course, like all the rest of the houses on this side of the street."Other witnesses to the crash were just as explicit in explaining their brush with death.

One boy, 10-year-old Gary Geivet of 1307 S. Garnsey St., a block away from the crash narrowly escaped being struck by a piece of the plane. The boy, son of Newsman Bob Geivet, said the piece of the plane missed him by less than an inch as it fell into the backyard of his house."The plane seemed to come down in a wide spiral," he said, "then dived straight down. It looked like there were flames and smoke coming from the wings when I first saw it. Then it hit and the next thing I saw was a big cloud of orange-colored dust floating all over the air."Scores of people in the surrounding area heard the high whine of the ship as it screamed towards earth.

Fortunately, there were four persons in the neighborhood who did not witness the crash.They were Mr. and Mrs. Stedman and their next-door neighbors, whose home was also severely damaged by the crash, Mr. and Mrs. John F. Graham of 1301 S. Parton St. Oddly enough, the Grahams just moved into the home a week ago.Stedman was at his bicycle repair shop in Costa Mesa at the time of the crash, while Mrs. Stedman was at her job as secretary to the Businessmen’s Association of Santa Ana.Only their dog, Lady was home at the time, and although badly frightened, she was not hurt.

 

The Navy today identified a young pilot killed when his plane crashed in a crowded Santa Ana residential area as Lt. Robert N. Anderson of Los Angeles an Organized Reserve pilot from Los Alamitos Naval Air Station.  The crash destroyed a Santa Ana home and severely damaged another but miraculously caused no fatalities in the quiet residential section.  The jet fighter an F2H-1 "Banshee" smashed into the home of Mr. and Mrs. Ray Stedman at 1305 S. Parton St. about 3:30 p.m. after spiraling to earth from 15,000 feet. It exploded just before crashing into the Stedman home. No one was in the house at the time.Fragments of the plane scattered over a block-wide area. Many of them tore through the walls and windows of homes on the opposite side of the street.  One woman, Mrs. Hazel McCallem of 1326 S. Parton St. was injured when a piece of the plane tore through the wall of her home and struck her in the side as she was sitting in her dining room. She was taken to Santa Ana Community Hospital and treated for shock. She was released today after being held overnight for observation for possible internal injuries.

ALSO ABSENT

Besides literally destroying the Stedman home , the crash also severely damaged the home of Mr. and Mrs. John Graham of 1301 St. Parton St. They also were absent from their home at the time of the crash.  Cmdr. Lee Riester , public information officer at the air station said Lt. Anderson was a member of Reserve Fighter Squadron VF777, now conducting a two-week summer training program at the station. It was the second time in two months that a member of the squadron was been killed in a jet aircraft accident.  Cmdr. Riester said the young pilot was on his second flight in a jet fighter and was flying at 15,000 feet with an instructor accompanying him in a plane alongside.

The instructor whose name was not released, said Anderson’s craft went into a half-roll seemed to recover then spiraling around and dropped towards earth. Almost every house on the opposite side of the street within a 300-foot radius was damaged somewhat. Holes were knocked in walls , windows shattered and pieces of metal, cement wood and brick slammed into rooms throughout the area.  Mrs. Clyde Jenkin, who was in her home at 1301 S. Parton St., next door to the Stedman home, said the crash and resultant blast knocked the curtain rods into a zigzagged position, but otherwise did not seem to have damaged her home to any great extent.  Navy officials at Los Alamitos said late last night that the pilot of the doomed craft began his plunge to earth at 15,000 feet while flying with another jet.  They said he undoubtedly knew he would crash but decided not to use the jet’s ejection seat which would have thrown him clear of the diving plane to descend by parachute.

"He apparently decided to try and ride it in and prevent the plane from crashing into a residential area," Cmdr. Lee Riester , public information officer at the station, said."  If he hadn’t stayed with the plane, it might have come down anywhere, ripping into several houses instead of coming straight down. "  Riester added the pilot might have been able to skid the plane into a street in the area, if it hadn’t broken up in mid-air before its last plunge.  The plane dug a crater about 18 feet across and about 10 feet deep. In the Stedeman’s front yard, throwing dirt and sod into a two-foot rim around the hole. The pilot was buried deep in the crater and rescue crews worked until almost 11:30 p.m. to extricate his body. When finished, the rescue workers had dug almost 15-feet below the surface of the ground to clear out most of the wreckage. Later, the deep crater was filled in by Navy crews.

Most of the concussion from the crash was directed across the street with fragments of metal and mud being thrown over a block–wide area. Pieces of the plane were found as far away as Flower St., two blocks away.Dirt and sod from the crater virtually covered the street and sidewalk in a 90-degree angle stemming outward from the Stedman home.  Two telephone company workers, Norman Young of 1022 E. Chestnut St., Santa Ana, and John Ryan fo 334 Stanford St., Santa Ana, were working on a telephone pole only two blocks away from the crash.  They told reporters that the plane "seemed to be coming right straight at us. About 500-feet , he seemed to try to pull up. Then some pieces started falling off the plane and he suddenly dived straight down into the house".  Two City street department workers, W.R. Loewen and Bernard Martin, who were a half-block away, said the pilot seemed to gun his engine just before he dived into the ground, apparently in an attempt to pull over the Stedman home.

At the same time, they said they heard a "pop-like explosion.  "Other witnesses said they could see what appeared to be smoke and flames coming from the wings of the plane just before it hit.  The concussion from the blast completely shattered the front of the Stedman home and knocked windows and screens off the back of the house. The Stedman’s pet cocker spaniel, although frightened by the crash, was not hurt.  The crash also broke gas mains in the area flooding the crash scene scene with escaping natural gas. Police and firemen immediately banned all smoking in the area until gas company employees could shut off escaping gas.Firemen with pitchforks and Navy and Marine Corps. personnel sifted through the giant crater in search of the pilot’s body.Navy officials said the plane was attached to the air station and was on a routine training flight . They said it was not attached to any special squadron based at the station.One witness to the crash to reporters that, "God himself must have been flying that plane at the last. Of all the homes in this area He picked the two places to set it down where no one was home."A check of the neighborhood disclosed that four homes, the two damaged by the crash and the two directly across the street were empty at the time . All others were occupied.  One witness said the plane seemed to come in over the nearby Glenn Martin school where several children were playing. It made a wide sweeping circle , skimmed over housetops and trees, then plunged into the house." It was almost as if the pilot were searching for an unoccupied house in the area," another witness exclaimed.  Mrs. John Graham, whose home alongside the Stedman residence was also damaged by the crash itself, came home about 5 p.m. and collapsed at the scene.  She was taken into her house and given a sedative by a Navy Corpsman.  Residents of the area , said the crash threw in orange-tinted dust cloud into the air, which settled over the entire area. Dirt clods and pieces of plane wreckage were tossed onto roofs as far as a block away.  Rumors that the pilot of the craft had parachuted from the ship were quickly dispelled as rescue workers digging through the crater found evidence of the body among bits of wood and plaster from the house and pieces of wreckage.