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1/4/12

Ms. Nancy Williams

Nancy Williams was my special ed. teacher from 1981-1983 at West Jordan Middle School. Sadly, I learned that she died in an accident involving a horse; I think around 1985. A fellow student read a news article about her death from the the daily newspaper outloud at lunch. The article stated that Ms. Williams was horseback riding on a trail in the mountains in Utah; I think it was the Wasatc mountains. She died of a serious head injury because the horse she was riding on got out of control and kicked her in the head.
That was the actual account of how she died, but over the years diferent accounts of how she died circulated among fellow schoolmates and the population at large. She became an urban myth and legend. Here is just a sample of the different stories;
1. Ms. Williams was horseback riding on a muddy and slippery mountain trail. The horse slipped, whick caused Ms. Williams to fall of the horse onto the ground, then the horse fell on her and killed her instantly. It wasn't the horses fault, just a freak accident.
2. Same story as the actual newspaper article, but various locations of where this took place, like Arizona, Alaska, Nebraska, ect.
3. This one takes place on another mountain trail, next to a steep slope. Both she and the horse accidentaly lost balance and fell thousands of feet into a huge canyon and into a big river.
And it goes on and on. Most of the stories I don't remember.
To many fellow schoolmates Ms. Williams is their patron saint. While I don't have any photos of Ms. Williams myself I have seen other schoolmates with photos of her and a lot of them would prayers on the back to Ms. Williams. A lot of these prayers were intercessionary prayers, some petitioning prayers and a little poetry. It was totally unlike the prayer cards of patron catholic saints you can purchase at Loretto Chaple's gift shop. Loretto Chapel is located in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
This blog entry and this whole tribute site to Ms. Williams will be a work in progress. And it will get more interesting over time. Thank you for your patience.

5 comments:

Sayan said...

I like your writing style. It's like how one thinks. Keep it up!

J Cosmo Newbery said...

A worthy project, good luck with it.

Elephant's Child said...

Thank you for your visit. I followed you home and read this post with intense interest. It seems that you may have seen the very beginnings of an urban myth. Amazing.

Sayan said...

I'm glad you liked my poem. Thanks for the comment. Why don't you post anymore?

TheGrimReaper said...

Interesting story you have going on here.