Ky. Mennonites to bury 9 killed in crash

March 28, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

MARROWBONE, Ky.

Three Mennonite men sliced through planks of wood with electric saws as they built the simple boxes that would be the coffins of members of a church family killed in a fiery highway crash.

The buzz of their equipment pierced the silence of another group praying inside the family’s home nearby.

It’s not the kind of work the close-knit community relishes — but they were determined and solemn Saturday as they made all the necessary arrangements to bury nine of their own.

Nathaniel Yoder was among those laboring inside the workshop of a vinyl siding business owned by John and Sadie Esh, two of the 11 people killed Friday when a tractor-trailer crossed an interstate in central Kentucky and collided head-on with the family van as they traveled to Iowa for a wedding.

“The only thing that helps is to know they’re all in heaven ,” Yoder said.

Although burial still hadn’t been scheduled for the Mennonites involved in the crash, the community had picked a final resting place. Eight family members and Joel Gingerich — Yoder’s close friend who was engaged to one of the Eshes’ daughters — were expected to be buried at a makeshift cemetery in the grassy churchyard.

The only grave there now belongs to Johnny S. Esh Jr., who died in a 2006 snowmobiling accident during a mission to Ukraine. The woman getting married in Iowa had known him from the Ukraine trip.

Many Mennonites fought back tears and consoled one another, though they said the deaths were somehow God’s will.

A fire destroyed the family’s home last year, and within two months, other Mennonites had built them a new home next to John and Sadie’s vinyl siding business.

Marrowbone Christian Brotherhood opened as a sister congregation to one the Eshes attended in North Carolina. About six years ago, it was transitioned from New Order Amish to Mennonite, allowing members for the first time to drive motorized vehicles.

That was when John Esh bought the 15-passenger van that was involved in the crash. Pastor Leroy Kauffman recalled getting his driver’s license with Esh, also a minister in the church, who was reluctant at first to make the change.

In addition to John and Sadie Esh, the dead included their children Anna, Rose, Rachel, and Leroy and his wife, Naomi. Jalen, the adopted infant son of Leroy and Naomi, also was killed. Funerals for the family and Gingerich were set for Tuesday.

Family friend Ashlie Kramer and the truck driver, 45-year-old Kenneth Laymon of Alabama, also died.

The only survivors of the crash were two boys from Guatemala also adopted by the couple as infants. Police credited child safety seats for sparing Josiah, 5, and Johnny, 3. Federal investigators are still working to determine what caused the crash.

It took Josiah little time after the crash to begin asking where his parents were. When told they had gone to heaven, Kauffman said the boy reacted almost as if he already knew.

“He seems to be kind of in shock — very quiet, very subdued, just watching what’s going on around him,” Kauffman said. “Very heart-wrenching.”