Black Man Drowning on a 3 Ft Pool

Editor's note: This story was originally published July 29, 2015, on the 65th anniversary of the deaths of three Greenville County teens who drowned during a church picnic.

Tragic drownings rocked community

Church marks anniversary to remember teens, share message of safety

Some say you can't dodge death.

Katrenia Sims believes there are times that you can.

She recalls a hot summer day in July 1954, when three Pelzer teens drowned in a Greenville County park.

The tragedy put an abrupt end to what had begun as a joyful church outing and picnic at what was then Pleasant Ridge State Negro Park on State 11.

Sims was there that day. One of the victims was her cousin. All three of the teens had lived in the same southern Greenville County community near New Pleasant Grove Baptist Church.

 The deaths of Ed Grant, 16, Curtis Arnold, 14, and Roosevelt Johnson, 14, "rocked" that rural, farming community, said Truman Humbert, president of the Greenville/SC Upstate Chapter of the Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society.

The impact on families and neighbors was immeasurable.

At the same time, Humbert said, it became the impetus for many to take steps to teach their children to swim.

Relatives of the teens will mark the anniversary of the July 29 tragedy with a memorial service at New Pleasant Grove Baptist, where the funerals were held 65 years ago.

They plan to share with greater Greenville memories of the painful time in their history. At the same time, they want to stress the importance of preserving the young lives that are here today.

As summertime pools and lakes fill with people of all ages, families of the three who drowned want parents and children to focus on safety.

No warning

That the day could end in tragedy likely didn't cross the minds of New Pleasant Grove Church members on that July afternoon.

It was a sweltering, 95-degree day when a group of adults and mostly children loaded up on the back of a church deacon's pickup truck for a picnic and outing at the park.

In those years of segregation, there were no parks for blacks in the Piedmont area of Greenville County. They had no access to lakes and pools.

A Survey of Negro Conditions completed in 1950 by the Community Council of Greenville County cited opportunities for recreation, such as places to swim, among the deficiencies for blacks.

The study recommended that the South Carolina Forestry Commission establish a park for blacks in the Greenville area and that the city of Greenville establish a large, year-round community park for blacks that included a swimming pool.

Pleasant Ridge officially opened in 1955 as a state park for blacks, said Dawn Dawson-House, spokeswoman for the state Department of Parks. The previous year, when the drownings occurred, the swimming area was still being developed, Dawson-House said.

At the time, black children had few opportunities to learn to swim. They helped their families on the farm, Sims said, and when they swam, it was mostly in shallow-water creeks.

Queen Hood, Johnson's sister, recalled that the trip to the park was the first time church members had traveled for a picnic like that. The ride from Pelzer was nearly two hours.

NEWS THAT MADE HISTORY

We keep you informed about what's happening and what happened. Support stories like this by supporting local journalism. Please consider becoming a subscriber. Here's our special offer.

When they arrived, the adults drifted to the picnic shelters as the children and teens scattered nearby. A newspaper story reported that about 150 people had attended.

The swimming area was still under construction and there were no lifeguards on duty. The children were warned to stay out of the water, said Sims, who was fresh out of high school then.

"But you know how boys are. They get a little hard-headed," she said. "They love that water so they're going to jump in anyway."

Hood, who was about 10 at the time, said she and a sister were walking along the water's edge when they noticed her brother and a few other boys following a paddle boat.

They were all having a good time, she said, with the adults chatting and getting the food ready, while the children ran and played. Some of the older children, she said, walked closer to the water.

Suddenly, a terrifying scream broke through the squeals of laughter and conversation.

"We're all standing around, and all of a sudden we heard one of the boys scuffling and hollering and saw him going down," Sims said.

Johnson and the other teens had ventured out too far, Hood said.

Dangerous conditions

The Rev. Flora Winestock, Johnson's older sister, had been working that day and didn't go with the group to the park.

She was told later that her brother had been the first to get in the water. He'd gotten stuck in a "suck hole," she said.

The hole — a whirlpool of water — had been created when a large tree was removed for construction of the swimming area, Winestock said.

When the other boys saw Johnson in distress, they tried to save him.

"One of the boys was going up and down," Hood said. "The others went down and never came back up."

Hysterical screams that the boys were drowning stopped everything. Children and teens ran to get help from the adults.

Sims recalled that they had a hard time keeping the mother of one of the boys from going into the water to try to save her son.

According to a front page article about the drownings in The Greenville News, the three boys were pulled from about 8 feet of water at approximately 4:45 p.m. It was believed they'd disappeared below the surface at 2:45 p.m.

Everything had happened so fast. Sims said she doesn't even remember if they'd gotten around to eating the food they'd brought.

Memories hold meaning

Florence S. Arnold, now 90, was the church pianist then. She hadn't gone to the picnic.

At the time of the drownings, a sister of one of the victims was at her home in Greenville practicing a song to sing for the church's homecoming service, planned that first Sunday in August.

"Her uncle came from Green Avenue over to Sullivan Street to get her to let her know about the drowning," Arnold said.

The funerals for the three boys were held at the same time, on Wednesday, Aug. 4.

The church that day drew what was probably its largest crowd to date, Arnold recalled.

People had to park a distance away and walk back to the church. Then, when they arrived, there were no places for many to sit. It was standing room only.

For Sims, the saddest part of the service was watching as the funeral home directors rolled the three caskets back and forth so that each of the families could view the bodies of their loved ones.

Unskilled swimmers

Witnesses and relatives of Arnold, Grant and Johnson said the teens were not skilled swimmers.

Since the drownings, some things in South Carolina have changed. Pleasant Ridge Park was integrated in 1966. More opportunities exist today for all children to learn to swim.

But South Carolina, with five deaths, ranked No. 10 in the nation last year for the highest number of pool and spa drownings involving children younger than 15, according to USA Swimming.

Sims said the church has yet to hold to another picnic near a body of water. Neither she nor many others who witnessed the drownings have been back to Pleasant Ridge.

Her hope is that parents will teach children to be more cautious around water.

"Every time I hear about someone drowned, I think about those three boys," she said.

Black Man Drowning on a 3 Ft Pool

Source: https://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/2019/07/29/drowning-deaths-3-sc-teens-rocked-greenville-county-community/1806591001/

Share this post