'53 Park avalanche claimed two from Sun Road plow crew

Jean and May Sullivan were longtime family friends. My childhood memories include visiting the couple in their North Fork home.

Most vivid recollection of Jean concerns a May 26, 1953, avalanche in Glacier National Park. Jean, road superintendent, was buried beneath five feet of snow from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. Jean survived, two crew members, George H. Beaton and William A. Whitford, both 45, were killed, and Frederick E. Klein, 31, was seriously injured. It was the first snow-clearing tragedy in history of Sun Highway.

Scene was five miles below Logan Pass and eight-tenths of a mile above Garden Wall road camp on Going-to-the-Sun Highway. Ray Price, foreman, was working at the cleared road's end less than a mile ahead of the spot of the destructive snow slide.

Price started back to Garden Wall road camp about 11:30 a.m. and saw the snow covering the highway for about 300 feet and extending nearly a mile down the mountain. Sullivan's pickup was sitting there and no rotary in view. Price ran to the telephone at Garden Wall Camp and reported "four men and the snow-go missing."

A dozen crew members started swinging shovels into the snow, hoping to uncover the man. It was about 12:45 p.m. Claude Tesmer, Joe Derringer and John Street, camp cook, started down the slide. They found Klein abut 400 yards below the road. Klein pointed to his left leg buried in the slide. They made Klein comfortable, covered him with their coats and continued searching.

Another 150 yards down the mountain, Derringer saw a boot sticking out of the snow. It was Whitford, dead with a broken neck. Dimon Apgar, 36, West Glacier, kept digging near the bank. He struck a hole in the snow, dug further, and at 7 p.m. came on the unconscious Jean Sullivan. Jean was rushed back to the Garden Wall road camp and given oxygen from a Park Service inhalator.

Fred Bussey, Roy Wessels, Jerry Cigliana, Floyd McGuire and Ed Beatty massaged limbs, rolled hot plates into towels, placing them under blankets. They poured hot coffee into jars, wrapped them for heating pads.

Sheriff Dick Walsh arrived about dark. He suggested contacting George Talbot, Hamilton, who arrived with one of his blood hounds, Joy, about 3:17 a.m. There were about 40 men on the mountain. The dog had smelled one of Beaton's slippers before the search, and started down the slide. Beaton's battered body was found nearly a half mile down from the road.

Jean told Mel Ruder "when the slide came, there was no warning and it wasn't more than 80 feet, and about five seconds, when we spotted it. All I had time to do was jump off the bank down into the cut made by the plow. I knew the snow would bury me, but then it would continue down the mountain. I didn't want to be carried down the mountain by the slide."

Gladys Shay is a longtime resident and columnist for the Hungry Horse News.