Concord in Mourning : McAuliffe’s Neighbors, Friends Pray and Weep

The men, women and children of this state capital town joined together in schools and churches today to weep, pray and grieve for Christa McAuliffe, their high school teacher turned astronaut.

Classes were canceled at McAuliffe’s Concord High School, but some students and teachers went there for help from psychologists to cope with the shock of her death Tuesday, and residents came together in a bond of somber unity at churches of all denominations.

“These services are to let people come together to share grief,” said Dick Lower, pastor of St. John’s Church. “It’s like when Kennedy was assassinated in 1963--no one wants to be alone.”

At a service attended by 300 grade-school children at St. John’s, students responded with “sad” and “bad” when Father Dan Messier asked how they felt when they saw McAuliffe and six other astronauts killed in the explosion of the shuttle Challenger.

Cullen Dumont, 13, one of half a dozen students who stepped to a pulpit to read a prayer, said: “When the space shuttle blew up, it made me feel bad. It’s too bad it happened to the teacher in space.

‘Good Mother, Good Astronaut’

“But I think life should go on. I also hope that Christa McAuliffe will go down in history as a good mother and a good astronaut that she would have been. Lord, hear our prayers.”

Afterward, Messier said, “It’s going to take a while for the community itself to bounce back. Christa McAuliffe was Concord, New Hampshire. She was us. When she stepped on that shuttle, Concord, New Hampshire, stepped on it with her.”

McAuliffe, 37, a native of Boston, was reared in Framingham, Mass. She had taught in the Concord area school system for the last decade, the last four years as a popular social studies teacher at Concord High.

Her husband, Steve, an attorney, and two children, Scott, 9, and Caroline, 6, made the trip to Cape Canaveral to witness the space shot that turned into disaster. As of midday today, they had not returned home.

Last July about 2,500 residents lined Main Street for a parade honoring McAuliffe after she was selected from more than 11,000 applicants to be the teacher to go to outer space.

Concern for ‘Little Kids’

On Tuesday, in homes, restaurants, stores and at school, they watched in horror as she and six crew mates were killed in a fiery explosion.

“My biggest concern is the little kids,” Lower said. “The past month the schools closely followed Christa McAuliffe’s exploits and then yesterday they saw her killed.

“I just got a call from a mother whose child had nightmares last night. I’m encouraging parents to talk these things out with their youngsters.”