New Hampshire Town Reeling From Shock, Grief

Grief and mourning settled like a dull ache over this gray New England town Wednesday as Christa McAuliffe’s stunned friends, students and neighbors hugged, cried and prayed for the gentle high school teacher who had inspired them in her quest to become the first civilian in space.

“The pain comes in waves,” said Eileen O’Hara, a 34-year-old social studies teacher and close friend who took over McAuliffe’s classes this year at Concord High School and spoke to her on the phone for an hour Monday night.

“There are times when it’s OK,” O’Hara said, tears streaming down her ashen face in the school library. “But then it’s terrible. I’ve never had a friend die before.”

McAuliffe’s death with six astronauts in the fiery explosion of the space shuttle Challenger Tuesday was mourned across the snow-covered state in emotional church and synagogue services, in crowded school auditoriums, in dark bars and on cold street corners as the initial shock turned to sorrow and pain.

“Christa had a message, which was, ‘Reach for the stars,’ ” said friend and neighbor Barbara Ruedig, 35, wiping away tears as she stood in her living room. “I think she’d want people to remember that.”

“It’s such a close-knit town,” she added. “And Christa knew so many people. She was loved so much.”

Ruedig’s husband, Michael, practices law with McAuliffe’s husband, Steve. The Ruedigs were among several dozen Concord residents and students who flew to Cape Canaveral to join the excitement but instead watched in horror as the shuttle disintegrated in a fireball above.

Standing Vigil

A lone police car stood vigil outside the McAuliffes’ three-story, brown-shingled home. McAuliffe and his two children, 9-year-old Scott and 6-year-old Caroline, arrived at Boston’s Logan Airport Wednesday afternoon with his wife’s parents. Their plans to return here were unknown.

In a huge yellow house beside the McAuliffes’, Mark and Joseph Timmons, ages 10 and 11, said they had prayed for the generous astronaut next door who had given them space shuttle patches and signed an official NASA photo for their sister at a New Year’s Day brunch. The photo was taped to the front door inside a wreath.

“To Jeanne,” McAuliffe had written. “May your future be limited only by your dreams. Love, Christa.”

“I can’t really believe she’s gone,” Joseph said.

School Closed

Concord High School, where McAuliffe taught popular courses in law and women’s history, was closed for the day. But at a crowded news conference, officials said they had assigned about 30 staff and volunteer psychologists and counselors to the district’s 11 schools to help heal grief-stricken students and teachers.

“The response of the children has run the entire gamut of shock and disbelief,” said John Reinhardt, psychological coordinator for the Concord School District. “There’s a lot of sadness, some anger, in fact, a great deal of anger. They don’t know who to blame.”

“It’s going to be a very long and painful grieving process for them,” Reinhardt added.

School Supt. Mark E. Beauvais said the 17 third-grade students--Kimball Elementary School classmates of Scott McAuliffe--whom he had accompanied to Cape Canaveral were too young to understand the tragedy they had witnessed. But he said special counselors would be assigned to the youngsters if needed.

Memorial Service

Concord High Principal Charles Foley said the school would open for a half-day of classes today and would hold a closed-door memorial service to be attended by the school’s 1,200 students and 110 teachers and staff members Friday.

“It’s affected staff very deeply,” counselor Julie Burnham said. “You have to understand Christa became very special to all of us.”

Students milled quietly in pairs outside, a few going inside to talk to counselors. Several said their own hopes and dreams had gone up with the 37-year-old mother and teacher who left a legacy of pride here.

Matt Mead, a 17-year-old senior, said he went home in shock after viewing the explosion on a school TV, only to find McAuliffe’s hand-written recommendation in the afternoon mail for his college applications.

‘She Took Time’

“It made me feel she was thinking about me,” Mead said quietly in the school parking lot under slate-gray winter skies. “She took time out of her busy schedule to do that. She was that kind of teacher.”

Another of McAuliffe’s students, 17-year-old Lori Masters, recalled that her class had given McAuliffe a parachute as a joke last spring. They remembered the gift when the television showed a parachute descending into the ocean after the explosion. (The chute had been part of the booster recovery system.)

“We kind of thought maybe that’s her,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief.

“What really makes me angry is she really was an excellent teacher,” said Ken Riley, a 16-year-old junior. “If this hadn’t happened, she could have done so much for the school.”

Flowers, Telegrams

In the school library, a half-dozen floral arrangements and more than 40 telegrams offering condolences arrived from classrooms and schools across the country and as far away as Seville, Spain.

“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die,” wrote the Miriam Harrison School in White Rock, British Columbia.

And at St. John’s Church in Concord, the Rev. Dan Messier addressed 300 youngsters who crowded into the pews with their parents for a special children’s service. The students, who had studied the shuttle flight for months, now were assigned to write prayers for the victims. Wearing white vestments, Messier hugged one child and then explained.

“If you feel it’s important to hug someone, hug someone,” he said. “That’s probably the most important thing we can do right now.”