Love of Family Turned to Tragedy in Crash Killing 14

Claudia Jean Funches took her grandchildren with her everywhere. To the market, to the beach, to the park--more than a dozen children in all. They filled her life and her home.

Five of them lived with her in a South-Central Los Angeles townhouse.

“She would say to us, ‘Y’all need to stop having all these babies,’ but they’d still keep coming,” said Mary Adams, mother of two of Funches’ grandchildren. “And she’d be right there.”

So it made sense that Funches would want to take as many of the children as possible along for the 1,500-mile drive to Vicksburg, Miss., where she was born and grew up. The occasion was a family reunion, and she had been anticipating the visit for months.

“She wanted to show off her grandchildren,” Adams said Monday.

Funches and her family had gotten to Weatherford, Tex., on Sunday morning when tragedy struck. Fourteen passengers, including 11 of her grandchildren, died in a fiery wreck along the interstate. Only four people who had been riding in the Funches van survived, including the 47-year-old grandmother of the clan.

Funches was driving on a suspended California driver’s license, Texas authorities said Monday. Because of the Fourth of July holiday, they were not able to determine why it had been suspended. The accident was under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board and Texas officials. Autopsies were pending.

According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, Funches pulled the van over to the shoulder because of a malfunction in the suspension. She was driving the van back onto the interstate when a tractor-trailer slammed into its rear, sending it 600 feet down the side of the road into a guardrail and finally across two lanes of traffic and into the median.

The youngest of the dead grandchildren was 8-month-old Eric Bell, the oldest 12-year-old Lashawn Wingfield, according to family members in Los Angeles. The victims included Claudia Funches’ daughter, Henrietta, a grand-nephew and a family friend, Katherine Deal. Another daughter, Nicole, 22, survived the crash as did two grandsons, Ricky Wince and Gregory Bell, both 4.

Funches was at Parkland Hospital in Dallas on Monday in good condition. “She blames herself,” Adams said.

Mississippi had been her past and she wanted it to be her future too. The sometime nursing assistant told Adams recently that she wanted to move back. “She told me, ‘Mary, I’m going to buy some land and move all the grandchildren back,’ ” Adams recalled Monday. “She said it was cheaper out there.”

Funches had been back several times in the last few years--driving her brother’s 1977 Dodge van or taking a bus--but the occasions were always sad ones. “The only times she’d been back were for funerals,” Adams said. “She lost her mother last year. She lost her father a couple of months ago.”

Now, there is another sad journey to be made to Mississippi--the funerals of the accident victims will all be held there, according to a family member.

Funches had wanted to take Adams’ children on the trip but their father, Claude Bell, Funches’ son, had vetoed the idea. “He had a bad feeling,” Adams said. Bell is serving a prison term and expects to be out in January, according to Adams. “He said, ‘Mama, don’t go. Wait until I come back and we’ll all go.’ ”

Funches had raised eight children--a ninth died of pneumonia very young--on her own. She was on a second round of mothering. Five grandchildren lived with her in her small, three-bedroom townhouse. It was also home to a couple of her daughters, a future son-in-law and the 1-year-old grandson of her brother.

“Every time we go over there, all the kids would be there, running up and down the stairs, or running in the kitchen,” Adams remembered, laughing.

But Sunday, when Adams and her sister went to the house to be with relatives, it was quiet. “There was nothing,” said the sister who asked not to be named. “It was so still.”

In the house Monday, family members were still coping with the shock and recalling the children who died. Trevon and Nicholas liked art--as well as helping their uncles work on cars. Paul Haye, the fiance of survivor Nicole Funches, talked about their daughter, Jovanea, who was killed in the crash.

“She was a happy little girl,” he said. “I would play with her out there in front,” he said, pointing to a dirt front yard brightened by sprigs of pink bougainvillea intertwined on the iron grates of the fence. Haye smiled ruefully. “I just miss my little baby,” he said.

The family members tried to explain how Claudia Funches took care of so many children. According to Adams, she worked sometimes as a nursing assistant. She also received aid for the children from the county, Adams said.

“It wasn’t difficult, that’s what she liked to do,” said Kimberly Funches. “It wasn’t like she did it by herself. Everyone pitched in.”

In the living room of the white stucco townhouse, with the television silently turned to news, they sifted through color snapshots and showed off a framed picture of Jovanea smiling, her hair a garden of colorful barrettes. With a surreal calm, they scrutinized the heartbreakingly long list of names of the dead or injured for reporters, supplying correct last names, pointing out misspelled first names and wrong ages, retelling family stories.

Adams talked about how they celebrated Christmas and Easter as a family. On Easter, there was a big egg hunt. Among the hidden eggs was one with a $25 sign painted on it. Whoever found that egg got $25 as a present from Claude Bell, the father of Adams’ children. “It was only for the kids,” Adams said laughing. “All the parents had to stay out.”

One daughter, Henrietta, died in the crash with her four children. Two daughters who stayed in Los Angeles each lost a child. Willie May Bell, another daughter in Los Angeles who is six months pregnant, lost one daughter and three sons and had to be hospitalized.

Relatives said that the official police accounting of names and ages contains some errors. Not listed as either a victim or survivor, they said, is a baby named Ezelle Conley, who was a grand-nephew of Claudia Funches.

They paused and looked up at the television as news of their tragedy suddenly played.

Through the screen door, the smell of barbecue wafted by, a reminder of the holiday that they would not get a chance to celebrate.