Mennonite Family’s Five Children Die in Crash

A tiny community of Mennonites north of Spokane was in mourning after all five children in a family were killed in a head-on collision of two pickups.

The eight-student Mennonite school in Chewelah, attended by three of the dead children, will be closed for the rest of the week, said Dan Hertzler, who was speaking for the nine families of the small religious sect. The children’s father was injured in the crash, as was the driver of the other truck.

“They have been a real and active part of the congregation since they were born,” Hertzler said of the five children of the Schrock family, who ranged in age from 2 to 12.