Jackson was preceded in death by . . . his son Benjamin, . . .
Shortly after returning to civilian life, Jackson and Crystalina’s son Ben purchased his own plane, with wages earned as a logger. He spent the next four years working when he had to, flying his plane when he could, and courting a young lady from Westport, Jenny Larsen.
One day in the early part of 1949, Ben was practicing touch-and-goes on a landing strip near the edge of the ocean, with his younger brother Dan as passenger, when a sudden wind gust buffeted the plane just as Ben had lifted off after the wheels had momentarily kissed the ground, sending the craft plummeting off the cliff and down onto the rocks below. Ben initially survived the crash, but was carried out to sea and was drowned. Dan was also carried by the waves a short distance away from the rocky beach. Although knocked senseless by the impact of the plane onto the rocks, Dan was eventually able to struggle back to shore. He had called frantically for Ben, scanning the sea in every direction, blood streaming into his eyes, but never could locate his older brother. It was not until the next day that Ben’s body washed ashore and his cause of death determined.
That was, along with the death of his sister Debra Mae (“Girlie”) in 1911, the worst day of Jackson Calloway’s life. It was without parallel the worst in Crystalina’s. It was a terrible blow for their other children, Ben’s siblings, too.
The newspaper report didn’t tell the whole story. It simply read:
Benjamin Calloway of Fort Bragg was killed when his airplane was blown off a runway near the ocean while landing at Union Landing March 10, 1949. The plane was smashed on the rocks and his body carried out to sea to be recovered later. Born in Anderson Valley June 11, 1924 the son of the Jackson Calloways of that community, Ben enlisted in the Navy on reaching 18 years of age in 1942 and served his Country in that capacity until the end of the war. His parents Jackson and Crystalina, three sisters, and two brothers survive: Audra, Chanelle, Dan (a passenger at the time of the crash, who was injured but has fully recovered), Emily, and Frank. The funeral was in Fort Bragg March 14th led by Rev. C.C. Huthnance. Interment was at Rose Memorial.
What was left unreported (besides Ben also being survived by his fiancée Jenny) is that news of the accident was first heard by some of Ben’s brothers and sisters. When Dan was rushed to the hospital, the staff had tried to contact the parents, Jackson and Crystalina, but had been unable to get ahold of them. This was because in the extremely rural part of the County where they lived, there was no telephone service. Audra, the eldest sibling, was then contacted by the hospital, and she passed the news to her siblings (all of whom had telephones). The surviving Calloway children (other than Dan, who was being treated in the hospital) all agreed that one of them should make the trip out to inform their parents before they heard of the disaster from a “stranger” over the radio.
Frank, who had been rooming with his sister Emily in town so as to attend Fort Bragg High, volunteered to go, driving Dan’s 1942 Chevrolet Special DeLuxe Fleetline. The others followed, riding together in Audra’s car, with her husband Boyd Dale acting as chauffeur for his wife as well as her sister Chanelle and her husband, and Jackson’s youngest daughter Emily, who, at 19, was still single. After making the necessary detours along the way to pick everyone up, the five fellow sufferers arrived at the family homestead half an hour after Frank.
Even Frank, though, had been too late to be the one to break the news to his folks. He had raced as fast as he dared on the country roads, but as he walked into his parents’ house, he found them in shock, hugging one another and crying near the radio. The news of the crash had just been broadcast as Frank was walking up the steps into his boyhood home.
Chapter 1 can be read here.
Chapter 16 can be read here.