Hi Laura, I don't know how likely back in those days it would have been to close a mine due to safety reasons (my impression is mine owners were very focused on getting that profitable product out, period)... which led to a great deal of stripped mines and at that point abandoned due to depletion of product. Either way it leaves a once booming mine silenced, doesn't it? If I've read it before I'm not remembering how close the Sodder's place was to any actual mines tho. Anyone aware of any being so close these children could have scampered off in the night to one of them?
Also, if I'm recalling accurately, there was a light skim of snow on the ground that night wasn't there? I'm not sure they'd want to go outside for more than tending to the chickens and the cow as they had been instructed to do since it was middle of the night in late December... brrrr. But maybe I've lost my childlike sense of adventure over the years.
This thinking tho does at least offer a potential valid reason as to why none of the missing Sodder children's remains were found within the destruction. I don't think that the few bone fragments they found (nor the fleshy or organ type material they produced) had any connection to any of the children.
It's hard for me to come to any kind of conclusion for my own thinking other than what Mr. & Mrs. Sodder believed. The combination of the events that happened shortly before Christmas eve '45, that horrid night, and the events & "investigation" after are just too bizarre and sometimes "coincidental" for me to look at them in any other light than what they present themselves to me in at first glance.
I am curious tho, if anyone can answer or if granddaughter is still reading, if Mr. Sodder did indeed check mines. Being in that business I would think if he felt the need to investigate them he definitely would. Does anyone know if that did happen, at any time.
The idea of someone feeling the Sodder's, Mrs. Sodder in particular but likely her husband as he was the bread winner, needed to "settle" Mr. Cipriani's "estate" (were those the words?) still looms in my mind. If it was just a matter of the man owed a few bills or what-have-you that's one thing but it sounded as if it was made to sound ominous. And I'm still curious as to why the male Cipriani children weren't the ones to have this matter fall to. As I recall a couple of them did live near their father... one of them even showed up the morning of the fire, correct? (and I was left with the impression he was one of the ones encouraging the Sodder's to accept their loss rather quickly?)
Laura, I certainly would like a simpler answer such as the mines. Some of the info just seems to complex to really wrap my mind around but if it were something simple... why do I feel LE went way way out of their way to complicate something that was indeed, altho horrific, explainable. Ugh, I'm spinning my mental wheels, lol, I'm gonna think on the mine idea for a while.
Has anyone heard from granddaughter? Sent her the photo and have not recieved anything back. is she still even searching for these children or using websleuths at all?
Can someone call WV, the library or archives? I wonder if these children could have been playing in a mine, an abandoned mine or something. They had new toys from their sister, so what if they went outside that night to play in their special place, an old unused mine, and it caved in on them? And let's take this a step furthur. If the parents closed down the mine when they still had their children could it have been because the mine was deemed unsafe? Let's look at a few possibilities from there. George closes the mines because they are deemed unsafe. The children play in the old cave and there is a cave in. They have no way out, and die there together. Because of the fire everyone thinks they are dead anyway, and no one checks the local mines. Also, by the time the father suspects something else, he automatically thinks abduction, fire was caused intentionally, etc. So he doesn't check the local mines either.
Just some thoughts. Let me know what you all think.
Addictive? hmm, only in an all-consuming, must-go-read-more, can't-stop-thinking-on-it kind of way. :crazy: