The "Best Friends Are Forever! Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading a story in the Lancaster Sunday News from a few weeks ago.  Story was titled "A lost friend had shown her a different life."  It was part of a column known as "I Know A Story" which appears in the Sunday News each week.  I found it interesting since I went to Millersville State Teachers College in the 1960s and my wife attended the Penn Manor School System which included Millersville in its territory.  The story was written by Janet Burkey Clarke for the Lancaster News Paper.  I have condensed the story and I hope you will find  it as interesting as I did when I read it a few weeks ago.  Janet had grown up in Millersville around the Millersville College campus.  Her family consisted of her parents, two brothers and herself who lived on North Duke Street in the center of the small college town of Millersville.  They lived at the top of the hill which was great for sledding on snowy days. Her best friend happened to be her next-door neighbor, Joanie Buckwalter.  Joanie was the middle daughter of her family and her father's name was Jack.  He eventually became the president of Lancaster Newspaper.  Janet said she would get the "sillies" from time to time when her dad, whose name was also Jack, would greet their next door neighbor with, "Hi, Jack," and in return would hear "Hi, Jack." Sadly, when Joanie turned 6 years old, her family moved from the neighborhood so Janet needed to find a new best friend.  That best friend just happened to be Kathy Jacobelli who lived at the bottom of the hill.  She was a year older than  Janet.  The two new best friends attended the Millersville Laboratory School which eventually became the Susan P. Luek Hall which was part of the Millersville College campus.  To get to school they had to walk down West Frederick St. past Bill Miller's garage on the left side of the street.  Just so happened that they sold candy there.  They also passed Diebert's barber shop and Rettew's grocery store as well as the creepy old Victorian house on the left.  They eventually came to North George Street where Old Main used to be. It was close to a one mile walk and they were told to never take a shortcut through the Millersvile College grounds. Kathy and Janet did everything together.  One day in 1965 Kathy introduced Janet to one of her friends, Ellen.  Ellen was the daughter of Millersville College's President, Dr. Robert A. Christie.  I remember Dr. Christie well since I was still a student at the college at the time.  Ellen opened Janet up to a totally different world than what she had been accustomed to at the time.  Kathy and Ellen were kind enough to bring her along on their adventures.  Janet was now allowed on campus where the three girls would play hid-and-seek in the President's residence which seemed like a mansion to Janet.  Ellen's bedroom was hugh with a canopy bed and white bookshelf that held every one of Nancy Drew's mystery books.  Janet found it very curious that Ellen called her parents by their first names.  The girls went swimming in the college pool and skated on the college pond.  In summer they would play tennis beside Brooks Hall where I also took a course in tennis.  They would wander down to the pond to see the new white swans that had just found a home in the pond.  One day Janet was invited to Ellen's birthday party where everyone was dressed in their Sunday best.  Janet was awed by the hugh store-bought cake with the big red roses on it.  Eventually Dr. Christie resigned his position at the college and moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut.  Shortly after that her other friend Kathy also moved.  She had lost her two best friends which was tough to handle for an 8-year-old.  Two years after that Janet's mother told her the sad news.  The Christies were traveling and their plane had gone down on May 26, 1970 in British Honduras.  They had all died.  Ellen was 12 at the time.  The mother, Sally wasn't found right away, but was found at a later date.  Janet's story appeared recently in the "I Know A Story" column of the Lancaster Newspaper.  She wanted to write the story as another anniversary of their deaths comes and goes, and to remember those three little spirited girls that once frolicked through Millersville State Teacher's College.  She wanted to write the story to honor her friend, Ellen.  There is a plaque in memory of the Christies on campus.  So, if you would happen to be on the grounds of what is now Millersville University, think about Ellen and her family.  I'm sure you will make one of her best childhood friends, Jane, very happy.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.