Dixon has made national news several times in its almost 200-year history. The city’s saddest tragedy, no doubt, would be the 1873 Truesdell Bridge disaster, which killed 46.

But Dixon’s saddest tragedy of the past 100 years is likely the 1957 story of the little Guernsey girls. The heart-rending accident emerged from a quarry at Dixon’s cement plant and was front-page news from coast to coast.

Around July 1, 1957, John Guernsey, 33, and his wife, Ruth, 31, moved to Dixon from Boscobel, Wisconsin, with their eight children. John worked for his father-in-law, Herb Turner, of the excavating firm of H. Turner and Son, which landed a short-term contract with the cement plant. John’s job was to lead a crew of about seven workers to fill an abandoned quarry there.

Seeking to keep the family together during this summer job, John and Ruth drove their 50-foot, 3-bedroom trailer to Dixon, locating it near the top of the cement plant hill on Route 2. Their eight kids were Milly, 11, Nancy, 10, Ruthie, 8, Theresa, 7, John, 5, Virginia, 3, Joni, 2, and Harold, 6 months.

Went outside to play

Early Wednesday afternoon, Aug. 21, 1957, Nancy, Ruthie and Theresa went outside to play on a pleasant summer day. About 3 p.m., Ruthie came inside to play with the baby. Mom (Ruth) got her a cup of cocoa, and Ruthie then went back outside to join her sisters.

Ruth would never again see the girls alive.

About 4:30 p.m., she called for the girls, but they did not answer. Panic soon set in as all her efforts to find them were unsuccessful. Finally, as the sun was setting about 8 p.m., John and Ruth called Lee County Sheriff John Stouffer, who immediately began a formal search.

That night, several small footprints were found in various places in the area, but the clues led nowhere. In case the girls had simply lost their way, the sheriff drove through the area all Wednesday night hoping the girls would come to his headlights.

Volunteers stream to the cement plant

As day broke on Thursday morning, word of the missing girls spread rapidly around town. Volunteers started streaming to the cement plant to help in the search. J. Fred Hofmann, Dixon police commissioner, helped to organize search parties using the cement plant offices as search headquarters.

About noon Thursday, several boats from the sheriff’s office began dragging operations in the river. Illinois State Police launched a plane to search the area from the air. As “hundreds of cars, filled with searchers and the curious” cruised the area, other state troopers directed traffic at the busy cement plant entrance.

The cement plant – and other Dixon factories – released workers from their jobs so that they could join the search with area police and firemen. Scores of others came to help: National Guard troops, the Red Cross, the health department, Boy Scouts, farmers and Dixon High School boys, teachers and maintenance men.

The search intensifies

Searchers combed the 380 acres of cement plant property, often walking within arm’s length of each other. Some volunteers, perched on horseback, were able to scan more ground from a higher vantage point.

More volunteers soon arrived from six area counties. Authorities followed up on many leads and reported sightings, but they all proved to be dead ends.

Rosy Emmert organized a food station for the throngs of searchers, as she worked two straight days without sleep. Scores of women helped Rosy feed the searchers as grocery stores and others donated large quantities of food.

Friday: Hope fades

On Friday, the Telegraph interviewed Ruth, the “soft-spoken” mother, to learn more details as the story was now front-page news around the nation. With tears welling up in her eyes, Ruth said, “I think they got lost and couldn’t find their way home.”

In an editorial comment, the Telegraph publishers wrote, “As the search goes into its third day, let us fervently pray that Nancy, Ruthie and Theresa Guernsey will be found safe and returned to their family circle.”

But as each hour went by, the “got lost” theory began to dissipate. By late Friday, Aug. 23, officials had exhausted all clues, and searchers now feared that someone had abducted the girls or that they had drowned in the river.

About 65 volunteers, including the Boscobel mayor, police chief, chamber president and many Guernsey relatives, traveled from Boscobel by bus to join the massive search. Total volunteer searchers around Dixon were now estimated “as high as 1,000.”

Change of strategy

Frustrated with the lack of progress, Lee County State’s Attorney James E. Bales pushed for digging operations to commence in the primary quarry that was being filled, about a half-mile northwest of the Guernsey trailer.

John Guernsey objected, saying he was certain the girls were not there, adding that he had “warned them several times not to go near the place.” But Bales prevailed, and digging at that quarry began Friday night.

However, heavy rain began to fall, “turning the landfill into a mound of slippery goo.” Searchers trudged through the dark, the rain and the muck, as a bank of floodlights illuminated their progress in the large quarry.

Three pairs of shoes

Shortly after digging began, two searchers found a small shoe. Digging further, workers found three pairs of shoes with socks neatly tucked inside. Authorities rushed the shoes back to the trailer, where Ruth positively identified them.

Digging intensified that night for six more hours as more than 100 workers “manning bulldozers, steam shovels and spades” carefully scoured through “the slimy rain-soaked clay.”

Sitting in a circle

Finally, at 2:45 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 24, Delbert Long and fireman Oscar Smith, both of Dixon, found the girls “several yards deep in the fill,” about 20 feet from their shoes. Their mud-caked bodies were found sitting in a circle under the trunk of an uprooted tree, as though they had been sitting and talking.

The prevailing theory said they were at the base of a 35-foot cliff on Wednesday afternoon when one of their father’s bulldozers, unable to see below, pushed a large load of dirt over the cliff. The girls’ hands were found over their faces, apparently to protect themselves from the dumped dirt.

The coroner ruled that the deaths were accidental. Nancy, 10, died of suffocation. Ruthie, 8, died of a skull fracture, and Theresa, 7, of a fractured neck.

The round-the-clock search finally ended, as the hundreds of devastated volunteers could finally rest and go back to their jobs. The Telegraph reported that more than 10,000 man-hours of labor went into the search.

‘We found the babies’

While the news was quickly spreading across the nation, John Guernsey had the task of returning to the trailer and telling the other children what had happened.

Milly, then 11 but now 79, recalled, “I was in bed sleeping when my father came in, laid down beside me and woke me up.”

The father said, “We found the babies.”

Milly asked if they were OK. He simply told her that they had died. The two then cried together.

Three white caskets

The Guernsey family didn’t wait around for the coroner’s report. They packed up everything and immediately moved back home to Boscobel, then a town of 2,500 about 65 miles west of Madison.

On Monday, Aug. 26, a priest said last rites over the three white caskets at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. A large crowd of nearly 500 packed the funeral at the Boscobel church, while scores stood outside.

Mystery donor

The outpouring of support prompted the Boscobel Chamber to collect donations for the family. Within only three days, donations exceeded $1,000 (over $11,000 in today’s money).

John Jr., then 5 but now 74, recalled that a “mystery donation” was sent to the Boscobel Dial newspaper to cover the family’s expenses. He thinks the donor was Ronald Reagan because of the actor’s connections to Dixon.

At the Boscobel cemetery, three flat gravestones mark the final resting place for the girls. But behind these markers, a large upright gravestone engraved with “The Little Guernsey Girls” stands as a heartbreaking permanent tribute to the three close sisters who tragically died together in the innocent flower of youth.

A visit in the night

Sadly, the family would grieve the loss of another daughter 13 years later when daughter Joni, 14, died of injuries in a motorcycle accident in May 1970.

One can only imagine the depths of the mother’s grief. John Jr. recalled that, after Joni died, “Mom was visited by Jesus when she was sleeping. Jesus said that no more kids would be taken for the rest of her life.” Sure enough, Ruth would never again suffer the loss of another child.

John, the father, died in 2003 at age 79. Ruth died in 2012 at age 86. In all, they had 12 children, and the other eight are still alive today. While researching this story, I spoke with six of them, and it’s clear that they are bound together in a way that few families know.

One bright spot

In 1957, Robert Trellis, the editor of the Dixon Evening Telegraph, cited one bright spot in the midst of this horrifically sad story.

He said, “Dixon helps when help is needed. No one who witnessed the search for the missing Guernsey sisters could doubt that.”

• Dixon native Tom Wadsworth is a writer, speaker and occasional historian. He holds a Ph.D. in New Testament.