When someone asks the Nickel Mines families where they are from, they sometimes say Georgetown. Or maybe Bart Township.

That's because people recognize the name of their small village and remember "the happening" — as the families call it — that occurred there five years ago today.

Sometimes these families don't want to talk to a curious stranger about the grief of learning their small daughter had been shot to death on a beautiful October morning.

Sometimes they don't want to describe the anxious worry of watching a daughter still struggling with the physical or emotional scars of that day.

On Oct. 2, 2006, the world's eyes turned to a one-room schoolhouse where a troubled truck driver named Charlie Roberts shot 10 Amish girls, killing five and wounding five others, before turning the gun on himself.

A father of two of those girls — one who died and one who survived — says the mountains of grief aren't as steep, and the valleys aren't as dark and deep as they were immediately following the shooting.

Gunshot wounds have healed for some of the survivors, who were 6 to 13 years old at the time of the shootings. They are growing up, some working as hired girls for other families, others immersed in the "running around" phase of an Amish teen's life with its busy schedule of volleyball games and other gatherings.

The families of the girls also have welcomed nine new children into the world.

Faith, family and friends, and a caring world, have eased the pain of that day.

But not erased it.

"I don't think it will ever completely go away," says one father, who lost two daughters, one 7 and the other 8.

"No," his wife says quietly, looking across the room at him, "I don't think it will."

Their world, 5 years later

A few outward things have changed in Nickel Mines in the past five years, years that brought tsunamis and hurricanes, a new president to the U.S. and new freedoms to the Arab world, bedbugs infestations and WikiLeaks, the swine flu and the final Harry Potter book to the rest of the globe.

Here in this quiet valley, the yellow West Nickel Mines School building has vanished, torn down shortly after the shootings. The site now is an ordinary green pasture.

The New Hope School was built a short distance away, not far from the homes of some of the families who lost daughters that day.

Children still walk across farm fields to the school every morning. At recess, they pour out of its doors to pick up sides for baseball or other games in the play yard, now removed from the main road.

But the families and community have been forever changed by what happened.

Seven families lost or had daughters injured that day. Two of those families suffered both hardships.

Lost were: Naomi Rose Ebersol, 7; Lena, 7, and Mary Liz Miller, 8; Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12; and Marian Fisher, 13.

Naomi, Anna Mae and Marian are buried in a row in a simple Amish cemetery. The Miller sisters are in the same cemetery, buried next to an uncle.

Three of the five surviving girls have recovered completely from the physical effects of the shootings, bearing only small scars.

Sarah Ann Stoltzfus, now 13, was shot in the back of the head, the bullet exiting her right temple, where it left a 3-inch hole. She lost 5 percent to 10 percent of her brain tissue due to the shooting and its aftermath, her parents say. The parents, like other family members of the girls, asked that their names not be used.

Remarkably, she now has only a small scar under her hairline and is an "A" student at New Hope.

She is the only girl from the shootings who is still a New Hope "scholar," as Amish families call students.

Overall, there is a noticeable shortage of girls of a certain age in the community.

Rachel Stoltzfus, also 13, was shot in the arm and the jaw. She had bone grafting done in her jaw, but also has only a small scar.

She still needs some dental work, but otherwise is physically recovered. She works as a hired girl for a neighboring family, her parents say.

Esther King, now 18, was shot in the back but also recovered. She now helps out at the New Hope School.

Two of the girls still have physical problems from the shootings. And when they hurt, the whole community hurts, families say.

Barbie Fisher, who is 16, has had several surgeries and still has some problems with her shoulder. She also is working as a hired girl.

The most severely injured girl is the youngest survivor. Now 11, Rosanna King is in a wheelchair and does not walk or talk. She is awaiting treatment for a hip problem.

This little girl, who attends a special-needs school for Amish children, uses a specialized computer mounted on the front of her wheelchair.

Two cameras in the computer track her eyes and, with them, she can move a cursor. If she stares at an image for a fixed time, she can activate links that take her to photos of family and friends, a box that plays a recording that says "Thank you," or a recording of her brothers singing.

She also can use the cursor to go to a keyboard and spell out messages. She recently spelled "Hi Leroy," to one of her brothers.

Her father says, "We have lots of reason to believe she knows everything that goes on."

She sits at the dinner table with her family, watching when her brothers act up or say something funny.

"She's very apt to be the first one laughing," her father says.

One of the babies born to a Nickel Mines family — a family who lost two daughters — was born the day before Rosanna's Sept. 11 birthday, about one year ago. The family named the baby after Rosanna.

"She gave us hope," says the mother. "She was sent home to die and did not. There was hope there."

There is one other girl, who was not killed or injured by Roberts, but was affected by the shootings.

Emma Fisher was the only girl to escape the schoolhouse that day. She said she heard a voice, which some believe was heaven-sent, urging her to slip out quietly, saying, "If you go out, don't run."

Though she was not injured, one of her sisters, Marian, died and the other, Barbie, was hurt. The girl's parents say Emma struggled with her feelings after the shootings, wrestling with survivor's guilt.

Today, her dad says, "She's a normal 14-year-old girl."

Her family, like the others, does not avoid talking about the shootings. But neither does it dominate every conversation or every day of their lives.

Life goes on, they say. It has to.

Her mother says, "You worry, are you going to forget this stuff? You really don't want to forget it. But it's still nice to be normal."

"We want," her husband adds, "to be normal people."

Lingering pain

In interviews at their homes, the families spoke frankly about how the passage of time affects the scars they carry.

A father who lost two daughters says he thinks about the girls at harvest time. He imagines the elder girl driving a team of horses in the fields.

His wife watches her children walk down the farm lane on the way to school, and has a momentary halting fear she might not see them return.

She also has pangs when she sees her daughters' friends, and imagines her own girls being the same age now.

"We still watch the girls that are her age," admits another father, who also lost a daughter. But he is quick to add there is also a measure of peace with such thoughts.

"We feel she's well taken care of. She's taken a shortcut through this life."

Almost all the Nickel Mines families speak of "stabs of pain" that linger, and likely will never go away.

One father talks of meeting a dad who speaks of a son lost 20 years ago, and still the tears of grief flow. The Nickel Mines father wonders if he will still be so wounded, 15 years from now.

Some days are harder than others.

"We could often have gone off the deep end if we didn't keep ourselves in check," one father says. "We still have to be careful, or we'll fall off."

Sometimes, sadness is triggered by a particular event: a birthday, a baptism, the birth of a new brother or sister.

And those who survived also struggle, wondering why they lived and their friends or sisters did not.

Some parents wonder if the families whose daughters were injured suffer more than those whose girls died.

Some of the boys who were in the schoolhouse that day also have struggled with survivor's guilt. Roberts allowed them to leave with their teacher and some adults who were visiting. Some of the boys had sisters who remained behind.

The families agree that time has helped to heal, but not to erase, emotional wounds.

"I would say we think about it every day, but not with the deep pain that we did at first," says a father whose 7-year-old daughter was killed. "At first, you woke up every morning and the truth hit you again, and what had happened."

A father who lost a daughter says, "I'm at peace with her death, but that doesn't mean I don't have periods of pain. It's just not as sharp as it was the first year. It's just more of an aching longing to still have her here than the sharp pain of loss."

Some of the families say they faced the "Why us?" question. But, their reply is surprisingly straightforward: "Why not us?"

"The best answer is bad things happen to a lot of people, and nobody is exempt from the bad things that do happen in this world," says one father.

Adds a mother, "We wouldn't have wished it on anybody else, either."

The passage of time helps, family members say.

So does their faith.

Says a father, "I probably would have fallen off the cliff, if it wouldn't be for my faith in God."

Giving back

In no small measure, the support and compassion of people from around the globe also helped families to cope and heal.

The families remain simply amazed at the outpouring of letters of condolence, advice and money from strangers.

"We got over 3,000 cards and, more than one-third, we have no idea of who they are," says a mother.

The grandfather of one of the victims recalls a letter that came from an older woman from New York. She apologized for only sending $5, saying she wanted to give more but simply didn't have it.

"I said the whole world was praying for us," he says. "You could feel the support."

Adds a father, "As far as the community, I think it made us all realize — Amish, Mennonite, English — we're a lot more alike than we thought we were."

In recent years, the families have made it their mission to get in touch with other families who have lost loved ones. They try to help by sharing their experiences with pain, healing and forgiveness.

It's why some of the families have counseled a family who lost a son in the Virginia Tech shootings. Some have talked with a recovery group for a woman shot in Vermont. One grandmother of a Nickel Mines girl regularly corresponds with a mother who lost a daughter in the 1999 Columbine High School shootings.

Some have even consoled grieving parents who have found their way to their doorstep.

Most of the families have attended an annual Amish event known as the Sudden Death Reunion.

Held in a different Amish community each year for those who have lost loved ones, mostly children, the event draws hundreds. It mixes hymn singing with formal and informal collective sharing of experiences.

"We just know that there's more people who are going through the same thing ... and we're all in the same boat," says a mother who lost two daughters in the Nickel Mines shootings.

Everyone benefits from being together.

"Sharing your grief with others helps with the healing," says one mother.

"That's huge, sharing the grief," agrees her husband. "I have to think of a saying, 'A burden shared is a burden divided, and a joy shared is a joy multiplied.'

"I really feel bad for the people in your world who lose a child and don't have the connection with other people with similar experiences."

A grandfather considers the grief counseling by the families a way to give back.

"The support of the whole world helped us through five years ago. And now we can help them. It comes back, helping those people."

Also helping families to heal are the new children they have had, without hesitation.

"We wanted to have more, but we desperately wanted to have a girl," says one mother, who lost her only daughter.

"It's been a blessing — mainly to have that girlishness, giggles and little frills and dresses and dolls and all the girlish things that go with it."

Memory corners

There is a conscious effort in each of the four families who lost girls to keep the memories of their daughters alive. All keep mementos and some of the girls' personal belongings on display in their homes.

Most have dedicated "memory corners," visible touchstones for siblings and parents alike.

In the corner of one family's living room, there is a glass case with shelves of now-cherished knickknacks, including rose petals from the young girl's funeral, her favorite dolls, a report card, the shoes she wore to school on the day of the shootings and the cooler lunch box she carried.

The family also has about a dozen scrapbooks filled with memories and condolences written by relatives, neighbors and strangers.

On one page, a lock of the girl's hair, clipped after her death. On another, this from the girl's schoolteacher: "You're in my heart to stay."

People magazine also gave the families hardback books containing more than 1,000 condolences that readers posted on its website after the shootings.

Many of the families also have framed prints of a painting of the former school. "The Dawning of a New Day" was painted by State Trooper Glenn E. Blue, who was one of the first officers on the scene and continues to have a special relationship with the families.

The painting shows the school as it once was. Five white doves, flying heavenward, represent the five girls who died. Five other doves, perched on the roof, symbolize the five girls who were shot and survived.

Forgiveness

Not only do the families have to face their own grief and pain, they have to confront who caused it.

Roberts, in their view, was a sick man. Some think he was tormented by the devil.

"I look at the whole event as something that Satan planned, and Charlie was his tool," says one father.

"Because of his mental illness, the devil was able to use him as a tool."

The families immediately forgave Roberts and reached out to his family even in their grief, an act that impressed the world.

But the families say the path to forgiveness is ongoing and must be walked every day.

"Some look at it as once and done. Now I forgive, and it's once and done," explains a mother whose only daughter was killed by Roberts.

"Making the choice and following through — it's still going on. You get hit with a wave of grief, and you wonder why do I do this. You kind of have to process that whole thing again and put it back in the file cabinet and find it again."

Says a father, "It's all part of healing. I guess that's basically from our belief and the way we were brought up that we realize it doesn't help to hold a grudge against anybody.

"It doesn't help us move on."

Adds another father, "I can say I forgive Charlie Roberts, and I mean it, but that doesn't mean I don't have to revisit the issue next time."

"It's a journey," agrees another father.

A changed world

The Amish community, and its neighbors, had their eyes opened to the dangers of the outside world after Oct. 2, 2006.

After the shootings, the county emergency management agency developed a list of Amish schoolhouses, along with contact information, and assigned each of them a street address. Municipal officials identified nearby landing sites for medical helicopters, should they be needed.

Today, more of those schools keep their gates closed during the day.

And parents of scholars might turn their head and notice a strange vehicle driving past, more than they did before the shootings.

But they do not live in fear. They say they rely on a higher power.

"Some parents send their children to school with a prayer," one father says, "more now that this happened."

The community has more connections with the outside world, due to "the happening." Unusual friendships have developed.

One family gets a visitor every year, an English woman who is a friend of a friend, who brings them a meal around the anniversary. The families have remained close to some of the state troopers who came to the schoolhouse that day.

And one very strong friendship rose from the horrible tragedy.

The Amish community developed a close bond with Chuck and Terri Roberts, the parents of Charlie Roberts.

Every week, Mrs. Roberts travels to Rosanna King's home, to help care for the little girl for several hours, singing to her and reading Bible stories and books such as "Anne of Green Gables."

"Her and Rosanna have a pretty good relationship," Rosanna's father says, chuckling at how Mrs. Roberts uses a ton of expression and enthusiasm when she reads.

On the anniversary of the shootings, the families who had children in the school that day always gather.

This year, the families planned to get together with some of the rescue personnel who were at the schoolhouse.

Over the years, the families have found that memories are changeable and can be unpredictable.

Last year at the gathering, the girls started talking with each other, in front of their parents, about the day.

Each one remembered it a little differently — who was where, what happened when.

The families' own feelings have changed, in a way they also might not have predicted.

One father says, "I'm to the point where it's something I don't want to forget.

"When we talk about the happening, yes, it hurts. But there are some special feelings that come with it. There are some precious memories. It's a good feeling to talk about those memories."

acrable@lnpnews.com
cstauffer@lnpnews.com

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