Family comes to terms with tragedy 35 years after drowning

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) - For nearly 35 years, Nathan Denton says, his mother has kept a box filled with news clippings, Valentine's Day cards and other mementos of her daughter, Theresa Gayle Denton.

She never opened it or even moved it.

Denton himself had no such box. He carried all the mementos in his head - along with guilt that was shared by his entire family.

It was 35 years ago come March 15 that the event happened.

Denton said his mother didn't drive at the time, so they walked everywhere they had to go. On that particular day, Denton, who was 7, his brother, who was 8, and his sister, who was 10, headed out for the grocery.

They asked their mother if they could cut across part of the frozen Indian Lake, a small lake south of Ligonier in Noble County. Denton's brother had been ice fishing on the lake earlier, so it seemed safe. She said yes.

The two brothers walked onto the ice, and their sister followed. At some point, they heard ice begin to crack, and their sister fell through. The heavy fur coat she was wearing weighed her down, and she disappeared.

A state trooper was first on the scene. He stripped off his uniform and jumped into the lake, which was only 8 feet deep, but he couldn't find the girl, according to The Journal Gazette (http://bit.ly/1CCy4py ).

By the time Denton, who had run to get help, returned to the scene, there were police cars and fire trucks and an ambulance. But his sister was dead.

Since that day, the entire family has shared guilt, Denton said - his mother blaming herself for letting them cross the lake and he blaming himself for running from the scene, even though he was seeking help.

Nearly 35 years later, there's still a lot of hurt and pain, Denton says, but the family has gotten to the point where it's not struggling as much as it once did.

"In the past year, we've made a lot of progress in dealing with our loss," Denton said. His mother joined a grief counseling group. Denton himself wrote a lot about how the event affected him.

Only recently did Denton come to realize it wasn't just his family that was affected by the tragedy. He created a Facebook page in his sister's memory, "and people started coming out of the cracks saying how it affected them," including first responders who remembered the day and people who were friends with Theresa.

"I came to realize it's not just our family dealing with it," Denton said. That was comforting, he said.

Call it closure, call it finally being able to deal with a distant tragedy, but on March 15 this year, 35 years after it happened, Denton and his family plan to have a memorial service and place a stone with a plaque with his sister's picture at the site where the tragedy happened.

They'll never forget the tragedy. They'll never forget the efforts others made to save Theresa Gayle. They'll probably never completely shed feelings of guilt, even if they don't deserve to carry feelings of guilt.

But it will show that they have finally accepted what happened one late winter day in 1980.

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Information from: The Journal Gazette, http://www.journalgazette.net