“It was an accident that happened in the 196os,” a father explained to his little girl while he was holding her hand as they climbed the stairs of the Très-Sainte-Trinité church in Vaudreuil.
They, along with hundreds of others were attending a two-hour memorial to mark the day that, 50 years ago, changed their lives.
On a Friday night, Oct. 7, 1966, a school bus full of students collided with a train at a crossing in Dorion. The accident killed 19 students and the bus driver.
Twenty-two survived and most of them were outside the church, along with friends and family of those who passed on that fateful day.
“We just want to tell the world that we never forgot, we never forgot the people that we lost, it’s dear to us,” Liette Perron said.
Perron was 16 year old at the time when she and other students at her school were heading to a dance.
READ MORE: Survivor recounts deadly Dorion bus crash on eve of 50th anniversary
Lise Paiement and her three sisters, Cecile, Joanne and Gisele, were there to remember their only brother.
“It was his 16th birthday that day,” Paiement said. “He would have been 66 year old today.”
“In Dorion, we feel something is happening this day, every Oct. 7 we feel something,” Paiement said while showing the goosebumps on her arm.
“I was starting my nursing school in Verdun. I saw there was a train accident in Dorion and phoned my mother to ask if she had heard of it,” Paiement said.
“My mother said, ‘yes, and I think your brother was in it.'”
Their home was right next door to the train tracks. They were later expropriated to build the overpass where the accident took place.
On Friday, the Paiement sisters left flowers there.
At 7 p.m. the church’s bell rang to call everyone into the ceremony.
Inside the church, people were hugging and approaching those they knew during that time. Some were seeing each other for the first time after it all happened.
“It took so long for something like this to be done,” Paiement added, after remarking the last memorial was 33 years ago when a plaque was unveiled with the names of all the victims engraved.
The two-hour mass and tribute started with a moment of silence, only broken by a violin rendition of “Over the Rainbow.”
Smiles faded, heads hung low and tears began to flow.
Several speeches were given after the mass but a touching moment came when one of the women – who decided not to go the dance that day back in 1966 – thanked the priest who helped those close to the accident cope.
“He was our friend who helped us. Thank you. What would we have done without you?” she said.
The room erupted, everyone rose and clapped as she handed him a bouquet of flowers, wrapped with a green handmade bow made by Liette Perron.
The priest then lit 22 candles, one for each of those who passed during the tragedy and ever since, while their names were read aloud.
“May this be the light in their souls,” the priest who gave the mass said.
Silence took over the room so everyone could hear all churches across Vaudreuil ring their bells at 7:40 p.m. sharp, the exact time of the accident.
Meanwhile, flags are flying at half mast at Vaudreuil’s city hall until Monday.
But those who were at Très-Sainte-Trinité church in Vaudreuil on Friday were there to make the point that since that Friday Oct. 7, 1966 Dorion changed forever.
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