Roadside Shrines

This appeared May 7, 2006




Another fatal car crash last week brought another roadside tribute.
This time the makeshift shrine appeared on Pigeon Creek Road in South Coventry, the site of an accident that claimed the life of a 17-year-old Owen J. Roberts student one week ago today.
Over the years, the custom of creating memorials to a loved one killed in crashes has taken root across Chester County. One recalls seeing them on North High Street across from the West Chester Golf and Country Club, the site of two fatalities last August, as well as at the intersection of New and Gay streets outside St. Agnes, where a young motorcyclist was killed that same month.
The flowers and photos and letters that marked those memorials were gone within a few weeks after the accidents. But driving along the county's roads, a driver's eye might still catch sight of a shrine that has stood for years, and whose presence is a mystery to all but those loved ones for whom it is a marker of pain and of remembrance.
I have in mind one such site, at an intersection I pass through regularly.
At the spot where Valley Creek Road becomes Quarry Road as it crosses Boot Road, just past the so-called "twin tunnels" in East Caln, stands a white cross dedicated to the memory of two young men who did not know one another but who died in the same accident in November 1991.
Richard Cabott, then 23 years old, and Gregory Brownback, then 24, died because a 26-year-old Exton man had too much to drink that night and ran through the stop sign at the intersection, taking the back roads home to hide his drunkeness from police.
Cabott was a passenger in the drunken man's car; Brownback was driving his 1989 GMC pickup home.
I first noticed the cross after meeting the families of the victims of that crash, and writing the story of their anger and pain over the loss of life. For years I lost track of it, not having any reason to pass by the location, but now have come to see it regularly and view it as a stark reminder of loss.
The cross is well-kept and sturdy. It is planted well into the ground, giving you the sense that it is not coming down anytime soon.
Some states are taking action against such shrines, seeing them as safety concerns and a distraction to drivers. The folks at PennDOT say they have no regulations as to how long roadside shrines stay up - temporary ones with flowers and photos generally are removed by the families of the dead soon afterwards.
Crosses like the one paying tribute to Richard Cabott and Gregory Brownback may never come down; only if they become a safety hazard will officials take action.
I've thought hard trying to understand why the memorials go up in the first place. What draws the crowd to the scene of a tragic crash? How much grief can be eased by the placement of a cross at a crossroads? Why tributes only to those who die violently?
Then I remembered my visit to Cincinnati last month.
Driving back to my sister's house after an errand to the local grocery store, I took a right turn when I should have continued straight, and stopped a block away at a nondescript two- story building.
I gently left the car running and crossed the street so I could see a dark window close to the corner of the building. I stayed for only a moment, turned and left.
Seeing the place where my mother died always connects me to her, even if I don't leave flowers.