Someone covered up her father’s body on a frigid beet field outside of Longmont on Nov. 1, 1955 in an act of kindness and compassion that Marian Hobgood Poeppelmeyer never forgot. Volunteers and first-responders did the same to other victims of the United Airlines Flight 629 that same night.
All 44 passengers and crew on Flight 629 — also known as the Mainliner Denver — were killed after it exploded 20 minutes after takeoff from Denver’s Stapleton Airfield bound for Anchorage. The victims included 31-year-old Marion Pierce Hobgood, Poeppelmeyer’s father, a man she never met.
John Gilbert Graham was later convicted and sentenced to death for his role in the explosion. Graham, in a bid to collect insurance money, had loaded his mother’s suitcase with 25 sticks of dynamite and rigged the explosives to detonate, according to an account in the Denver News.
Peoppelmeyer told the City Council Tuesday night the work of the those who responded to the first ever airplane bombing over U.S. soil and, at up to that time, the largest mass murder in U.S. history, should be memorialized in Longmont.
“On behalf of my sister, mother, and entire Hobgood family, I give my utmost gratitude, thanksgiving and commendation to all the unsung heroes from your community who exhibited such bravery, courage and compassion in the efforts to recover the bodies, search for survivors, and assist authorities in any way they could,” Peoppelmeyer said in a letter to the city council. “Your community rose to the occasion and displayed American spirit and heroism.”
Farmers and other local residents responded to the scene and found carnage in pitch black darkness. Plane parts were flung everywhere, fires were burning and bodies strewn across the fields, she said. Some of the bodies were still strapped to their seats.
A search-and-rescue and cleanup effort drew over 200 people. Local, state and federal teams labored throughout the night into the next morning to search for survivors and cover the dead, including Peoppelmeyer’s father, she said.
“All the local fire and police departments, including Longmont, worked hard around the clock to assist the recovery of victims. They did not hesitate or think twice about what to do — they just did it,” she said in her letter to the council.
After 66 years, Peoppelmeyer was able to travel to the crash site. But she found no public recognition to honor the citizens who rushed to the area to help. “So, I have written this letter as a public ‘Thank you’ from one of the families touched deeply.”
Hobgood died with one child and one on the way, which was Peoppelmeyer. She was named Marian after her father. She said she was born prematurely due to the stress put on her mom after Hobgood’s death.
“I never knew my father, never felt his touch, or heard his voice,” Peoppelmeyer said.
Peoppelmyer wrote about her loss in a 2017 book “Finding My Father,” and helps others recover from trauma.
She told the council she hoped the city would set aside Nov. 1, as a time to remember the victims and heroes of Flight 629. “I can help in any way I can to mark the day,” she told the council.
The council gave no indication it would respond to her request.
