Docuseries on Bath School disaster nears completion

After 19 years, “Forgotten: America’s Deadliest School Massacre,” a three-part docuseries on the Bath School disaster, is close to completion. A showing of the “fine cut,” the last cut prior to finalizing the video, coincides with a fundraising campaign by Bath residents to establish a new Bath School Museum.

The Bath School Museum Committee, which is working to replace its museum at Bath Middle School with a dedicated building at James Couzens Memorial Park, will host a showing of the first two episodes at 6:30 p.m. Thursday (Aug. 1) at Bath Middle School. The cost is $15, and proceeds will benefit the museum project. Tickets can be purchased on Eventbrite by searching “Forgotten.”

On May 18, 1927, a disgruntled local farmer and former public official set off dynamite at Bath Consolidated School, leaving 43 dead, including 38 students, four staff members and one bystander, according to the Bath School Museum. The media streamed into Bath, and all aspects of the tragedy were soon known worldwide.

In 2005, Michigan State University graduate Matt Martyn was working as a temp when a colleague retold the story of the bombing.

“I lived in Lansing and had never heard anything about it,” Martyn said.

Martyn is the co-founder and co-owner of a production company, Ahptic Film & Digital. He and his business partner had just purchased a newfangled high-definition video camera and were looking for ways to use it. They thought a documentary on the bombing would be the perfect opportunity.

However, after months of attempts to introduce themselves to the Bath community, the filmmakers learned that collecting interviews “would prove to be very difficult,” Martyn said.

They consulted the late Jim Hixson, one of the early members of the Bath School Museum Committee, for help. Coincidentally, they met on May 18, the anniversary of the bombing.

Martyn remembers the conversation. Hixon began by telling them that “78 years ago, the community was pulling children’s bodies out of the rubble.”

He shared the names of survivors and gave the pair some advice: “Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do this.”

However, the filmmakers still needed to gain the community’s trust.

“We needed a breakthrough,” Martyn said.

He recalls talking with five survivors that year and two more the following year.

“They just weren’t ready to go on camera,” Martyn said. The filmmakers learned first-hand about what’s known as “survivor’s guilt.” It was almost taboo to talk about the bombing and its aftermath.

Despite the community’s reticence, by 2012, the filmmakers had completed an hour-long documentary. However, they shelved the film, instead choosing to try to make their company successful in the world of commercial filmmaking.

Two things changed that. In 2017, the Bath community held a 90th-anniversary commemoration. The middle school gym was packed, and people began talking about the bombing and its aftermath. At the same time, the world learned that school shootings were “not a fluke,” according to Martyn. Coupled with the growing interest in true-crime television, the producers decided to create a new documentary telling the story of the victims and heroes of the Bath School disaster.

They reshot the documentary using two cameras and advanced techniques like drone videography. It was the real deal. They even built replicas of the school to blow up and found period props to bring authenticity to the film.

The result, according to Martyn, is a documentary told from the point of view of the people of Bath, including survivors. Martyn and his partner are in the process of selling the documentary to a larger audience, but he said they couldn’t turn down the opportunity to show the fine cut to a local audience.

Since the documentary began its long journey, numerous books have been written on the Bath School disaster, including “Bath Massacre: America’s First School Bombing,” by Arnie Bernstein; “The Forgotten Children of Bath: Media and Memory of the Bath School Bombing of 1927,” by Amie M. Jones; and “Day of Days,” a masterful historical-fiction book by John Smolens. All of them offer new and significant details and opinions regarding the bombing and its context in American history.