For 15 years, Benjamin Priddy had been driving a Shelby County school bus, picking up and dropping off students at the little schools in the Eads, Arlington, and Collierville areas. During that time, his driving record had been impeccable.
But on October 10, 1941, Priddy made a fatal error that would result in the worst school tragedy in Shelby County history. That afternoon, he picked up a busload of kids from the George R. James Elementary School, a little schoolhouse that once stood on Collierville-Arlington Road, just southwest of Eads. Driving along the two-lane county roads, he had dropped off all but 17 of his young passengers, when he made a sharp turn to cross the railroad tracks that once cut through the heart of the little farming community. Although he had a clear view of the tracks at the crossing, for reasons we will never know he pulled directly into the path of an N.C. & St.L. passenger train roaring towards Memphis at 50 miles per hour.
The tremendous impact almost ripped the bus in half, tumbling the wreckage into nearby woods. Priddy was killed instantly, along with seven of his passengers; many of the other children were horribly injured. In those days, few families in the county had telephones. News of the tragedy spread by word of mouth, and frantic parents rushed to the scene, piled the little victims into cars and trucks, and rushed them to the nearest hospital in Memphis, more than 20 miles away. “It was one of those sights you never want to see again,” one father told the Memphis Press-Scimitar. At Baptist Hospital, other parents found themselves “in a madly revolving world suddenly but surely spinning off its axis.”