Ella Sue Mitchum Remembered

Dear Mr. Goodwin,
I ordered your book for my daughter, she is our family historian. My grandmother Alma Mitcham Smith had a brother his name was John Thomas Mitchum (for some reason he spelled his name differently than the rest of the family). He had a daughter whose name was Ella Sue Mitchum. I believe she was with a youth group when this fire happened. Sadly enough she was one of the many casualties.

You may already have this information, but I will send it to you anyway, if I can locate it quickly enough... It is a newspaper article on my great uncle's search for several days trying to find his daughter's remains. I know back then that adults were sort of hush-hush about things that they thought would upset children, so all that was really said around us was that Sue had died in the Winecoff Hotel fire and little was said about how bad it really was. It has only been very recently that I have learned how tragic this fire really was.

They say that the divorce rate after the loss of a child is extremely high...my great aunt blamed my uncle for Sue's death and they ended up divorcing. From what I understand she was not in favor of her going on this trip and he let her go anyway. They ended up divorced because of it.

I think I have the article in my documents. I will email it to you if I can find it. Thanks so much for your interest in this, telling the story and being a voice for the victims of this tragedy.

Best Regards-
Carol Hicks


Dear Carol,

This is a doubly sad story indeed. I have read your second e-mail and yes, I do remember the article, "Grim Hunt". I read it in the Atlanta Public Library in the middle 1980s.

Re-reading it brought back the solemn mood that enveloped me throughout much of our original book research. Suddenly and automatically I began reading again to myself in a voice reserved for an adult breaking bad news to a child. I remember the gentle cadence well. I relied on it often during the saddest parts of our research.

Thank you for writing to me and thank you for remembering Ella Sue Mitchum.

Best wishes and be safe,
Allen