Tragedy On Picnic Day

Jerry Banik, January 2026

“In all the parish activity of a social nature, the ‘parish’ days and ‘picnic’ days are longest remembered.”

Those words come from Fifty Years Of Grace, the official history of Whiting’s Saint John the Baptist Catholic Church, published in 1947.  But the events of Picnic Day 1942, though long remembered, are heartbreakingly sad. 

St. John’s had, and still has, a Holy Name Society, a brotherhood of Catholic men united to honor, respect and praise the name of Jesus.  Its Junior members in 1942 were of high school age, often including those with vocations to become priests.  The Daughters of Mary were a religious society of the parish, fostering a devotion to the Virgin Mary.

On July 26, 1942, after Sunday Mass, nearly eighty children from those societies were loaded into two trucks, to be taken to Washington Park in Michigan City for an outing and picnic.

In the first truck that day were approximately forty girls.  In the second there were about thirty boys and eight girls.

Driving that second truck was a young man about to be inducted into the Army.  The truck’s owner rode alongside him in the cab.  Among the more than three dozen care free, happy children in the back was a boy carrying a cage that held two of his pet homing pigeons.  Another boy, a Whiting Boy Scout, rode with him.

The first truck arrived safely at Washington Park at about noon.  At about the same time, the second of the two trucks approached the South Shore railroad tracks at the Porter/LaPorte county line, less than a half mile from its destination.  It had been briefly delayed by a flat tire near Gary, a happenstance that was destined to result in tragedy.

Local newspapers reported what happened.

According to the reports, as the truck approached the South Shore crossing a train was also approaching.  When the truck’s driver saw it and realized it was coming too fast for him stop in time, he tried to speed across the tracks, ahead of it.  The train plowed into the truck, hitting it at the back of the cab, smashing it to pieces.

The truck’s driver was twenty-nine-year-old Michael Solomon, a member of Saint Stanislaus’ Catholic Church in East Chicago.  America being in the midst of World War II, Mr. Solomon was scheduled to be inducted into the Army in a month.  He was killed upon impact, and taken to the Lesniak Chapel in East Chicago.

Riding in the cab with him was his friend and owner of the truck, Mike Celenica.  Mr. Celenica, age 64, was a retired businessman and a thirty-five-year resident of Whiting who lived on Steiber Street.  He, too, died on site and was taken to Baran’s funeral home in Whiting.

The boy who had brought his pet homing pigeons with him was thirteen year old George Mateja of Reese Avenue in Robertsdale.  He had been riding in back with the other students and died at the scene.  The Hammond Times wrote that earlier, while the flat tire on the truck was being repaired, young George had released the pigeons.  An eighth-grade graduate of St. John’s, he was to have entered into Catholic Central (now Bishop Noll) High School in the Fall. Two of his sisters, who were riding in the truck ahead, had already made it safely to the park in Michigan City, and only learned of George’s death while at the park later that afternoon.

George’s body was taken to his parents’ home in Whiting, where members of the Holy Name Society and Junior Daughters of Mary met as a group to pray and pay their last respects.  Saint John’s pastor, Father John Kostik, officiated George’s funeral services at the church before his burial in St. John’s Cemetery.

Anthony Pavliscak, age fifteen and a graduate of St. John’s grade school, was a sophomore at Central Catholic and a member of Whiting’s Boy Scout Troop 4.  He was one of seven brothers and sisters, and lived with his parents on Atchison Avenue in Whiting.  It’s said he had been hurled by the train’s impact some one hundred and fifty feet into a field.  Badly injured, he was taken to Saint Anthony’s hospital in Michigan City but could not be saved.  He passed away there four days later without having regained consciousness.

Seventeen-year-old John Gurchiek of 120th Street in Whiting was badly injured but recovered, though he suffered the amputation of one of his feet.

Nine other young parishioners in the truck were injured badly enough to be taken to Michigan City’s Clinic Hospital for treatment.  Others were treated for their injuries at the scene.

Father John Kostik was in Wisconsin on the day of the accident.  He was said to be crushed when he received the news, which had wrongly reported that everyone on the truck had been killed.  Though the correct information was not as bad, thereafter the Father remembered it as one of the saddest days of his life.

What was to have been a carefree day of picnicking would only be remembered with anguish by the church’s parishioners for the rest of their lives.  The grief of the families and friends who lost and loved ones that day would never be forgotten.