On the first of March, 1950, a church in Beatrice, Nebraska exploded at twenty five minutes past seven in the evening. Choir practice started at twenty past. The choir was fifteen people. Every single one of them was late.

The West Side Baptist Church was a small congregation with a punctual habit. Wednesday choir practice began at seven twenty, sharp, and the fifteen members were almost never late. That evening the pastor lit the furnace early, so the church would be warm, and took his family home for dinner. They were due back first. But his daughter's dress was soiled, and while his wife ironed it, the clock slipped past. The pianist meant to arrive half an hour early. She fell asleep after dinner. Her mother, who always came with her, waited for her. One girl stayed at her kitchen table, stuck on a geometry problem, and would not leave it. Two sisters were ready on time, but their car refused to start. A machinist stayed to finish a letter. One member was kept by her mother visiting. One was talking with friends and lost track of the hour. And one, by her own cheerful admission, was just feeling plain lazy, and lingered by the stove.

At about seven twenty five, natural gas that had been leaking from a broken pipe outside met the fire in the furnace, and the West Side Baptist Church blew apart. The blast shoved in the walls, brought the roof down into the sanctuary, and shattered windows across the neighborhood. Firemen sifted the rubble for bodies. There were none to find. The building that should have held fifteen singers and a pastor's family held nobody at all. Fifteen people. Ten different households. Fifteen separate, boring, ordinary delays, on the one night it mattered, and it had never happened before. Not once.

Three weeks later, Life Magazine ran a full photo feature and gave it the only title that fit: Why the Choir Was Late. Every member photographed, every excuse printed. A probability writer later put the odds at around one in a million. The firemen explained the explosion, and no one has ever explained the timing. The choir members themselves never doubted what it was. Chance, or Providence. The photographs are still there. You can look at them, and decide for yourself.

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