RICHBURG -- Nicholas Cherry's cabinet holds the snowglobe he bought at the Biltmore House on a family vacation. His favorite book, "Harold and the Purple Crayon," is also there, as is the hunting outfit he had worn only a few times.
Hannah Quinton's cabinet bears the stuffed dog she slept with, the certificate she won at school for map reading and a picture of her with her little brother, Timmy.
Numerous other items lie in both cases, these shrines of wood and glass, one in the Cherrys' Richburg house and the other at the Quintons' home in Fort Lawn. They honor their children, the two Lewisville Elementary School students who died March 26, 2007, in a wreck near the school.
"Sometimes, it's hard to continue to bring it up," said Hannah's father, Carlton. "Sometimes, you just want some peace. But there are other times that you don't ever want your children forgotten, and you want to shout to the world how great these kids were."
On Wednesday, one year from the day of the crash, two more memorials will be dedicated to the 7-year-old boy who shot his new BB gun once and the 9-year-old girl who was preparing to take the training wheels off her bike.
The Cherry and Quinton families purchased two benches for the Lewisville Elementary playground. Each 300-pound metal seat is painted a Lewisville color and bears the name of a child who died in the wreck.
Nicholas' bench is blue. Hannah's is gold. "In loving memory," they say.
"Some people -- and not like us because we lost a child -- they seem to want to forget and put things behind them," said Nicholas' father, Wayne. "But we'll never put it behind us because it's our child. ... I feel like it happened yesterday."
The families will hold a private memorial service at the playground Wednesday afternoon. Then, they'll go to the hill at the corner of S.C. 9 and Lewisville High School Road, the site of the crash, and bells will toll around the time the children died.
"I don't want my daughter to be forgotten," Carlton said. "For me, it's important that I do something. Rather than sit back and mourn her loss, I want to celebrate her life. I feel like this will help us get by that day."
The wreck
On that day, authorities said George Rogers of Chester ran a red light on S.C. 9, and his logging truck slammed into a minivan at the Lewisville High School Road intersection just as school was getting out.
The crash killed Hannah and Nicholas. Hannah's mother, Alice, was driving the van, and her son, Timmy, and Nicholas' sister, Taylor, were passengers. All three survived, as did Rogers, who was charged with two counts of reckless homicide. His trial date has not been set.
Timmy, then 7, had the most serious injuries of the survivors, breaking his legs, arms and jaw. The impact of the crash was so hard it threw him out of the vehicle, even though he was wearing a seat belt. Some people at the scene didn't think he would live.
But Timmy persevered. He stayed in the intensive care unit for nine days, being cared for by doctors and prayed over by friends and family. He was finally released April 13.
The gifts
Just after the wreck, compassion poured from Richburg, Fort Lawn, Edgemoor, Lancaster and Wayne's hometown of Rock Hill. The families' churches offered the comfort that congregations in small communities do amid tragedy.
"Our church came to our rescue," Carlton said. His family had attended the church for only a year when the wreck happened.
At the Quinton house, people collected mail, cleaned and cooked for more than a month. During the children's funerals, friends kept a vigil by Timmy's side, not wanting him to be alone if he woke up.
Some strangers, generous Samaritans, gave simply because there was a need. Carlton remembers when his septic system backed up. It was the day of Nicholas' wake. The repairman who came to their house wouldn't take a check when he realized who they were.
When some of the Quintons' church friends opened a pizza parlor in Chester that May, they gave away slices on their first day in business and only accepted donations for the families.
