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Decades After Daring Rescue, 2 Tennesseans Relive Christmas Miracle

Judy Charest and Harold Hogue recounted the story of their fateful meeting for StoryCorps in Nashville, Tenn.
Mia Warren
/
StoryCorps
Judy Charest and Harold Hogue recounted the story of their fateful meeting for StoryCorps in Nashville, Tenn.

On Dec. 24, 1956, when Judy Charest was 3 months old, her father went to take a shower and when he came out, Judy and her mother, Marguerite Hunt, were gone.

"She had driven to the Shelby Street Bridge, and with me in her arms, she jumped 90 feet," Judy recounts for 90-year-old Harold Hogue during a recent visit to StoryCorps in Nashville, Tenn.

Harold, who worked as an engineer with the Nashville Bridge Co. at the time, was part of a group of people who ran to the river after someone spotted her mom floating in it.

"She was hollerin', 'Save my baby!' And my good friend, Jack Knox, jumped in the river at that point," he says. "But it was cold. My gosh it was cold. And so when Jack first handed you to me I just started running up the bank. And after two or three steps I heard the baby grunt. I thought, 'This is too good to be true, she's still alive.' It was a miracle."

Twenty-one years passed before Judy found out what happened that Christmas Eve.

Rescuers pull Judy's mother onto shore on Dec. 24, 1956. Harold Hogue is in the foreground with the white shirt, dark pants and watch.
/ Courtesy of Mike Hudgins and the "Nashville Retrospect"
/
Courtesy of Mike Hudgins and the "Nashville Retrospect"
Rescuers pull Judy's mother onto shore on Dec. 24, 1956. Harold Hogue is in the foreground with the white shirt, dark pants and watch.

"Growing up, I just never knew," she says. "Christmas Day, Daddy would hold me tight and I always wondered why."

Judy's mom was hospitalized after that event and years later diagnosed with bipolar manic depression. She died last year.

"But when they began to treat her illness, she just had a wonderful life," Judy says.

Harold didn't know the name of the baby he ran up the bank with that day, and for years wondered what had happened to her. When the two met again in 2015, it was an emotional reunion.

"We hugged for a long time, and it was so familiar," says Judy, who is now 60 years old. "You know, if it hadn't been for you I would not be here today. And, uh, I want you to be remembered as a very wonderful humble man, but most of all a hero."

Self-effacingly, Harold says, "I feel undeserving, but thank you."

Jack Knox, who dove into the river twice to bring both Judy and her mother to safety, died in 2005.

Audio produced for Morning Edition by Von Diaz.

StoryCorps is a national nonprofit that gives people the chance to interview friends and loved ones about their lives. These conversations are archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, allowing participants to leave a legacy for future generations. Learn more, including how to interview someone in your life, at StoryCorps.org.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

NPR Staff