As Saint Xavier College students were enjoying boating, fishing and swimming in Lake Marion during the early 1970’s, an airborne menace advanced from the north—a menace that would quickly taint the crystal waters of our precious pond and destroy the innocent fun that had transpired there for nearly two decades.
This menace was the Canadian goose.
A Xavierite headline in 1976 called Lake Marion (then known as SX Sea) a “not so ‘great lake,’” and for good reason (Xavierite 11/08/76, pg. 2). Pollution levels had risen substantially, to the point where swimming had become outright dangerous.
Although the culprit behind the pollution remained obscure in the 1970s, when I recently interviewed Sister Marion Johnson, who taught biology at SXC during that time, she attributed the cause to Canadian geese. “The lake became contaminated by geese [because] they carried bacteria into the lake,” explained Johnson.
Today, we take the geese for granted. They have enveloped our campus en masse, and one cannot walk too far without being hissed at by these petulant birds. However, they apparently did not have a significant presence on campus until the 1970s when their droppings began to pollute the water, effectively ending any kind of recreational activities there. Saint Xavier was not about to take the legal risk of letting students swim or boat in a polluted pond.
Unfortunately, the closure of the lake for recreational activities did nothing to prevent the various tragedies that occurred there over the next two decades. The first tragedy occurred even before the pollution.
It was a common sight in the 1960s for students to see a particular workman out boating on Lake Marion every day. One day, however, people saw the boat floating emptily on the lake. Rescuers arrived and were horrified to find that the man had mysteriously fallen off the boat and drowned in the lake (Interview with Sister Marion Johnson and Sister Joy Clough).
Sadly, this was not the last such occurrence. In the early 1970s, a mentally handicapped man being treated at Pacelli Hall, which was then being rented out to a mental health treatment center, was fishing on the lake when he had a seizure and fell in. He too, drowned. Similarly to the first case, the drowning’s full details were unfortunately never discovered (Interview w/ Johnson & Clough).
Finally, a third tragic accident occurred when some inebriated individuals drove a car into Lake Marion after a party. Horrifically, one of the individuals did not make it out. The car was eventually fished out (Interview w/ Johnson & Clough). Despite this, legends have persisted to this day that there are vehicles buried at the lake’s bottom.
These tragedies represented the darkest moments of the lake’s history and undoubtedly reaffirmed SXC’s administrative decision to ban any kind of activity there.
As a footnote to this troubled period, it is worth mentioning that many local pets were abandoned in the water. Goldfish and 10-inch snapping turtles were commonly found there, left and forgotten by their owners. In one instance during the 1970s, a baby alligator was found off shore, no doubt shocking passers-by (Xavierite 11/08/76, pg. 2).
As the 1970s passed into the 1980s and 1990s, Lake Marion’s glory days passed into distant memory. Now, the polluted lake stood devoid of any activity. Although it still remained a relaxing place for students and locals to frequent, it was a shadow of its former self. Yet, even during the dark times, Saint Xavier never completely forgot about its key landmark. There was always hope for what the lake could become.
Stay tuned for the epic finale: The Saga of Lake Marion: Episode 3—Hope Springs Eternal.
Tony Bara
Viewpoints Contributor
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