Unsolved Histories: Closure

When Private Bruce Barrowman boarded Flight 293, he was just 17 years old. Bruce’s loss has haunted his younger brother Greg for decades. At times, Greg has struggled to make sense of what happened, and to find some way to commemorate Bruce and the other 100 passengers and crew who were lost. Through years of grief and sometimes anger and frustration, Greg repeatedly asked the military to search for the wreckage to find for answers to the big questions about what went wrong and why the DC-7C went down in the Gulf of Alaska. At the same time, the Barrowmans also did what they could to memorialize Bruce and never forget his sacrifice – and theirs, too.

Personal Monuments to Hidden Grief

As Greg began connecting with other Flight 293 families, he learned that many have been trying to do exactly the same thing. Like the Barrowmans, many families felt abandoned by the US government. They hunted online for information about the flight, and some also built private monuments to their lost loved ones alongside their family homes, complete with plaques and flagpoles. With help from many of those Flight 293 families and from an informal network of aviation and military historians and others simply interested righting a decades-old wrong, Greg Barrowman led an effort to publicly commemorate the loss of those aboard, and to finally dedicate a permanent monument to the tragedy.

Creating a Permanent Memorial

On June 3, 2023, many Flight 293 families gathered near Seattle for a public ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of the crash. The gathering formally memorialized the six-member civilian crew from Northwest Airlines, and the 95 active duty military, dependents and federal employees who were aboard the plane. Among the more than 100 people who came from around the United States to pay their respects and to share their stories was Cherie Pipkin-Gardener, Bruce Barrowman’s high-school girlfriend.“I am so proud to be here, and I’m so grateful,” Pipkin-Gardener, who traveled from Arizona, said. “I think the things that Greg and the rest of his family have done are phenomenal. It’s helped so many people.” Once the privately funded monument had been formally dedicated at Tahoma National Cemetery south of Seattle, the Flight 293 families gathered for a picnic at Greg Barrowman’s nearby home.

As Close as Our Language Can Come

“I don’t know if you really have closure,” Pipkin-Gardener said, as she shared stories about Bruce and about her lifelong bond with the Barrowman family. “I don’t know if closure is the right word,” she continued, “but I think it’s as close as our language can come.”

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