Mclouth ? Since the beginning of the year, tragedy has shrouded Joe and Cheryl Nave’s family like a black cloud.

Twice, Cheryl Nave has answered knocks at her front door and faced law enforcement officers who had come to tell her of the death of one of her children.

And twice, Joe Nave, 50, has received telephone calls at work bringing the same news.

In January, their son was killed in a car wreck. In March their oldest daughter committed suicide.

“It was a shock to have one funeral and then turn around six weeks later and have another,” Cheryl Nave, 43, said in a recent interview.

During one of those funerals, a third child was fighting for her life in a hospital intensive care unit.

That’s not all.

Faced with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills, Joe Nave had difficulty getting his job back after he returned from a stint of military duty with the Kansas Air National Guard.

Fatal accident

Joe and Cheryl Nave, of McLouth, with their children Hannah, 5, and Christina, 16, have faced more than their share of tragedy this year. Two months after they lost their youngest son, Ethan, in a car accident, their oldest daughter, Rachel, committed suicide. The Naves are pictured at the front gate to the family property north of McLouth.

The stretch of unthinkable occurrences began the morning of Jan. 23, when one of the Naves’ daughters, 16-year-old Christina, was driving to Oskaloosa High School, which she attended. With her was her 12-year-old brother, Ethan, a junior high school student.

On Fairview Road, 1.6 miles east of U.S. Highway 59, Christina Nave lost control of the 1999 Chevrolet Cavalier she was driving as it slid on ice. The passenger side of the car struck a concrete stanchion, crushing Ethan to death. The car then overturned into the ditch.

“We understand a neighbor, who we still have yet to meet, stopped and opened an airway and kept Christina alive,” Joe Nave said.

Christina was taken by helicopter ambulance to KU Med in Kansas City, Kan. She suffered a collapsed lung, broken ribs and pelvis, a ruptured spleen and a lacerated liver. Her gall bladder was so badly damaged doctors removed it. She received two blood transfusions.

About four hours after the accident occurred, Kansas Highway Patrol troopers arrived at the Nave farm northeast of McLouth to tell Cheryl Nave about the accident.

“That was pretty hard for me to deal with — and to realize that she was already at KU in emergency and I didn’t know anything about it,” Cheryl Nave said.

Joe Nave had just arrived for work as a passenger security supervisor at Kansas City International Airport when he was called and told of the accident.

¢ Obituary for Ethan Joseph Nave (1-26-03)¢ Obituary for Rachel Ann Nave (3-13-03)

Power of prayer

Christina Nave spent three weeks in the intensive care unit. During that time the Naves said they received support from friends and members of their church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Leavenworth.

“We had other churches calling and asking us if they could pray for Christina,” Cheryl Nave said. “It was amazing how many people came forward to talk about it.”

When Christina was released from intensive care, doctors also decided she had recovered enough to be sent home.

“It was the power of prayer,” Joe Nave said, of his daughter’s recovery.

Too distraught

The Naves’ oldest daughter, Rachel, 18, was especially upset about Ethan’s death, her parents said. Rachel didn’t want to stay at the Naves’ house and instead chose to spend nights with a friend.

“She came to the viewing of Ethan, but she was just really beside herself,” Cheryl Nave said. “We couldn’t get her to calm down.”

Rachel didn’t go to Ethan’s funeral. She ended up moving in with family friends who lived in Lansing.

Meanwhile, Joe Nave was called to active duty Feb. 10 with the Kansas Air National Guard’s 190th Air Refueling Wing. He was sent to an air base in Biloxi, Miss.

The night of Feb. 27, Rachel Nave, along with a girl from the family with whom she was staying and a man who worked as a guard at the Lansing Correctional Facility, went out for a night of drinking and ended up at Jack Flanigan’s Bar & Grill, 806 W. 24th St. in Lawrence. The girls stayed that night at the man’s residence in Leavenworth.

Rachel was drunk and fell asleep on a couch, according to the Naves. When she woke the next morning, she found herself in the man’s bed. Rachel told her girlfriend she felt like she had been sexually assaulted. Rachel’s girlfriend told her that the man had picked her up and carried her into his bedroom.

Tragedy strikes again

The girl drove Rachel to St. John’s Hospital in Leavenworth, where she was examined. According to copies of hospital documents and an evidence form completed for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and obtained by the Naves, the examination found evidence of a sexual assault. Leavenworth Police were called to the hospital.

On the night of March 10 in the home where she was staying, Rachel locked herself in her bedroom with a pistol, according to the Naves. She turned the stereo up loud. When someone knocked on her door, she shot herself in the head.

Later Leavenworth County Sheriff’s officers arrived at the Nave home and broke the news to Cheryl Nave.

“I kept asking myself, ‘Why don’t I break down and cry?'” Cheryl said. “I think I was still in that numb state in dealing with the loss of one child, and it just didn’t seem real to come and tell me again that I had lost another one.”

Three days earlier, Rachel had called her dad at the air base in Biloxi and begged him to come home. Rachel said she had been raped, Joe Nave said, and pleaded with him not to tell her mother.

Joe was on his way home when he received a call from Cheryl about Rachel’s suicide.

“I was just torn apart,” Joe said. “It was just more than I could take.”

More problems

As he coped with the death of a second child, Joe Nave said, he became upset with Leavenworth Police after a detective told him there wasn’t enough evidence to arrest the man who allegedly raped his daughter. The detective also said the case couldn’t be prosecuted because Rachel was dead.

“I just lost it,” Joe Nave said. “I want justice for my daughter.”

Leavenworth Police questioned the 22-year-old man Rachel Nave accused of raping her, Lt. Pat Kitchens said. The man denied the allegations. DNA tests are being conducted by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, and results are pending.

But there are other complications, Kitchens said, that would make prosecution difficult. Though Rachel Nave did give a statement to police, because she is dead, a defense attorney will never get to cross-examine her about that statement. Rachel Nave also said she had been too drunk and didn’t remember the assault, Kitchens said.

Recovery

The Naves said they were recovering from the tragedies that befell them. They have been getting family counseling. Christina still has some pain in her hip but no longer has to have physical therapy. She doesn’t remember the accident and says little about it.

Hannah, the Naves’ youngest daughter at age 5, seems to understand what happened to her brother and sister, Cheryl Nave said. Asked where her brother and sister are, Hannah says “with the Heavenly Father.” The Naves also have another son, Michael, who lives in Nevada.

The Nave parents said their surviving children had been the key to staying sane.

“The secret is we still have other children to take care of,” Cheryl said. “If we didn’t have them, I don’t know where we’d be.”

Said Joe: “Without them, I think I would have gone myself.”

The Naves said they also had been overwhelmed by the outpouring of sympathy and assistance from others. Fund-raisers have been organized, and people have walked up and simply handed them money to help pay for Christina’s medical bills. They still owe about $300,000.

Because of Joe Nave’s questionable job status, his health insurance didn’t become effective until recently. There is still a dispute over how much of the medical expenses will be paid by the insurance company, Joe said.

Two weeks ago, after having to go through a recertification process, Joe Nave got his job back with the federal contractor that handles passenger screening at KCI.

The Naves said they often had asked themselves why their family was chosen by fate to go through the recent tragedies. But they don’t dwell on it.

“All we can think of is that maybe there is a purpose and a reason,” Cheryl Nave said, “and maybe someday we will know.”