The Sodder Family: A Christmas Inferno
14 min readDec 31, 2019
There is never a good time for your house to burn down and for your children to go missing, but when it happens at Christmastime, the sting burns hotter than usual. And when you lose five children at once, every breath from that point on requires determination and intentionality. Most parents would agree that death would seem like a welcome respite from such immense, soul-crushing pain.
For George and Jennie Sodder, Christmas 1945 brought unending grief and a million questions that, 74 years later, remain unanswered.
