While President Joe Biden left wreaths on the graves of his first wife and their baby daughter Sunday at St. Joseph’s on the Brandywine cemetery in Greenville, someone in Hockessin also was recognizing the 50th anniversary of the car crash that took their lives.
A handcrafted sign that reads “Neilia Naomi RIP 12/18/1972” now sits in front of one of two holly trees that are decorated at Valley and Limestone roads where the accident occurred.
Who put the sign there and when isn’t yet known. A reader alerted a Delaware Online/The News Journal reporter about its presence.
For several years and this year since at least early December, an unknown person (or persons) decorated two scraggy holly trees in a grassy open space at the intersection with garlands, bows and strings of colored lights that blink at night. The Christmas ornaments on the trees include one with a cardinal, a bird that some believe represents someone who has died.
More:A holiday mystery: Who is decorating 2 trees at Valley and Limestone roads in Hockessin?
There hasn’t been any sign or message near the site explaining who has trimmed the trees.
It’s not known if the same person who decorated the trees added the sign.
What is known is the four-way intersection is where President Biden’s first wife, Neilia, and his baby daughter, Naomi, died 50 years ago in a car accident on Dec. 18, 1972, one week before Christmas. She and her three young children had just gone shopping for a Christmas tree. According to 1972 news reports, Neilia, driving a station wagon, pulled away from a stop sign at Valley and Limestone roads, and the car was hit by a man driving a tractor-trailer.
Neilia, 30, and 13-month-old Naomi, known as Amy, were dead on arrival at the hospital. Sons Beau and Hunter, then 4 and 3 years old, were seriously injured. Joe Biden, who had just been elected to the Senate was in Washington hiring staffers.
The driver of the truck later was absolved of any wrongdoing. Retired Delaware Superior Court Judge Jerome O. Herlihy, who was chief attorney general in 1972 and worked with crash investigators, told The News Journal in 2008 that investigators discussed several possible causes for the crash, including one that Neilia Biden turned her head and didn’t see the oncoming truck as she exited the intersection of Valley and Limestone roads.
Before the sign remembering Neilia and Naomi Biden was erected, local residents had said they thought the holly trees were decorated over the years to be festive and were not a roadside memorial.
More:Joe Biden lost his wife and baby daughter 50 years ago. It changed the course of his life
“I don’t believe it’s part of a memorial for the Biden family members killed at that location, as I can’t recall if the trees have been decorated every year, going back some 19+/- years when I moved to Hockessin. I recall seeing it about 10-12 years ago,” Mark Blake, president of the Greater Hockessin Area Development Association, said in an email to Delaware Online/The News Journal.
“I’ve often wondered who does the annual Christmas decorations at the corner but haven’t seen them or ‘caught them in the act,’” said Blake, adding he often drives by the intersection.
On Sunday, President Biden, first lady Jill Biden and other family members attended a private memorial service at St. Joseph’s for Neilia and Naomi. Family members then carried two wreaths to the graveyard where Biden’s son, Beau, who died in 2015, also is buried.
Contact Patricia Talorico at ptalorico@delawareonline.com and follow her on Twitter @pattytalorico
