When a Nebraska church exploded in 1950, not one of the fifteen people who were supposed to be there for choir practice was injured because every member of the choir was late arriving for practice that evening.
Published Dec. 31, 1998 https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/choir-non-quorum/#o0QZYkyXUSMcAEYL.99
Choir Practise usually began at 7:20pm. At 7:25pm, the church exploded. Here's what happened to the people:
The Reverend lit the church furnace in the afternoon and went home to dinner. At 7:10 he was getting ready to go back with this wife and daughter but she had a dirty dress. They were delayed as the mother ironed another one.
Ladona Vandergrift, a high school sophomore, was having trouble with a geometry problem. She knew practise began promptly and always came early. But she stayed to finish the problem.
Royena Estes was ready, but the car would not start. So she and her sister called Ladona Vandergrift, and asked her to pick them up. But Ladona was the girl with the geometry problem, and the Estes sisters had to wait..
Sadie Estes' story was the same as Royena's. All day they had been having trouble with the car; it just refused to start.
Mrs. Leonard Schuster would ordinarily have arrived at 7:20 with her small daughter Susan. But on this particular evening Mrs. Schuster had to go to her mother's house to help her get ready for a missionary meeting.
Herbert Kipf, lathe operator, would have been ahead of time but had put off an important letter. "I can't think why," he said. He lingered over it and was late.
It was a cold evening. Stenographer Joyce Black, feeling "just plain lazy," stayed in her warm house until the last possible moment. She was almost ready to leave when it happened.
Because his wife was away, Machinist Harvey Ahl was taking care of his two boys. He was going to take them to practise with him but somehow he got wound up talking. When he looked at his watch, he saw he was already late.
Marilyn Paul, the pianist, had planned to arrive half an hour early. However she fell asleep after dinner, and when her mother awakened her at 7:15 she had time only to tidy up and start out.
Mrs. F.E. Paul, choir director and mother of the pianist, was late simply because her daughter was from oversleeping.
High school girls Lucille Jones and Dorothy Wood customarily go to practise together. Lucille was listening to a 7-to-7:30 radio program and broke habit of promptness because she wanted to hear. Dorothy just waited for her.