Editor's note: The Longview News-Journal will be publishing several stories involving the 1937 London School explosion today through Thursday. The school, now the site of West Rusk County Consolidated Independent School District, was lifted from its foundation, when a spark ignited an unknown gas leak, and came crashing down. The odor found in natural gas today is the result of legislation passed in reaction to the explosion.

Click the image above for an audio slideshow in the survivors own words. Click the image above to see a video on London history. Click the image above for more photos. MORE NEW LONDON STORIES: Cenotaph honors those killed in school explosion  London Museum houses items from tragic day  Cemetery home to 129 killed in blast  Through their eyes: Four survivors discuss how the New London explosion changed them forever  During oil boom, before explosion, the school was the PRIDE of New London  Reporters converge on New London  Odor now added to natural gas  Community gathers to honor those who died in school explosion and those who lived  Faces, forever changed: School blast survivors still unable to talk about those they lost  Remembrances roll as London School graduates gather  Silence was normal for many survivors  A shared pain: London School graduates gather to mark blast's 70th anniversary  Explosion survivor's faith still strong after tragedy

She was a girl of 15 when her world came tumbling down.

Literally.

Dorothy Womack, now Dorothy Box, was one of the 500 students and staff in the London School building when it exploded March 18, 1937.

About 300 people died that day.

The explosion shook the ground for many miles around the small oil town of New London, about 30 miles south of Longview.

But it did not shake a young girl's faith.

"I have always felt God in my life," said Box, "both then and now. I never thought God was not with me."

Box was working in the library when the walls fell down around her. She was pinned under a filing cabinet that fell over during the blast, she said, which prevented the roof and other falling debris from striking her.

Another student heard Box's cries for help, and pulled her from the pile of debris.

It was a shocking experience, Box said, but she never thought of blaming God, and didn't know of anyone who did.

"The big question I heard, both at the time and many years later, was why. 'Why me? Why did I live when so many others died?' Or, 'Why did my child die but you lived?' It is just human nature to want to know why," she said.

"But as far as placing blame, I never heard anyone placing any blame on anyone. We just wanted to help each other and move along with our lives."

Dealing with such an extraordinary tragedy at such a young age gave Box a sort of confidence.

"I felt like if God could get me through that, God was going to get me through everything — and he has," she said.

"Death is something that you have to work through. It takes a while before you can realize that things go wrong. There are mountains to climb and valleys to go through, but life is good."

Without her Christian faith, Box said she did not know how she could have gotten through it with her mind intact.

"People who don't have a communication with God, well, I don't know how they do it. I don't know how they faced it," she said.

"I am in constant communication with God. I can talk about this to him, I can talk about anything at all to him, and I believe he is listening and that he cares. Really, I don't know how anyone without faith could get through something like that. We were a community of faith. We all leaned on our faith in God and we leaned on each other," she said.

The explosion was not an act of God, said Box, but an accident of man.

"It was an accident and that's all. Sometimes there is no blame to assign. Sometimes there are tragic accidents and this was one of them," she said.

The 70th anniversary of the explosion is tomorrow and former students will come from all over the country to gather at the site of their old school, now West Rusk County Consolidated Independent School District in New London.

"I'm glad to see them, my old friends and my old classmates, but I am going to see my other friends and classmates again, too," she said in reference to the students and staff members who died that day. "I will join them in heaven one day, probably not too long from now. I have never thought I would not see them again. No, no. I've always known I would see them again."

Box is an elder at the First Presbyterian Church in Henderson.

"God had a plan for my life," she said. "I've never questioned that much and I've tried to live according to that plan. God has a plan for each life, not just mine. I have led a happy life and I am a happy person today and I know it's because I have sought God's plan for my life."

Box said she likes to memorize Scripture and thought an appropriate one for people who experience tremendous tragedy is Philippians 4:6-7: "Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus."