97 Escort Wagon stopped starting

We drove from Flint to Windsor Canada, stopping at the zoo for a few hours, with no problems. Then I took it out to get some groceries and when I got back in, it wouldn't start. No lights, no radio, at first there was the beep that the key was in with the door open and it had a click when we tried to start it. Then a man with a truck offered to give us a jump, but that didn't help, and it became completely dead. (no lights, no click, no horn, no door beep, nothing)

There was no dashlight warning beforehand, or anything of that sort.

My Escort is a 92, so it might be laid out differently - but there is a box of important fuses near the battery. One of them is a 100 amp 'main fuse' that is actually bolted in place; the 2 10mm bolts being on the side of the case. I would check those connections and all of the relevant fuses in there - either for being blown, or having corroded and overheated contacts. On mine these fuses take the place of any 'fusible links'.
Also check the fuses in the fuse box inside the car - its under the dashboard on mine. One of these fuses will prevent any of the lights on the instrument panel from showing up; the check engine light, oil press and seat belt and air bag indicator lights for instance. (But even with that fuse blown, mine will still start and run. A 97 may be different though.)
In an Escort there is more than one ground cable - so check that they are intact and not corroded or loose.
If the jumper cables only went to the battery terminals, a bad ground, or a bad connection in that main fuse area could still have prevented much from happening.
Mine has gotten to where the ignition key will start the car normally only half of the time. Sometimes I have to wiggle the key, or just try more than once. As an alternative method, I ran a 14 gauge wire from the small terminal atop the starter solenoid, over to where the end of the wire will reach the battery positive post. I stripped the insulation from the last 1/4" of the wire. I can leave the ign. key in the 'run' position, open the hood, and touch my wire to the battery + post; and the starter cranks and the engine is running.
And of course if its an automatic transmission, there is a neutral safety switch on the front top of the tranny. The starter wont work if the tranny thinks it is not in park or neutral - but the only function that depends on that neutral-safety switch is the starter. All else would work regardless. With the manual transmissions the clutch pedal has a switch on it - so the starter wont work unless the pedal is depressed. In that case the lights would still work though.
Let us know what it turns out to be...

I used to have an odd problem that would happen just like that... everything fine til I turn the key then totally dead.
I would pop the hood and jiggle the positive and negative battery terminals a bit and the power would come back.. I would see the under hood light come on and would hear the auto seat belt move into place. Then it would start right up. Eventually I got around to replacing the battery and never had the problem again.

Well, I went down in the morning with a friend to see it in a new light. The battery was quite corroded, in fact, when he jiggled the negative the post just snapped right off.

So, we yanked it all out and dragged it over to a battery man. Sad note: acid leaked onto a favourite shirt of mine somehow, I now have big corroded holes in it. :(

Swapped that out, still nothing. So we pulled the 100 amp fuse out, it was blown, hit Canadian Tire and got a new one. Put that in, car started up. Got to the house we were staying at, and the radio was unresponsive, dome lights wouldn't work, and the battery light came on. Checked with a multimeter at the battery place, the alternator wasn't working. *sigh*

So I drove it down to the only guy who would work on it on a weekend, and I sit hoping he'll have it done tomorrow morning. Also, I hope there isn't much else wrong with it....

Something I should have mentioned: the first guy to come and help us insisted he had jumper cables that didn't require lining up positive and negative. He had them hooked up and continued to insist that it was all fine, but I wasn't sure.....and I wonder if that was the big problem later. I know the battery was dying, but we had had door chime and remote unlock before he tried to jump it.