Tornadoes in Iowa
I've seen but one tornado even though I lived in an area that had its share. I was about eleven and living on the parental farm. The morning started out sultry and hot. It became so hot and humid that by mid-morning the air seemed to turn a grayish-green color and the cows in the lower pasture kept mooing as though distressed by something. About three p.m. Papa came running into the back porch where Mama and I were working at the kerosene stove (too hot too work in the kitchen) yelling, "Get to the cave now."
Mother's face started to redden, but she quickly turned off the burner without arguing (arguing was something she would do automatically with Papa) and we rushed outside to see a tornado churning towards us. The cave was but a few feet from the back porch door and we made it record time. My youngest brother was already there and we joined him at the bottom. Papa had grabbed the cave door and was pulling it down when he said, "It's all right, the tornado is going up again."
We came back up the steps and watched the tornado lift up and over just to the northwest of where we stood. For some reason the rain or wind died down until the tornado was in the northwest. We never understood why the wind and rain had stilled. We watched the tornado tack to a more westerly direction and disappear. Later we learned it did touch down in a field about three miles west of us and had taken out a shed and cattle enclosure.
Mama always loved telling about how tornadoes roar through and then nothing would be left but most of the people. It can happen. You've seen what’s left of beautiful little towns shown on television. There’s a stone front of a building, and another one on the next block. The homes are flattened. Sticks are embedded in trees. Twisted metal that was once a car or a truck are mixed with bicycle parts. Stunned inhabitants stare at the wreckage and answer reporters questions with words like these.
“How can we rebuild?”
“It was such a nice community; really nice.”
“How can we come back?”
“We've always stuck together. Now we have to come together again.”
“We can’t rebuild. There’s nothing left.”
“We’re refugees.”
“I’m staying no matter what.”
“We can build again. That was just stuff. We’re alive.”
These are the comments the news casts feed us.
Someone will claim a corner of his lost world. One with piles of jumbled lumber stacked in jumbled weaves of danger for anyone trying to navigate the hidden pathways or move the lumber to a less precarious position. Planks are reduced to sticks poking at strange angles and yet that person adamantly insists they will be stronger than ever.
The church where my paternal grandparents worshiped was hit by a tornado in 1913. At the time, it was one of the largest tornado outbreaks to hit the United States. There were two days of tornadoes from March 21 through March 23, 1913. The first one started in Mississippi and then other states to the north of Mississippi. The tornadoes were ranked F4 and F3 with F4 being the highest.
On March 23, 1913, they started in western Nebraska and roared on through to Iowa. It wasn't just one massive tornado, but a series of F4 tornadoes that would kill one hundred and sixty-eight people. There were more, but I’ll focus on the one that I know destroyed the church, the parsonage, and my parental grandparent’s apple orchard. The latter was irreplaceable for my grandfather. It had been grown from seedlings that he had brought from his home in Germany. I still remember my father telling about the wonderful apples from that orchard; how they tasted, what they looked like, and how well they had kept through the winter months of Iowa.
The tornado so frightened my one uncle (he was about eleven or twelve) that for the rest of his life, when a storm of any kind hit, he would descend to the cave or the basement taking his family with him. By the time I was a teenager, it was a bit of a family joke, but I’m sure it wasn't to my Uncle.
According to my father, his parents donated thousands of dollars to rebuild the church, school building, and parsonage. Yes, there was a school. Der Pastor taught the children through the eighth grade. My oldest aunt and uncle, father, and his younger siblings all attended. The lessons were in German. Papa later taught himself to read English by reading the Hearst newspaper out of Chicago. My two older brothers started school there and then transferred to Lincoln No. 7, a one room country schoolhouse.
If you go to David Kusel’s Website and click on Trinity Lutheran Church of the left side of his home page, you will have options to choose from. Select Trinity Families, and then on the next page, select Anna Stoer, 1913 Tornado. There are no pictures of the destroyed church, but there is a picture of the new church on its dedication day. The school is in the foreground. That is the church where I was baptized and confirmed.
Oh, yes, the elderly woman pictured there, would have been one of my father’s cousins. The part about the church is an article from by-gone times, but I read that one of my Uncles was one of the Elders.
Now I live in a state known for Earthquakes instead of deadly tornadoes. It would be as futile to worry about that as it is to worry about tornadoes. There is one consolation. Tornadoes occur with far more frequency than an Earthquake. I think I’ll stick with that gamble.
Mother's face started to redden, but she quickly turned off the burner without arguing (arguing was something she would do automatically with Papa) and we rushed outside to see a tornado churning towards us. The cave was but a few feet from the back porch door and we made it record time. My youngest brother was already there and we joined him at the bottom. Papa had grabbed the cave door and was pulling it down when he said, "It's all right, the tornado is going up again."
We came back up the steps and watched the tornado lift up and over just to the northwest of where we stood. For some reason the rain or wind died down until the tornado was in the northwest. We never understood why the wind and rain had stilled. We watched the tornado tack to a more westerly direction and disappear. Later we learned it did touch down in a field about three miles west of us and had taken out a shed and cattle enclosure.
Mama always loved telling about how tornadoes roar through and then nothing would be left but most of the people. It can happen. You've seen what’s left of beautiful little towns shown on television. There’s a stone front of a building, and another one on the next block. The homes are flattened. Sticks are embedded in trees. Twisted metal that was once a car or a truck are mixed with bicycle parts. Stunned inhabitants stare at the wreckage and answer reporters questions with words like these.
“How can we rebuild?”
“It was such a nice community; really nice.”
“How can we come back?”
“We've always stuck together. Now we have to come together again.”
“We can’t rebuild. There’s nothing left.”
“We’re refugees.”
“I’m staying no matter what.”
“We can build again. That was just stuff. We’re alive.”
These are the comments the news casts feed us.
Someone will claim a corner of his lost world. One with piles of jumbled lumber stacked in jumbled weaves of danger for anyone trying to navigate the hidden pathways or move the lumber to a less precarious position. Planks are reduced to sticks poking at strange angles and yet that person adamantly insists they will be stronger than ever.
The church where my paternal grandparents worshiped was hit by a tornado in 1913. At the time, it was one of the largest tornado outbreaks to hit the United States. There were two days of tornadoes from March 21 through March 23, 1913. The first one started in Mississippi and then other states to the north of Mississippi. The tornadoes were ranked F4 and F3 with F4 being the highest.
On March 23, 1913, they started in western Nebraska and roared on through to Iowa. It wasn't just one massive tornado, but a series of F4 tornadoes that would kill one hundred and sixty-eight people. There were more, but I’ll focus on the one that I know destroyed the church, the parsonage, and my parental grandparent’s apple orchard. The latter was irreplaceable for my grandfather. It had been grown from seedlings that he had brought from his home in Germany. I still remember my father telling about the wonderful apples from that orchard; how they tasted, what they looked like, and how well they had kept through the winter months of Iowa.
The tornado so frightened my one uncle (he was about eleven or twelve) that for the rest of his life, when a storm of any kind hit, he would descend to the cave or the basement taking his family with him. By the time I was a teenager, it was a bit of a family joke, but I’m sure it wasn't to my Uncle.
According to my father, his parents donated thousands of dollars to rebuild the church, school building, and parsonage. Yes, there was a school. Der Pastor taught the children through the eighth grade. My oldest aunt and uncle, father, and his younger siblings all attended. The lessons were in German. Papa later taught himself to read English by reading the Hearst newspaper out of Chicago. My two older brothers started school there and then transferred to Lincoln No. 7, a one room country schoolhouse.
If you go to David Kusel’s Website and click on Trinity Lutheran Church of the left side of his home page, you will have options to choose from. Select Trinity Families, and then on the next page, select Anna Stoer, 1913 Tornado. There are no pictures of the destroyed church, but there is a picture of the new church on its dedication day. The school is in the foreground. That is the church where I was baptized and confirmed.
Oh, yes, the elderly woman pictured there, would have been one of my father’s cousins. The part about the church is an article from by-gone times, but I read that one of my Uncles was one of the Elders.
Now I live in a state known for Earthquakes instead of deadly tornadoes. It would be as futile to worry about that as it is to worry about tornadoes. There is one consolation. Tornadoes occur with far more frequency than an Earthquake. I think I’ll stick with that gamble.
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We have down drafts here. The desert also has dust devils that no matter how hard Arizona tried to deny it, they finally admitted that one had turned into a tornado back when we lived there. The damage ran from Shea Blvd. in Phoenix to Scottsdale. Awesome power coming down out of the sky.
1913 sounds like it was almost as bad or worse than 2013.
It was. In fact, the two days of tornadoes killed more people in a less populated area.
Tornadoes are frightening. I experienced only one as a child.
Shelly wrote: "Tornadoes are frightening. I experienced only one as a child."That is something not easily forgotten.
There's also what's called downdrafts, which produce similar damage to tornadoes. It's like a fist of wind, slamming down against the earth. I've seen sections of forest with smashed trees along a line of down draft damage.