The Tornado

Before the spring of 1965, my only knowledge of tornados came from watching The Wizard of Oz on television and from hearing old-timers tell stories of local destruction. But on May 6th that year—an unseasonably steamy evening—I received a new appreciation for a twister’s awful power, and realized the enormous impact it could have on my family and me.

The dinner dishes had been cleared away while my dad kept a watchful eye on the darkening southwest sky. Soon the rain came in broad white sheets, and the loud cracks of lightning and thunder rattled the windows. The trees outside bent unnaturally from the great gusts of winds that battered them. It was a nasty bit of weather, but it wasn’t until my dad told my mom, “I think you better take the kids to the basement”, that I realized this storm might be different.

My dutiful parents, being native Midwesterners, were always concerned when bad weather threatened. Typically, we sought shelter in the basement during severe weather. My dad would keep watch while my mom, my brother Glenn and I hurried downstairs. The ultimate secure spot at times like this was the well pit, a small niche located in the southwestern most corner of the basement. It housed the electric pump for our water supply and a few sacks of root vegetables, leaving just enough room inside for us to squeeze into. But it was a place I feared. It was dark and damp with a low, cement slab ceiling and a resident population of creepy crawlies. In practice, the well pit was to be used only in the direst of circumstances, in fact, until that night we had never retreated there from a storm. Instead of packing ourselves inside such an unpleasant place unnecessarily, we would usually hang around just outside, ready to jump in if all hell broke loose.

In a drawer near the ringer washing machine, my mother kept her bad weather emergency supplies—a rosary, a candle, a book of matches, an ashtray and the dried palm fronds she saved from Easter time church services. With the static and crackle from WCCO on the transistor radio in the background, she would lead us saying the rosary while she burned the palms—her way of beseeching God to watch over us. My father on the other hand, took more of a wait and see attitude about storms. He would typically stay upstairs by the backdoor window, and report to us as he watched the clouds of the approaching storm.

My mom, Glenn and I were already situated in the basement when the lights went out, and we heard my dad’s leaping footsteps on the stairs. A man of few words and rarely shaken, now beside us, he announced that there was a tornado on the ground, looking like it was coming right for us. Without saying more, he conveyed his alarm in the tone of his voice. While the storm raged, we huddled together in the well pit, praying, and expecting any moment for the house above our heads to start coming apart.

It couldn’t have been more than five or ten minutes before the winds quieted, and we were allowed back upstairs. Looking around, there seemed to be no significant damage to our house, garage or trees, and I was thinking how good it was to have things back to normal after such a terrible scare. The sun had set, and it was dark now, but the sky was lit with frequent lightning and the rumbling of thunder could still be heard. Without explaining why, my father suggested we drive over to Grandma and Grandpa’s farm to make sure everything was OK over there. He had noticed that the tree line to the south had taken on a slightly different profile—not a good sign! Soon we were in the car and heading down Lexington Avenue. As we neared the bottom of the hill we started to see debris in the road and knew the twister had struck. At County Road J the electric utility trucks with their flashing lights blocked our way. The men warned us of downed power lines, but the amount of debris on the road made it obvious we couldn’t drive any further. In as instant, we were all out of the car and heading up the hill in the direction of the farm.

It’s hard to adequately describe the emotional impact of something as horrendous as this, but the most frightening part was walking up the hill to Grandma’s house. With each flash of lightning more and more of the twister’s destruction surrounding us was revealed. Dad and Glenn led the way, while Mom and I stuck together and moved forward carefully. What had been a very familiar and pastoral landscape had become unrecognizable—a scene of utter devastation and an obstacle course of debris. The nearest house to the east of Grandma’s belonged to the Kaisers. It was a huge three story colonial that had been moved to its location a few years earlier from the Radisson Farm in Blaine. Now, with the whole of its roof and eaves torn off, lit by lightning flashes, it towered above us looking like a scene from a horror movie. No sign of the roof remained, only a ragged line of bare wood above the top floor windows. As we moved on, we encountered vehicles upturned, broken trees stripped bare, shreds of lumber, roofing, insulation, clothing, toys, dishes, photographs, food, furniture, appliances—the shredded contents of buildings lay everywhere. We had to clamber over great limbs and trunks of mature trees that had been mercilessly uprooted. I recall seeing the cab of some kind of heavy earth-moving equipment crumpled into a ball like a piece of paper and sunk into a crater that had been gouged out from the force of its fall. I presume it came from a business outfit on old Highway 8, about a half-mile upwind in the tornado’s path.

The house across the road from Grandma’s had disappeared entirely, and their 1957 Ford was hanging, nose-down in a giant cottonwood tree. Upon inspection the next day, we saw that the only remnant of their house was the cinder block walls of the basement. The twister had not only removed every stick of the house, but had sucked everything out of the cellar—including the plumbing, furnace and the water heater. The family had seen the twister approaching, and instead of sheltering in the basement, had jumped into their car and headed east. In the face of that, my faith in popular wisdom was never the same.

Our course to Grandma’s house that night seemed to take forever. Time and events seemed to be happening in slow motion. As we picked our way along we could only imagine what we might find. Earlier that spring, Grandma had been diagnosed with phlebitis, and the doctor had ordered complete bed-rest. To assist in her convalescence, a hospital bed had been found and set up in the living room. Though she was able to walk, she was not well, and had been spending most of her off her feet.

As we approached, we could see the uprooted, downed or broken remains of the majestic, 70-foot tall box elder trees that had lined the horseshoe driveway. The house—though plastered with mud and debris—was still standing, but the chicken battery house, barn, silo and the machine shed were gone or damaged. The garage had collapsed on top of the car inside. Dad and Glenn were calling out for Grandma and Grandpa, and then we could hear Grandma’s unmistakable voice hollering back. What was she saying? Was she hurt? Thankfully, she was only shouting for us to watch out for power lines, and telling us that they were all right.

My grandmother was disciplined about health matters, but this time, it was lucky she didn’t take the doctor’s orders too seriously. I learned later, that not only was she on her feet, but as the storm worsened—and only after much coaxing—she had convinced the young couple renting upstairs, to come to the safety of the cellar with her and Grandpa. She had just closed the door behind her and was halfway down the stairs when the tornado hit. Grandpa, who had gone down ahead with the tenants, said he tried to drop to his knees to pray as he reached the bottom of the stairs but was held weightless by the air pressure. He said his ears felt like they were going to explode, and the noise was incredible.

The magnitude of this event must have put me into a state of shock, because my recollections of the rest of that evening are a blur. It wasn’t long before my uncle Joe and some neighbors arrived to offer their help. All the windows on the front of the house were broken out, and needed boarding up. The bed in the living room was full of broken glass, and there were holes punched in some of the walls where debris had been driven in through the windows. Despite the damage, Grandma and Grandpa were insistent they would not leave their home.

Of the seven head of cattle that had been corralled in the barnyard, only one heifer was still there, dead with a 2” x 4” driven into her forequarter. The other six were nowhere to be seen. Armed with flashlights Dad and uncle Joe went out to search the pasture for them. They found the small herd on the north end up against the fence, about a quarter mile from the barn and about as far away from the path of the tornado as they could have gotten. The poor creatures were frightened and plastered with mud from head to tail. One steer had a large splinter in his eye, but the rest—including a tiny one-week-old calf—had escaped without injury. The following day, my uncle Ole came with his truck and hauled the herd to his farm in Lindstrom, Minnesota.

During the days that followed, there was a generous outpouring of help from neighbors and relatives who brought food, and helped out with the clean up. When people expressed there condolences at my grandparent’s loss, I remember Grandma saying many times that the things lost were only material goods that, in most cases, could be replaced. The really important thing was that we were all safe. She also liked to speculate that a relic from the Holy Land, which she had placed on top of the TV may have had something to do with why God had spared their house.

Looking around at the farm in shambles, it was hard for me to feel much gratitude. The tornado had inflicted irretrievable damage on the farm that had been the heart of our family for 63 years. Altogether, 12 buildings had been destroyed: the barn, silo, machine shed, corn crib, four brooder houses, a chicken coop and battery house, garage and an outhouse. It seemed incredible to me, how in an instant the whole landscape of a place I had known my entire life could change so radically. So cruelly! Only the glaring sun replaced the shady cathedral of box elder trees over the driveway. The venerable old farm buildings that had been monuments of farming times past, had housed animals, feed and equipment were crushed or scattered across the fields. Those buildings and the farm landscape also held many of my childhood memories—rich earthy scents, secrets, mysteries and great outdoor adventures.

It was a heart-breaking loss for everyone in the family—especially my grandparents. Having worked nearly all of their lives on that farm, tending it, building it up, and then to seeing their efforts broken and strewn across the land, was a heavy blow. Instead of easing into their retirement years, Tony (age 79) and Dora (age 68) found themselves facing an enormous clean-up task. Over the next several years, order was slowly restored to the farm and the land. Fallen trees were cut up and piled for firewood, the debris that dotted the landscape was raked from the grass, plucked from fences and trees, then burned or hauled away. The farmhouse was repaired, a new garage was built, and new trees were planted. The old farm was never looked the same, and I too had changed. I had learned for the first time how quickly my life could change forever.