USA > Iowa > Calhoun County > Pomeroy > The story of a storm, a history of the great tornado at Pomeroy, Calhoun County, Iowa, July 6, 1893 > Part 13
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"I can say to you and the people of your city in general, that the situation at Pomeroy has never been pictured as terrible as it is. The funds so far received are inadequate to meet even the present necessities. I still hope to see some provision made that will at least help the people out in their present distress. The Pom- As to eroy sufferers have so far received only $30,000. what insurance was carried I don't know, but I believe it was about $35,000, and that won't go far toward rebuild- ing, will it? Let me say to you, sir, how much the people of Pomeroy, and in fact all of us, appreciate the noble work of your great surgeon, Dr. Jepson. It is the opinion of all that he has been a wonderful success as the head of the medical corps in Pomeroy. And then, talking of heroic people, don't let me forget the ladies of Cherokee, Fort Dodge, Storm Lake, Sioux City and numerous other towns. God bless them for the true Christianity they have displayed in their work at the seat of the great Iowa calamity. Among the helpers Capt. W. E. Wellington, of Dubuque, stands at the head, that is, in a financial way. He used to live near Pomeroy on a ranch, and knows every one of the sufferers. The captain is assisting every deserving person with a lavish hand, and without any red tape either. He spent they say, over $2,000 in cash the first day he arrived on the scene, and is still at it. He has offered to contribute $10,000 to the relief fund if
LOOKING SOUTHWEST TOWARD GERMAN LUTHERAN CHURCH, POMEROY.
METHODIST AND PRESBYTERIAN PARSONAGES. SCHOOLHOUSE IN THE DISTANCE.
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Dubuque will do likewise. Wellington is a remarkable man, bluff and hearty, and possessed of a good deal of wealth. When he gets hot, look out for him. He met the agent of an insurance company, at Pomeroy, the other day, and there was a lively tilt between the captain and the man of policies, because the latter's company had refused to pay their losses within sixty days."
Prior to the removal of the wounded from Pomeroy there had been practically nothing done in the way of material improvements looking toward making the town again habitable, except what was absolutely necessary to preserve sanatory conditions ; but now there was time and opportunity to do something toward rebuilding homes and taking care of the many who were not physi- cally injured, or perhaps only slightly so, but were little less in need of attention than the others, for homes were swept away, families were destitute, and numbers of per- sons did not recover from the shock for several weeks afterward, although apparently they may not have been disabled. Gangs of men-some being paid workmen and others donating their services- were now set to work clearing up débris, repairing houses of which enough was left to make it worth the while, and erecting new build- ings. About the first work done in this line was that of rebuilding chimneys, for even among the houses left standing in town not a whole chimney could be found. Scores of men were employed the rest of the season in rebuilding the town, those who were able to do so rebuilding their own homes, others being aided according to their needs from the relief fund, and the wholly desti- tute being provided with new houses complete by the relief committee, so that the winter following the great disaster would find the people who suffered from the great tornado almost as comfortably situated as they were before.
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SHORT STORIES OF THE STORM.
Two Cherokee ladies, Mrs. M. Baumgardner and Mrs. Dan Rhode, are adherents to the theory that in close proximity to the tornado's actual center absolute calm prevails. They had been picking berries on the bluff almost opposite the James Wheeler place, near Cherokee, where much damage was done, and when it began to blow they went into the old Scurlock house, on the hill near by. They say the tornado climbed the bluff just below them, but that nothing was disturbed where they were - that absolute calmn prevailed. It is quite likely the storm raised off the ground at that point.
At the Lakeside farm, near Storm Lake, three sheep were impaled on one board.
"The people of Storm Lake were early upon the ground at Pomeroy, and were the first to send in supplies. Senator Mack and Mayor Bailie worked day and night organizing, directing and relieving the distressed. All of our physicians went there on the 7th and labored all day. Mr. Mack remained day and night until Sunday morning. Our firemen stood guard two nights and a day to relieve the militia, and the entire county is being systematically arranged for relief work. Many of our ladies went as nurses, and we have not heard of any of them who regis- tered as such simply to obtain free transportation."- Storm Lake Pilot.
Many light articles were carried great distances by the storm. Sander Essing, living five miles northeast of town, found at his place, lying almost together, a bank check and a letter, the former of which came from C. G.
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Perkins' place, five miles west of Pomeroy, and the latter from Jason Lowrey's residence in town. The check was known to have been inside a bank book which was lying in a bureau drawer in the Perkins house, when the storm struck. Also a memorial card from Perkins' place was picked up two miles east of town, and a wedding card was found by Swan Nelson, five miles northeast, that came from Ezra Davy's house in town.
Albert Briggs was in Miller's barn when the storm came. He was trying to hold the south doors of the barn from blowing out, when the whole south wall was taken, and he was thrown backward, landing between two horses. When he got up, barn, horses and all were gone. He was not hurt, but he afterward found a deep dent in his watchcase which he could not account for.
Several Pomeroy people made the discovery that sewer boxes may afford a safe refuge from tornadoes. Three of these were W. H. Barr, William Edgett and Robert Lundgren. They were standing in front of the O. K. grocery store, on Ontario street, when they first noticed storm indications of a startling nature. Edgett and Lundgren promptly dropped into the sewer box near by and Barr started to reach one farther up street, at Mar- tin's corner, but was caught by the wind and carried nearly across the street. When he looked up and saw the air full of timber and flying débris of every descrip- tion, also witnessing the collapse of the Hillman brick building, he did not attempt to get on his feet, but man- aged to crawl on his hands and knees back to the Martin building. By the time he had arrived there the worst was over,
Instances were quite common of pieces of iron being found firmly imbedded in trees, and at the Slater farm, in Cherokee county, an eight-inch scantling or beam was
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driven into a large cottonwood tree, eiglit feet above the ground. A man stood on the protruding piece while he sawed out the section of the tree as a grim curiosity. At the same place a barb-wire fence was taken into the air and its three strands woven about the tops of tall trees, braiding them together in a tight lacery of twig and limb and trunk and wire, from which the posts torn from the ground hung pendent in the air.
John Miller and John Bedke were in the McKeen barn when the structure was lifted up and carried to Hillman's residence, on the southwest corner of the same block, where it was dropped on the kitchen part of the house, crushing it completely. Bedke had an arm broken and Miller's most serious injury resulted from one of the horses stepping on the end of a board, causing the other end to strike him in the eye. The only things left in the alley on which the barn stood was a road cart and a sleigh, the shafts of the former resting upon the latter, and both were practically undisturbed. Not more than two feet distant from the road cart a tree twelve inches in diameter was torn out by the roots.
Samuel Dangerfield was running his feed mill, in the old skating rink on Otsego street, near First, the evening of the storm. When he saw the cloud approaching from the west he went into a cellar across the street where the basement walls for a new building had been built. He had started to come out of the cellar when the storm came, and narrowly escaped from being struck by flying timbers. As he looked upward he saw a wagon, with tongue erect, sailing through the air about thirty feet over his head. The wagon was from the livery barn near by, and no trace of it could afterward be found. The rink building and Mr. D.'s mill machinery were completely wrecked.
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Mr. Pratt, of Newell, in going over the ruins at Pome- roy the day after the storm, found a roll of bank notes, which he delivered at headquarters. Returning to the grounds he found a second roll of money within a very few minutes. Hundreds of others were searching the ruins hours at a time without finding anything of special value.
Louis Madson, an employé at Hudson's livery barn in Pomeroy, had a " tussle " with the tornado from which he came out in remarkably good form, considering the rough usage to which he was subjected. Madson was driving a passenger into the country when they met the storm two miles west of town. Before the meeting actually occur- red, however, they stopped close to a willow hedge, which they thought would afford some protection from the storm, and both men alighted from the carriage. Madson went to the horses' heads to quiet them, while his companion displayed excellent judgment in lying flat on the ground. Suddenly Madson and the horses and carriage were lifted in the air and carried in different directions, and after the former had had time to collect his senses he found himself lying in a field sixty rods in a northeasterly direction from the place where he had been standing. He had evi- dently passed through a barbed wire fence on the way thither, for his body was covered with cuts and scratches which could not be otherwise accounted for. He was exceedingly sore and very weak from the loss of blood, but succeeded in walking and crawling to the nearest house a half mile away - although two hours were occu- pied in making that distance. He was at work again in a day or two, however, apparently suffering no serious inconvenience from the results of his terrible experience. Madson's clothes were torn from him, his body cut badly in a score of places and the wounds literally pounded full
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of dirt. The stranger who was with him held his place on the ground and was unhurt. One of the horses had struck heavily on the earth at a point sixty-five rods east of the place where he went into the air and was killed. The other horse was found two miles north, stripped of his harness, but alive and not badly injured. The spokeless wheels of the carriage and some other miscellaneous remains were scattered near where Madson lay.
O. E. Wood, proprietor of the livery barn on East First street, was standing with Clyde Carson just inside the north doors of the barn, and had the doors within eighteen inches of being closed, when Carson was taken out and carried across the street, north, a distance of six or eight rods, set down for a moment, then picked up again and taken back southwest, landing near the old hotel building. Wood remained in the barn, watching Carson, whose feet occasionally touched the ground dur- ing his forced flight, then he would rise again-giving him the appearance of a chicken trying its wings. The only damage done the livery barn was the tearing off of one door. At the hotel building near by, only the sum- mer kitchen was demolished, and no one was seriously hurt in this vicinity.
At the house of Robert Stewart, corner of Second and Otsego streets, the principal damage done was the break- ing in of windows. Inside the house, from a framed picture hanging on the wall, the picture, glass and back support were taken out clean, leaving the frame practi- cally uninjured and apparently undisturbed, in the same position in which it had been found by the storm.
At Ed. Masterson's house, across the street north from Stewart's, a single pane of glass was broken from a win- dow in the summer kitchen, on the north side of the house, and by the current rushing into this aperture the
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door leading from the summer kitchen into the main part of the house was split in two pieces and one of the parts hurled across the room with no slight force.
William Getke, living two miles west of Pomeroy, found a shepherd dog in his house that had been blown in through an east window. The dog belonged to John Dalton, whose place was three-fourths of a mile west of Getke's.
Not many of the tornado sufferers were inclined to ask for or accept donations of more than enough to supply· their actual needs, but occasionally one was found who considered himself entitled to a great deal. One of these was the man who complained that the box of the new wagon-sent him free of cost by the manufacturers of his old one that had been destroyed - lacked an inch or two of being as high as that of the old one.
Right in the storm's track in Pomeroy stood one little old house, occupied by an aged lady who lived alone. Much stronger structures on every side were ground into splinters, but this frail old building was left standing, although one end wall had been torn out and everything inside was soaked by the driving rain. When the searchers of the ruins came along that night they were surprised to find the old lady who lived there still lying snugly in her bed, unhurt and apparently not much con- cerned about what had happened. For a time she refused to go with them to seek better shelter, but was finally persuaded to do so, and, after securing the little hoard of gold which was stored away in a bureau drawer, she trudged off into the night displaying signs of no other feeling than that of disgust at being disturbed in her slumbers.
E. W. Nelson, of Cherokee, happened to be in the country, and upon the approach of the storm, put his
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horse in Edward Converse's barn and went into the cellar with seven others. Everything was badly wrecked and all narrowly escaped being seriously injured by the flying wreckage. Nelson's horse was taken into the air to a height of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet and dropped to the ground a half mile away, unharmed. The animal seemed dazed at first and was a little uncer- tain on his feet, but was soon as sprightly as ever and was driven to town the next day. The harness, which had been left on him, was torn to shreds.
F. G. Fawger lives near the edge of the tornado's track, in Cherokee county. While the storm. was pass- ing he stood in his doorway and watched a herd of thirty- two head of cattle that at first stood huddled together in one corner of a forty-acre field ; saw the storm strike them and looked on in amazement as it swept them about three sides of the field - down one side and up the other, through barbed wire fences and back again, leaving them in a close bunch in the corner to the right of where they had started from. Five had broken legs and all were scratched, gashed and bruised.
The carcasses of seventeen hogs were found in an old well on the Slater place, in Cherokee county, after the storm liad passed.
Dr. D. T. Martin's drug store, at the corner of First and Ontario streets, was in the track of the current of the tornado that swept into Pomeroy from the northeast. The plate glass front was forced in and a part of the store roof taken off. The doctor's fourteen-year-old son, Lorin, and the clerk, W. Dilmouth, were in the store at the time. Just as the storm struck, young Martin took Dilmouth by the hand and said : "Goodbye, Dilmouth ; we're gone !" Their chances for further action on this sphere did not look very bright at that time, but, fortunately, both were
COOK SHANTY AT SMITH'S WAREHOUSE, POMEROY.
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unhurt. Dr. Martin was at Fonda that evening and did not reach home until the arrival of the first relief train from that place. He found occasion for rejoicing in find- ing that his own family was safe, and went promptly to work relieving, to the extent of his ability, those who were less fortunate than he and his. He first arranged that everything in his store that was needed for the sufferers should be given out, and was then engaged continuously in dressing wounds for the next forty-eight hours, during which time he administered anæsthetics no less than thirty- eight times, and he remained in the thickest of the work through it all. Dr. Martin's observations led him to believe that the physicians and surgeons from other towns deserving of the greatest measure of gratitude from Pome- roy people are Drs. Belt, of Gilmore; Root, of Vermillion, S. D .; Townsend, of Lohrville; Beam, of Rolfe; and Gregg and W. J. White, of Sioux City -although there were, of course, many others who did splendid work.
Matters were altogether too serious for many humor- ous incidents to be chronicled in connection with tornado experiences, but where men worked as hard as did the nurses, attendants and others in Pomeroy for several weeks after the storm, a tired brain would occasionally seek recreation in performing pranks, affording a glimpse of the lighter side of life. Occasionally these were directed toward an innocent and inexperienced member of the militia, whose faith in humanity would be severely shaken when he found his gun in the hands of a civilian who had gained possession of it through some friendly pretext, and then threatened to report his victim for the flagrant breach of military rules. But one soldier upon whom this was played had sufficient confidence to turn the joke nicely on the civilian, by leaving the latter on guard duty in his place for several hours, while he went after refreshments.
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One night at surgical headquarters, just after the most seriously wounded had been removed to Sioux City hos- pitals, some of the boys sought relaxation in bandaging, almost from head to foot, a man who was found there in a drunken stupor, and convincing him after he liad recov- ered consciousness that there had been another tornado and he was one of the victims. At one of the hospitals one day a barber who wanted to do work in his line among the wounded was directed to one of the attendants with a two weeks' growth of beard, who had fallen asleep on a cot. The barber was told to handle his man care- fully, as he was very badly wounded. It was presumed that the man would awaken when the cool lather touched his face and perhaps "knock out " the well-meaning ton- sorial artist in a single round, but his sleep was too sound to be so easily disturbed, and the shaving process was completed successfully. The barber thought he had done a kindly act to a " sufferer," and the attendant wondered afterward if his mind was failing him, or why it was he couldn't remember of having gotten that shave.
Imaginary instances of the wind having blown the spokes out of wagon wheels have long been cited as cred- itable efforts in the line of pure fiction, but there were actual occurrences of this kind in connection with the Pomeroy tornado. Several of the wheels of Jack Ander- son's dray wagon were served in this way, the spokes being taken out clean and the felloes left whole. Other instances of the same kind were also noted.
From the residence of Mr. Bruns, in South Pomeroy, a rain barrel filled with water was picked up and carried two blocks, yet nothing else about the house was disturbed worth speaking of.
Persons of different dispositions and temperaments were differently affected by the great calamity. Some
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who were practically uninjured imagined themselves badly used up, while others who were severely wounded could not be made to realize the extent of their injuries. It was not unusual to see men with broken arms, dislo- cated shoulders and other injuries that would ordinarily have confined them to their beds for some weeks, going about and assisting in caring for some of their fellows who were not much worse off than they. One man who lived in the country, west of Pomeroy, but who was not at home when the storm passed through, was unable to get his nerve steady enough to face the possible consequences of his going home until the next day. Fortunately his family had no special need for his services.
A short time prior to the great storm Mr. and Mrs. Henry Neiting, of Pomeroy, had ordered a handsome monument in honor of Mrs. Neiting's father and mother, who were buried in the Pomeroy cemetery, and also had their own names inscribed on the same slab, but with the dates of their decease, of course, left blank. The monu- ment had not left the hands of the marble cutter, how- ever, when both Mr. and Mrs. Neiting were killed in the tornado of July 6, and the inscriptions were therefore made complete before it was put in its place in the grave- yard.
On July 30, twenty-four days after the storm, Charles Burr found a hen that had been imprisoned all that time in a pile of ruins near Mrs. Kiefer's residence. The plucky fowl was alive and apparently quite hearty, for a dozen or more eggs found with her gave evidence that she had not been idle during her enforced retirement from worldly associations.
An example of the tornado's apparent intelligence in seeking out the objects upon which it would vent its terri- ble wrath was to be seen at the corner of First and
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Cayuga streets, in Pomeroy. A rickety old lamppost was left standing on this corner with not a glass broken, while only ten or twelve feet away a sturdy old maple tree, whose trunk measured more than a foot through, was torn from the earth by its roots, leaving a hole in the ground in which a horse might have been buried. Another similar incident was the experience of Mr. Schliepsiek, who stood leaning against a post, when the post was taken from the ground and carried a considerable distance, but Mr. S. felt no unusual disturbance except that occasioned by his support being suddenly taken away.
The companies of national guards that were at Pome- roy after the storm rendered invaluable service in guarding property, etc., but for some of the younger soldiers who had never before seen any more serious duty than that imposed upon them by an occasional dress parade, it was more " experience " than they had bargained for. Dur- ing the time that the wounded were being placed in the hospital train for removal to Sioux City, when everything was so very quiet that it seemed that a cloud of silence had settled over the town, the air was occasionally rent by Corporal Guard No. 9 calling out in stentorian tones for relief. The guard had actually become so badly frightened at the darkness and the gloomy surroundings that he insisted upon being relieved before his watch was over.
The churches in Pomeroy destroyed by the tornado were all rebuilt the same season, with the exception of the Swedish Mission Church, and in every case the new house of worship erected was as good as, if not better than, the old one. Outside churches made special contributions for this purpose, and their good work cannot be too highly commended. A new city school building, larger and
A STOREHOUSE FOR RELIEF GOODS AFTER THE STORM.
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handsomer than the one demolished, was also built right away, and the German Lutheran schoolhouse was like- wise replaced.
Aside from provisions, the greatest need in Pomeroy directly after the storm was for clothing, as even the fam- ilies whose homes were not blown away had very little clothing left. Those in the track of the storm were gen- erally stripped of everything they had on, and the others usually gave up their last coat to protect the wounded from the chilling rain, and everything used that night was nearly, or quite, ruined.
Just a week after the tornado there was quite a heavy wind storm in Pomeroy, and for a time people thought the demon of destruction had returned to take what was left. The wounded who were in tents, especially, were badly frightened, but a strong man was stationed at every guy rope of the tents, and they were thus held in place, and no particular damage was done.
The relief committee ran an eating house, under the direct supervision of Hon. E. C. Stevenson, at Smith's machinery warehouse, in Pomeroy, for several weeks after the storm. The public in general was fed here without charge, although a great many who had money paid for their meals, and the proceeds were turned into the relief fund. A bakery was moved down from Cherokee and operated in connection with this eating house. Every- thing was necessarily done on quite a large scale here. · Potatoes were cooked in a huge steam feed cooker, and hams by the barrel were boiled for sandwiches. There were other cookeries, for the surgeons and nurses and their patients, at the opera house and at the Richards Hotel.
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