April 24, 1975

April 24, 1975

 

                Until late in the day, that Thursday was ordinary.  I went to school, came home, and enjoyed the heat.  Temperatures soared warm, then even hot.  The sunshine from earlier vanished under a light, overcast sky and I noticed the absence of wind before supper.  I’ll never forget supper that evening, the last in the home our family had shared since moving to Neosho.  We had hamburger steaks with creamed peas and new potatoes.  For dessert, we enjoyed a slice of a chocolate Bundt cake and after the meal, my mother settled down to cut out the fabric for a new dress she planned to make me.  The weather forecast at six mentioned the chance of storms but at that point I don’t recall any extreme alarm but I was anxious.  Growing up, my Granny feared all storms and she’d infected me a little although my parents had worked with me until I wasn’t so afraid.  I’d come to enjoy a good thunderstorm viewed from the safety of the front porch back in St. Joseph but the air seemed different that evening.

                At the time we lived at the mobile home park located at the corner of Neosho Boulevard and Daugherty Road, just outside the city limits.  We’d ended up there because my dad wasn’t sure how long we might stay and if his job with the USDA transferred him elsewhere, he wanted to be mobile.  After supper, I couldn’t concentrate on writing a letter to my cousin back home so I went outside.  I watched as many of the park’s residents headed out and studied the sky.  I wandered back inside and out, catching Joplin weatherman Lee George on television.  He indicated concern was in order and talked about tornadoes.  I can’t recall the exact time but I do remember at one point he emphasized it was not a watch but a tornado warning.  Things have changed a lot in the weather world over the past thirty-odd years and as many warnings weren’t issued the way they are today. 

                My dad worked nights as a USDA poultry inspector and usually slept until mid-evening but he got up early.  By then, I was a nervous wreck and as we monitored the weather with both the television and police scanner, my mom decided we should leave to be safe.  My dad wanted to finish getting ready for work and eventually, not very long before the tornado roared into town, my mother insisted we go with her to seek shelter somewhere else.  We did and as we drove down Neosho Boulevard, it was eerie.  The sky to the west was overcast and to the north, dark thunderheads were bright with lightning.  We headed for the Laundromat just off Harmony Street because we really didn’t know where else to go.  The storm hit with fury not long after we arrived. 

                Outside it grew dark as midnight as we crawled beneath the heavy laundry folding tables for protection.  Winds howled and lashed gravel against the plate glass front windows.  Sometimes we could hear the shrieking emergency sirens and sometimes not as the noise drowned all else.  One of the sirens we could hear at times was a police officer parked in the center of the nearby intersection using the system on his patrol car.  As soon as the storm ended, we rushed to the car to head home to see what had happened.  Although we left with hopes our home had been spared and my father uninjured, I soon realized something terrible had taken place.

                There was a certain point along Neosho Boulevard where I had always been able to spot the park and when we reached it, I saw nothing but a cluster of emergency lights at the corner.  Although at thirteen, I hoped it might be an accident, I knew it was much worse.  We parked at one of the businesses located along the access road and walked the rest of the way.  Power lines were down and still live.  Although my mother urged me to stay at the car with my younger brother, I refused and we walked into what remained of our home together.  Nothing remained but piles of rubble scattered in crazy patterns by the storm.  Some of the vehicles were flipped or buried under debris. 

                The time from when we entered to when we found my father, injured but alive as he walked back into the trailer park after a search to find us, still ranks among the longest I’ve ever experienced although it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes at most.  Our reunion was filmed by news crews and aired nationwide but at that moment, I didn’t care.

                Our ordeal continued but although we lacked a home, had lost most of our possessions, spent day picking through the rubble to salvage what we could, and my father spent some time in the hospital, we survived.   

                On Saturday, my aunt and uncle (Alma and Ott Sontheimer) arrived to help us and we all took up lodgings in a house owned by a friend of my dad's in Anderson, Mo - a friend who drove all night from New Mexico to deliver the keys hours before my dad was released from the hospital. 

                There are too many stories to tell in a single blog, too many memories both good and bad and emotions. Yes, even after almost 50 years, the emotions are the same as they were for that thirteen year old girl in her Levis.

With the help of a lot of people, far too many to name, we recovered and moved forward – and we stayed in Neosho, a good place to be.

Me at age 13 sorting through the debris