SIDELIGHTS OF TORNADO STRICKEN AREA
By Terry Williams

Thousands will come to see destruction, but few come to see success.

Yes, this is what is happening in the Desloge and Cantwell area, which was hit Tuesday, May 21, 1957, by one of the worst tornadoes the county has ever seen. Since the time the tornado hit, thousands of people have come to see the destruction, but not enough have returned to help repair or clean-up the damaged area.

This reporter talked with many people, some still suffering from shock, and many who had their home completely blown away.

Here are reports from people who were actually in the tornado.

Mr. and Mrs. Henry Lawson said they had no basement so they took shelter in a closet. Mrs. Lawson said she had called Mr. Collins on "The People Speak," a local radio program, and asked him what people should do if a tornado would hit this area. Mr. Collins said to get in a basement, or if you had no basement get against an inside wall facing the way the tornado was coming. Mr. and Mrs. Lawson got in the closet, which was against an inside wall, and while there the front door of the house blew open and Mrs. Lawson said you could see roofs of houses and trees sailing through the air. Mr. Lawson said they had a wash house out behind the house and in it were two pet cats. After the storm was over he went outside and dug the cats out, unharmed. Mr. Lawson's son had a canoe hanging from the top of the garage upside-down with two paddles in it, which was blown away; but was found about three miles east of Desloge with the paddles still in it.

Many were caught unawares, such as Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Horton and their two children. The family had just completed supper. Mr. Horton got up from the table and looked out the window. Mrs. Horton said she could see people pointing toward the tornado but they still could not see it. Then the family stepped from the kitchen into the garage, from where they spotted the tornado. Mrs. Horton said she laid down behind a step and pushed the baby girl underneath herself. The reason for this was the tornado was too close to run for the basement. Their step was about 8 inches high. Mr. Horton watched until the tornado hit the school and several houses, then he too hit the floor of the garage. In the meantime their son Billy was standing looking out of the garage door completely unaware of the storm. When his father yelled "hit it," Billy turned around and saw the storm. He became scared and instead of lying down he ran, and when the tornado hit he was standing in the kitchen doorway. The doorway and entire wall were lifted above his head and blown away. He was unhurt. Mrs. Horton said there were many things she did not understand about the tornado. She said she had a picture of their son standing on the vanity in the bedroom. The mirror that was beside the picture was blown away and the picture was left undisturbed. She also said the door knobs on every one of the doors in the house were blown away and one of them went through a section of the garage door. The front door of Mr. and Mrs. Floyd Simmons' home a block away was found driven about half way through one side of the Horton home, left standing. Their pet dog was killed in the storm.

Lee Landolt said that he had just completed redecorating one room of his home and he turned on the radio to see if there were storm warnings out. He soon learned there were. He then began to watch and when he saw it begin to really form, he and his wife went to a neighbor's house to use the basement. Mr. Landolt continued watching and saw it hit the school. He said it just looked like an explosion. He said it hit the school once, then went up and came down, hitting the school again. The second time it dropped down and spread out covering a larger area. Mr. Landolt then went to the basement. He said while they were in the basement the door blew open and a large two by four flew in. Mr. Landolt also said that a board eight feet long was driven completely through the wall of his home into the kitchen. His garage was blown away. On a shelf in the garage was a gasoline lantern which was thrown to the ground but was not damaged. Mr. Landolt is a member of the City Council of Desloge and he said the Council was notified that many of the school records and papers were being found in Breeze, Ill. Mr. Landolt also said the Council wishes to express a great deal of thanks to the National Guard, Salvation Army, Red Cross, Boy Scouts, State Highway Patrol, the city police from different towns, and also to the hundreds of people in and out of the county who have worked to help the people.

Many people had close calls during the storm, but Zeb Smith, janitor at the Cantwell school, had the best one as told to this reporter. Mr. Smith was on the third floor of the school building when he happened to look out the window and see the dark clouds forming in the southwest. Not wanting to take a chance on being caught in the building he went downstairs to watch. He said that he stood there and watched for some time. Then he began to see debris flying through the air. This is when he ran for the nearest cover, which happened to be the rock fence around the school. He said that he leaned against the fence, facing the tornado and held onto a post, and said his body kept moving up and down. When it was all past, he said he got up and looked where his truck had been parked, some 25 feet from the rock fence. It was gone. Mr. Smith said he looked around and saw it over by the Baptist Church. Then he saw all the other buildings destroyed or blown away. Mr. Smith showed this reporter his head, arms and hands, which are covered with bruises from either the hail or gravel hitting him.

One boy deserves credit for saving three lives, Cole Shannon. Mrs. Shannon said that she and Johnny, the Shannon's youngest son, were sitting in the living room, completely unaware of the coming tornado. Cole had taken a girl home, and while at her home noticed the oncoming tornado. Cole, seeing the direction of the tornado, ran to their phone and called his mother. This is what he told her, "Mother take John and run for a basement, there's a tornado--," Cole didn't finish the sentence, because at that moment the lines were broken. Mrs. Shannon said that she grabbed John and they ran out of the house and past two houses to a neighbor's home. John and Mrs. Shannon said that as they ran they could feel the wind of the tornado pushing and hitting at their heels. Mrs. Shannon said that her neighbor, completely unaware of the coming storm, was fixing supper when she and John ran in. They grabbed her and ran into the basement and just as they got there the tornado struck. This neighbor would have been killed because the tornado destroyed her kitchen and the Shannons would have been killed, because their house was completely destroyed. But, because Cole thought of his mother and brother, their lives were saved.

Out of all the seriousness of the tornado, Mrs. Shannon told this reporter a funny little story. She said that the telephone repairman came around and seeing their house destroyed, asked her if she wanted the telephone service discontinued or not.

Another funny story, but serious also, was one that a nurse from the Bonne Terre Hospital told me. She said this woman came in carrying a pair of shoes in one hand and barefooted. And she began looking under tables and chairs and other things, so this nurse walked over and asked if she could help her, and the woman gave this answer: "when I left my house I had a pair of shoes on my feet and a pair in my hands, and now I can't find the ones that were on my feet." In other words, they must have been blown off her feet by the tornado.

Mrs. Arnold Daugherty said that she had been listening to the radio and heard the warning but did not call the children home until it started to hail. She said that when she saw the clouds she told the neighbors to come to her basement. Then she heard it hit. She said she could see sheds and garages falling apart and being blown away and also blue flames flying from broken wires. Mrs. Daugherty said that her husband had been working at the Busy Bee putting in some type of gas tumbler. He thought of a tool he had left at Texaco Town and went to get it. While he was gone the tornado hit and he came home to see about his family. In the meantime Mr. Daugherty's boss had gone to the Busy Bee and found the gas tumbler undisturbed on the exact shelf where Mr. Daugherty left it.

If you live in Desloge and had some letters blown away, you may get them back any day, as the Rev. and Mrs. Chas. Mann of the Desloge Methodist Church did. During the storm a letter of his blew away and he received it in the mail on Saturday, May 25. It was mailed from a town fifty miles east of East St. Louis, Ill. Mrs. Orval Wallen said that she had a large glass punch bowl on the kitchen table, and beside it a very thin tall vase. The punch bowl was broken into bits, while the vase was unbroken. On Sunday, May 19, Mr. Wallen said he had hauled a load of scrapwood and stacked it nice and neat. Following the tornado, Mr. Wallen showed this reporter the stack of wood still neatly stacked. Mr. and Mrs. Wallen had a pen with eight geese in it and the pen was blown away, while the geese were unhurt.

This reporter would have thought it was Christmas time, if it hadn't been so warm, when he happened to walk upon a cedar tree fully decorated with Christmas tree trimmings standing beside a home in Cantwell Lane.

Mrs. Horace Murphy showed this reporter where three large boards had been driven through one end of their home. One of the boards had gone through a large mirror, five by six feet, over a fireplace. Mrs. Murphy also said that as they started for the basement their son, Jimmy had to stop and get a magazine he was reading, so he could finish a story.

Many people didn't know it, but the entire faculty of the Desloge High School had stayed after school for a going-away party for Miss Burdick who is going to Japan to teach at an Air Force school. Mrs. George Pallo said that she and the other teachers had not been home more than 20 minutes when the tornado hit. Mrs. Pallo said she watched it form and she said it moved fast and seemed to spread at the same time. Mrs. Pallo and her three children were in a basement where they could see out. They said they saw it pick up Foshee's dogs and dog pen and blow them away. The dogs came back unharmed. Miss Elizabeth Thomas and Mrs. Bye, two Desloge teachers, were trapped in their car in front of the high school. A tree fell on the back of the car and one on the front. Both were unhurt.

Mrs. Edith Alexander, who lives in Cantwell Lane had her elderly mother and aunt visiting her when the storm hit. She had managed to get her mother into the basement but her aunt refused to go. The tornado came through and blew the whole house away all except the back porch where Mrs. Alexander and her aunt were standing. They were unhurt. A tornado does funny things.

Mrs. Floyd Simmons, a teacher at Esther, had not been home too long when the storm hit. She said she watched it start, then ran to a neighbor's basement. Mrs. Simmons said also that she had a large glass cake plate which was blown away. It was found one block away, two-thirds of it sunk into the ground, unbroken or chipped. She said Mr. Simmons' watch was lying on the kitchen cabinet and when they found it the insides had been pulled out by the strong wind, leaving only the band and frame. Their home was completely destroyed.

Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt were sitting on their front porch, having no idea a tornado was headed in their direction. Mr. Schmidt said he had just told his wife that there would be a twister somewhere close because his wind gauge showed the wind was blowing south while the clouds were moving north. He then walked out to the side of the house and saw it beginning to form. He said they wedged their doors open and opened most of the windows in the house, then they went to the basement. Then it hit. Mrs. Schmidt said they watched boards, roofs, sides of houses, and tubs go sailing through the air. Mr. Schmidt said he then heard one of the worst roaring sounds he had ever heard. It was the wind twisting a huge cedar tree, standing some fifty feet in front of the house; it then blew the tree almost all the way around the house and into the basement. Mr. Schmidt had to use his tractor to pull it out. He also had the front porch roof of a house, light bulbs and all in his front yard. The tornado blew in one of [the] doors on his barn so hard it knocked the tractor and wagon out the other side of the barn. Mr. Schmidt said that in the fields around his home are any appliances you can name. He told this reporter that he has two complete beds, tables, chairs, kerosene stove, and many other items for the house that he will give to some family or person who lost everything in the tornado.

Vincent Wells, who lives on North School Street, said that he had no alert of the tornado at all and his family was unaware of a storm. He said he noticed the clouds beginning to form and walked outside to watch them. When he stepped onto the front porch the tornado was not more than two blocks away. Mr. Wells ran back through the house, taking his family to the basement. As they reached the top step of the basement stair the tornado hit in the middle of the house, taking the front part. Mr. Wells said when he walked outside and saw the tornado coming toward him, he saw trees, roofs, boards and other objects being sucked up. He could see the funnel but not the tail. He said debris was flying as high as he could see. He had a case of soda bottles on the back porch, which were undisturbed.

John Green at Grisham's Store stated that he and the other people working at the store ran to the front of the building. Mr. Green said it looked to him like two tornadoes coming together. Everyone then ran to the back of the store where they huddled together for about a minute when the front windows fell out and bricks began to fall. Mr. Green said he was pretty scared because the building was old and he thought their time had come. He said a fan over a door in the store almost blew out sounding like a siren, only worse. Two-thirds of the roof on the two-story building was blown off. Mr. Green said he hopes never to see another tornado.

Did you hear it coming? Mrs. Maggie Elders said she could hear a terrible roaring sound but she was afraid to go outside to see what was happening. She paced back and forth over the floor wondering what it was. Then it hit. Mrs. Elders said the back of her home was torn off and a shed in the back yard was completely destroyed. Only one room of her home wasn't covered with glass.

Were you frozen in your tracks at the horrible sight? Mrs. Jess Ketcherside said she had no idea of a tornado until her daughter-in-law of Leadwood, who was visiting in Desloge that day, walked in and said they heard a storm warning on the radio as they came to her house. Mrs. Ketcherside said she walked to the door of back bedroom and saw the tornado coming toward them. She told her daughter-in-law and baby to get under the bed but that she was frozen to the spot. She said when it struck the Methodist Church the cross on top of the church seemed to go up in flames. She saw it take Jones' Store, a big house and a barn, directly behind her home. She thought it was surely her time to go. She said in the funnel one could see anything--sheet, iron, boards, trees and roofs. Mrs. Ketcherside said it took everything in its path.

Mr. and Mrs. Hershel Parks, who live directly across from the school, said they were nearly scared to death. Mr. Parks and the family ran to the garage, it being the safest place they had. Mrs. Parks said before she learned it was a tornado she thought it was just a big fire with a lot of smoke. She thought too the wind was unusually high. In the meantime their son, Larry Dean, had run with the Yanciks, their neighbors, over to the school, where they broke in the furnace room door. Just as they got inside bricks began to fall where they had been standing. Mr. and Mrs. Parks said when they came through their home the first people they saw were their son and the Yanciks standing in the middle of the street. Mrs. Parks said it was sure a queer feeling knowing her son was out there somewhere, but not knowing where. Mr. Parks said while they were in the garage, it was raised eighteen inches off the ground.

Otis Campbell said he was eating supper when it began to look very bad. He told his wife he was going out and feed the dog before it got too bad. When he went out, he looked up and spotted the tornado forming. He called for his wife and she came out to look. When they saw it was headed in their direction they ran to a neighbor's basement. Mr. Campbell said that when it was all over, it was very calm, but then he began to hear people scream. Mrs. Campbell said that hanging on their cherry tree in their back yard was a shirt freshly ironed and still on a hanger. Also, their dog and dog house were gone. They found the dog house, with the dog inside, one block away. The dog was unhurt.

Published by THE LEAD BELT NEWS, Flat River, St. Francois Co. MO, Fri. May 31, 1957.


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