Welcome to the Misadventures of Widowhood blog!

Welcome to my World---Woman, widow, senior citizen seeking to live out my days with a sense of whimsy as I search for inner peace and friendships. Jeez, that sounds like a profile on a dating app and I have zero interest in them, having lost my soul mate of 42 years. Life was good until it wasn't when my husband had a massive stroke and I spent the next 12 1/2 years as his caregiver. This blog has documented the pain and heartache of loss, my dark humor, my sweetest memories and, yes, even my pity parties and finally, moving past it all. And now I’m ready for a new start, in a new location---a continuum care campus in West Michigan, U.S.A. Some people say I have a quirky sense of humor that shows up from time to time in this blog. Others say I make some keen observations about life and growing older. Stick around, read a while. I'm sure we'll have things in common. Your comments are welcome and encouraged. Jean

Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Living Through an F-5 Tornado and its Aftermath


The1965 photograph above is of my husband standing on the back steps of what was left of the farmhouse where he grew up. A tornado hit the farm twice, ten years apart. The last time it was an F-5 and they couldn’t rebuild. Strange stories came out of that tornado like the fact that Don’s 24th birthday cake still sat on the kitchen table on the other side of the window on the far left in the photo---not a fleck of debris on it. The second story and roof above the cake were gone. The wall that was still standing upright to the right of Don had a clothesline running between it and a tree and when the clothesline was cut that wall fell in, starting a chain reaction that took down the wall with the window. (If you look hard enough you can see the clothesline on the right side in the photo.) 

Other strange things included one of their work horses was found miles away after the tornado passed---too far for him to run in such a short period of time. Not a scratch on him while the other horses who ran for the near-by woods weren't so lucky. A heavy china cabinet with a wave-glass front toppled over on its face and while three legs snapped off the wave-glass doors were intact. I still have a set of circa 1910 ivory elephants that were inside that china cabinet. Once a set of seven classic elephants but one was lost to the tornado and another suffered a broken leg. Which elephant got lost---happiness, wisdom, prudence, royal dignity, invincible power, longevity or intelligence---was debated a time or two over the years.

The first tornado didn't do as much physical damage but a scandal came out of it because the local insurance man had scammed all the people who 'bought' policies from him. He took their payments for years but never sent them into the main company to actually secure the policies he 'sold.' Victims like Don's parents were left to rebuild on their own. 

Just days before the second tornado Don's dad had bought his first tractor, a bright blue Ford and the barn it was parked in went flying all over the fields that they previously worked with a team of horses, but the tractor didn't get a scratch on it. The only work that tractor ever did was when the family used it to help drag what was left of the house and barn out to a gravel pit on the farm that they turned into a burn pit. Someone in the family had to camp out 24/7 on the driveway with a rifle close by to stop the looters who came along soon after the tornado left the area. And to the day he died, Don would never pass up a Salvation Army bucket without putting money in it. During that cleanup period someone from the organization would hike across the field to the burn pit every day to give the workers coffee and sandwiches so the women folks didn't have to stop to make lunches. Their job was to comb though the debris and sort out what could be salvaged and what had to be burned or buried.

In the decade that followed the tractor was parked in a garage at a house his parents moved into back in town. Eventually, Don bought it from his parents and he still had the tractor when he died twelve years ago---in storage most of that time. Even after he had a massive stroke in 2000 Don couldn't be talked into parting with that 1955 Ford. I finally sold it as an antique tractor after his death and even though I got a good price for it, it was a break-even thing if you factored in the decades of storage fees we paid for Don to hold on to a piece of his family history.  Some might see it as $8,000 thrown down a rabbit hole---as storage fees generally are---but it was his money that he worked hard for and I can think of worst things he could have done his money. I was glad to see it go, though, and I tell myself that Don would be happy that the buyer planned to enter that tractor in antique farm equipment shows. That was Don's retirement dream, taken away from him by his stroke.

The 160 acres of land that made up the farm had nothing left on it for years except a silo and 60 acres of virgin timber. For decades we could still go up there and pick rhubarb and raspberries and hike in woods. But eventually after the four brothers inherited the farm it was a source of many arguments between the head-strong brothers. Two wanted to develop it into a housing project and two wanted to turn it into a campground with hiking trails. After a half a decade of debating and getting no where, the county came along and wanted to buy it. They agreed to sell, but the family tried to get the buy/sell agreement to include the right to name the proposed 'public park' they claimed they wanted it for but the county was adamant that would be a deal breaker. After the sale went through we found out why. It wasn't a family picnic park they wanted the land for, they built a sports complex there and the corporation fronting the money to develop it wanted the naming rights. After the sale, Don could never drive by the old farm without bad feelings coming back up. He felt they'd been lied to and that they never would have agreed to sell if a family picnic park had not been the carrot held out to them. He always wondered if one of his brothers had clued the county in on how to sway the others to sell.

We humans are resilient creatures, aren't we. We go through horrific events like losing our homes, our jobs, our health or people who are important to us but somehow most of us manage to come out the other side of our tragedies to rebuild our lives again and again, and to dream again. But if you look deep enough those horrific events leave scars behind on our souls. 

Living through two tornadoes effected Don. Not only did he take storm warnings seriously and would go to the basement when the weather bureau issued their warnings. I believe if he hadn't stood  watching things like old license plates, his childhood pedal car, live chickens and 10 gallon milk cans spinning upward he wouldn't have spent his entire adult life trying to buy back his childhood in the form of all the toys and family pieces handed down through the generations. He couldn't pass up an estate sale, garage sale, auction or antique store without stopped.

This has been the backstory about how one memorabilia collector was born. All collectors have a backstory---whether it's the good stuff worth big bucks they collector or their houses are over taken by plastic recycling and rotten, bug-infested food. I'm grateful my obsessed collector was the former (sentiment driven) and not the latter (insecurity driven). If you've ever watched the TV show, Hoarders, you already know that they both have a common thread of a loss in their lives that contributes significantly to their need to surround themselves with whatever they collect, be it trash or treasures.  ©

Until Next Wednesday. 

This photo is of the farm before the tornado destroyed it.

59 comments:

  1. There is so much sadness in this post. The story about being lied to about the family picnic park was the worst for me because it was done by fellow human beings.

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    1. Also the insurance policy fraud :(

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    1. Unfortunately that is true about the lies...or in this case half truths.

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  3. What a traumatic event! And to suffer through two tornados. The stories are amazing, aren't they? Our community is in a tornado area and about 20 years ago we were caught in one. We were driving down the interstate to the next town for my husband's sister's wedding rehearsal. All the sudden the dust was swirling around our car windows - we couldn't see out and the car was rocking. My husband stopped dead in the road, it was too late to do anything but listen to the roar. After it stopped, we had corn husks from the fields stuck in the doors on both sides, the front hood and the trunk. There were semi trucks stopped in the road and several drivers ran to a partially collapsed barn before we could tell them it was like that pre-tornado. At my mother in law's house all the windows were blown out of the guest's rental cars and the garage door had blown in, trapping their cars. Further down the road, roofs had blown off. A tree fell in an area of the road we just passed and landed on a car, killing the doctor who was sitting inside as we were. I am glad that no one in your husband's family lost their lives, but what a devastation event to happen to them.

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    1. It's amazing the power those storms have. The part that always get me is how a birthday cake could be perfect with candles in place but the house above and second story above were gone. Glad you made it through your experience with no loss of life.

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  4. A most interesting post! You and Don each had a rich life, packed with memories.

    I've heard of people going missing in tornadoes, never to be found again (this is going back to 1970s). Or, if their body was eventually found, it never made the news, or I missed it.

    I'm a hoarder - mix of insecurity and sentimentality (mostly the former, I think). Siblings aren't.

    I'm finding decluttering terribly hard - I pat myself on the back when I (finally) chuck something. ~ Libby, Oz

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    1. Hoarding is a complicated issue and a lot of us who were born during WW11 inherited the tendency from our parents who had to make do with a lot of stuff during the depression and the war thus they became natural savers of anything that might become useful in the future. Of Don's family only one of his brothers tended to hoard and the other two were just the oppose.

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  5. Wow. Don's family was lucky no one was killed! What a terrible ordeal to go through.I found this post so interesting (and timely). My son and his family had their first hurricane down in Texas this week. Luckily, it was only Category 1 in their area and they only lost their fence (and their power for a long while).

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    1. It took me a long time to write this one. I started out with a post about us having to go to underground parking area during an alert and me being the only one with a go-bag of things I might need if we actually got hit with a tornado. But once I got going I decided even though it was a longer post than I usually do that it was a story worth telling. I'm glad your son only lost his fence. Nature is nothing to fool about.

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  6. A fascinating and poignant story, Jean. It's so true what F Scott Fitzgerald says in the last lines of his novel The Great Gatsby: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

    The impact of past traumas or experiences profoundly shape who we become. Fortunately, it doesn't always translate into negative traits, but the imprints are undeniable.

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    1. True. Our life experiences can make us or break us and we can live our lives never talking about our trauma (as Don rarely did) but the imprint is is there on our souls.

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  7. First thing I read each Wednesday is your blog. You never disappoint. You have a gift. Vicki

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  8. I hear him about the basement. Although I've never been damaged directly by a tornado, I know those who have and been pretty close to one -- enough to know that warnings don't always come with sirens and that safety matters. I cannot imagine how Don coped emotionally with two of these events.

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    1. His parents went through a lot of trauma when Don as a kid---the youngest boy in the family---so he saw it all. Despite the ghosts that sometimes haunted him, he was a strong, loyal and extremely fair minded man. And empathetic to anyone who was going through hard times.

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    2. Witnessed by his Salvation Army bucket donations

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  9. Wow, what a story. Fantastic photos too. My mother was born in Wisconsin and spent time at her grandparents' farm when she was little. When we moved her here to Texas from California, she hated the thunderstorms. She remembered her grandfather staying up all night during storms watching the lightning for tornado development (this was in the 1920's) but she didn't know that was what he was watching for so she transferred that fear to any lightning. She had a scrolled iron bed that was next to a window in her bedroom here and when we had any kind of storm she would go and sit in the bathroom as far away from it as she could get. She was sure the lightning would come through the window and electrocute her in her bed.

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    1. So true that our parents and grandparents can transfer fears to us without even saying a word.

      I had a whole series of photographs of what that tornado did to the farm but when my husband died I gave all but the two photos to his brother, not knowing I'd someday writer about it and would like to have them back. It was really a somber experience to look through that album.

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  10. A poignant, insightful, loving post. Thank you. 🙏

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    1. Thank you for seeing what you saw in my writing about this part of Don's life.

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  11. Beautifully written post about how terrible trauma (and people!) can inform our decisions for the rest of our lives. I see it in my own life and in those around me; also the effects of intergenerational trauma that is unwittingly passed down through families to kids and their kids who were not even born when the trauma occurred. There is no escaping it, only learning the effects and how to manage it. This too is life in all its beautiful, messy, hurtful glory. Thanks Jean, for writing about this.

    Deb

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    1. I worked on this post a lot longer than most of my posts. Once I got started I didn't want to leave any of my memories about it out. I'm debating whether or not to post it on Facebook where a lot of Don's nieces and nephews will see it.

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    2. I follow a Canadian guy on "X" (formerly Twitter) whose father lived through Auschwitz but lost his first family to the Nazis. He later married again and had this son (now in his 70's) and one or two other children. The son has written a memoir about his family and the difficulties of intergenerational trauma and how it's affected him his whole life, knowing he was a "replacement" for beloved children lost in the Holocaust.

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    3. Wow, how sad. I'll bet it took him a long time to finally open up about his 'replacement feelings'.

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    4. Jean, I think you should share this with Don's nieces and nephews.

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    5. TTPT, I think this is an issue that affects so many. My parents were children when the Nazis occupied the Netherlands and the fear, cold and hunger of those years coloured my parents' entire lives (and no doubt the echoes are still today felt by me and my sisters, even though my parents are long dead).

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    6. Deb, I'm leaning strongly in that direction but considering leaving out or rewriting the paragraph about the brothers fighting over what to do with the farm. Only one of these kids was alive when the tornado hit but they knew the farm land well as we all used it for hiking, hunting and digging up plants, etc.

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  12. Emotional, sad, and relevant. Most of us can relate whether we've been through something like this or not. Makes you wonder how so many who lived through natural disasters, or with war - fearing for their lives every day, sometimes for years - manage to come out the other end whole.

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    1. I know what you mean. I saw a story about a woman who lost her family to a tsunami. I can't image how that would haunt a person or having a child kidnapped. So many tragic things happen in this world and there are lots of people walking around who are barely holding themselves together. That's why it's so important to always be kind of others.

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  13. I know that traumas often underscore subsequent behavior. Your story about Don draws a clear line between the two. It's easy to make snap judgments about why people become hoarders, but the few I've known had interesting backstories that made what they did, make sense.

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    1. I used to watch Hoarders every Monday night and clean like crazy on Tuesdays. The therapist on that show did a good job of getting at the key issue and often it was heart breaking. I always felt sorry for the children who knew no other way of life.

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  14. In Florida we sometimes have tornados, usually small ones with limited damage. Also, we don't have basements (water table is too high, they just fill up with water), so no storm shelters. But what we're really scared of are hurricanes (which can bring tornados with them). With so many people living on our coasts, who have to evacuate, it becomes a huge traffic jam, and the stores get emptied out pretty quickly (or at least all the bread, milk, and beer). After living here for 46 years, and seeing how many more people are here now compared to then, and how developers have just paved over the swamp and put up new houses, I really have fear that when we get the next big hurricane, we could lose a lot of people. So far, we've been lucky, but I'm afraid our luck will shortly run out.

    Those photos are heart-breaking, aren't they? You have to be strong to live through something like that and rebuild.

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    1. Hurricanes would be scary as hell with no real place to hide or be safe from them. We need to quit developing so much of our coastlines! Mother earth is starting to talk back in an increasing louder voice to get our attention.

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    2. There is a fascinating article in today's New York Times about the federal government's efforts toward maintaining the coastlines. Apparently we have spent twice as much since 2000 as we spent from 1900-1999. But because we (well, some of us) don't "believe" in climate change, we will keep on doing that, I suppose.

      What a fascinating read about your husband's family land and what they went through. It's nearly impossible to get four siblings to agree on one path to take (I know from experience)!

      My state has not historically been a tornado alley, but in the 1990s I was once stuck on a road between two enormous trees, one in front of my car and one behind me. Lucky for me there were a couple of guys, one of them in a Jeep with a winch, so they created enough of an opening for us to get through. And climate change has been at work here, too - this year we have had as many as five tornados in one night.
      Nina

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    3. Because of climate change we'll be getting more and more extreme weather. I'm not surprised about the coastlines article and study. It's a losing proposition to think we can keep the coastlines the same when the seas are rising.

      Love that story about the guy with the winch on his jeep. That would have been Don's idea of a good time.

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  15. I delved a bit on Today's Post about Why I'm a Hoarder, since, it is a Coping Mechanism, whether a healthy or unhealthy one. Loved the Stories of the resilience after catastrophic events... tho' losing a Historic Farm had to be so hard and what the County did to procure it for an Investor doesn't Surprise me one bit. My Mom experienced Tornadoes when she first moved to America, they were Stationed in Kansas, Wizard of Oz Country... and her Stories were traumatic based ones as much as what she Witnessed in WWII Europe as a Child. She remembers seeing stalks of Wheat that had been blown completely thru Telephone Poles like Javelins. And a Mother Cow that had been skinned Alive while protecting her Calf, who was unscathed. In WWII my Mom's vivid Memory was a new Nursing Mom on the end of their Street whose Row House was hit by a Capet Bomb. It took out the House but left only the Chimney, which the Woman Nursing her Newborn while sitting in a Rocking Chair were sucked up the Chimney and were sitting on the Top of it looking unscathed, but quite Dead. I can't even Imagine those levels of Visual Trauma after something horrific like Weather or War.

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    1. Wow, the visuals your mom had to live would be enough to traumatize anyone! And her telling you those stories had to effect you as well. I know my mom telling me about the hardships of living through the depression and WW11 had an effect on me and my collecting. I feel very lucky that we haven't had a war in this country since the Civil War. I hope that doesn't change any time soon, but I do worry about it. Realistic or not.

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  16. I am so moved by this backstory. I feel like I stepped into Don's shoes a little bit. I would have liked him so much. I have found it hard to relate to your stories of Don the storyteller, since that gene entirely skipped my family tree, but I do relate to his sentiment driven hoarding. And what good reasons he had! I'm so glad the beloved tractor found an owner proud have it. There must be hundreds of proud new owners, given all the memorabilia you sold.

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    1. Most collectors are interesting people...no matter what they collect. I did try hard to find the right homes for what I downsized.

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  17. What a wonderful post, never had to worry about a tornado as we don't get them around here but yes Australia can get them but not in the area I live.

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    1. I never would have guessed that Australia would get tornadoes down under. Glad you're not in that part of the country.

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  18. What a post! Don and his family were confronted by huge challenges--and then the questionable "deal" when it came time to sell the acreage. It sounds as though much of what Don encountered served to make him a sensitive, generous man. I am so glad he was able to keep his dad's tractor for the rest of his life. I don't always understand, but my husband kept one of his father's old tractors, too.

    Way back in 1960, my mother, little brother and I were at home. My father had gone to a church meeting with his parents, who lived on a farm less than two miles from our place. All of a sudden, we heard what sounded like a train. Mom and I ran to look out the front windows and we saw that horrible, big black cloud coming right at us. We prayed. Mom didn't even have time to get my brother out of the crib before the tornado flattened the barn across the road in front of our home, and it flattened the chicken house behind our house. That storm destroyed every building and every living thing on my grandparents' farm. It was heartbreaking, but our family was so thankful that the storm did not take our lives.

    Thank you for sharing this moving family story, Jean. I know it must have been a difficult post to write.

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    1. Not so hard to write emotionally. I just wanted to take my time and remember all the details.

      Sounds like your family could write a moving account of your tornado experiences. It gave me chills to what you shared here.

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    2. P.S. There is something about guys and their dad's tractors. Going to antique tractor shows you hear a lot of stories about guys who rebuilt the tractors they rode on or drove as a kid.

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  19. What a tale you wove today Jean. It captured so much of what people go through, how it affects them and changes the way their life proceeds without them even realizing it. Coming from WW11 England seeing houses and lives destroyed was a normal sight - what it did to those that lived through it all we will never know. Quiet strength are words I would use and I feel that strongly in your description of your late husband. I read every week, rarely comment but always appreciate your words, especially today.

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    1. None of us can imagine how hard it would be to live through trauma like war and natural disasters. It either breaks you or make you stronger.

      Thanks for reading my blog! And for the comment today.

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  20. I don’t believe anyone can truly understand the deviation and heartache one feels when they lose almost everything until they experience it themselves. Seeing your life treasures scattered for miles must be heartbreaking. What has always marveled me is the path the tornadoes take as they skip and jump all over. They can completely wipe out one home or building and leave another fully intact. As they say, you can replace “things” but not people. What Don went through was horrific but it made him the interesting guy that he was, there was never a dull moment when he was around.

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    1. Did you know him personally, not just through this blog? He was an interesting guy with lots of facets to his personality.

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    2. Turns out anonymous (directly above) did know my husband. It was made by a cousin who found her way here to the comment section. Welcome!

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  21. What a sad and yet wonderful tale. Perserverance. I can't fathom the total loss of everything. And it is fascinating how he had this lead him to collecting. Interesting post Jean!

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    1. Thank you. He did have the collecting gene in him even before that tornado, to be completely honest. The license plates he saw taking off like a flock of birds in the air was his boyhood collection.

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  22. What a wonderful story with sad and interesting elements. You write well, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. I've been recording my mom's stories and writing them into a group for her. It's so very interesting to me how people's experiences form them into the adults we know. Great story, Jean!

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    1. Thanks and I'll bet you know the baseball and softball sport complex I wrote about, being from this area.

      I do think sometimes our lives make better sense looking back and putting all the parts together than they do when we're living through stuff. How we react, the choices we make are all influenced heavily by our early experiences and even what our parents experienced.

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  23. Jimmy Buffett has a song called "Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On" that came to mind as I was reading this. It's on my hurricane season playlist, but it applies to so much in life. One of its lines say, "If a hurricane doesn't leave you dead, it will make you strong." That applies to every sort of life event as well.

    The oddities of storms are endlessly fascinating. After Hurricane Ike, a pearl necklace was left hanging from an upper limb of a nearly destroyed tree; the house it had been in front of was gone. That the pretty blue tractor survived without a scratch, and that the wave-glass doors made it through are similar perplexities. Of course, the same is true with people. Some survive and move on, stronger for the experience. Others become more sensitive to threats and head to the cellar more quickly, but still continue to live. A few can't cope, and decide to move to 'safer' territory. Of course, as we all know, there isn't a completely safe place in the world.

    Your last comment about collectors reminded me of my mother. I'm sure her love of pottery, depression glass, and so on was rooted in the deprivations of her childhood. She loved surrounding herself with pretty things, and she sure passed that on to me. Eventually, I stopped with the buying and selling of china that was a good excuse to keep collecting; now, what I still have is almost entirely art china and chamber set pieces. They're beautiful, but they're not taking up space in the laundry room or under the bed!

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    1. I've always thought people who live in hurricane country are super strong to chance having to rebuild in any given year. Your story about the necklace reminds me of a photo that was in our newspaper of a teddy bear in a tree that had been stripped of all its leaves. The randomness of tornadoes and hurricanes is fascinating.

      By chamber sets do you mean the comb and brush sets and china hair receivers, etc.? At first I thought you meant chamber pots.

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    2. The pots are a part of a complete set, but it's hard to find them these days. I have primarily the toothbrush vases, mugs, large and small pitchers, and covered soap dishes.

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    3. I've got this pattern in the large pitcher, soap, vase, and mug. I should do a post or two about the collection.

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  24. That's a beautiful pattern. I used to collect that kind of bedroom stuff when I was into early American and primitives back in the '60s. I still have a couple of dresser pieces I couldn't part with. I'd love to see a post about your collection. It's been awhile since I've seen authentic pieces like those in your link and I don't think I've ever seen primitive tooth brushes.

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