The Great Storm

Tags

1925, Annapolis, tornado, Tri-State Tornado, weather

In a week when the news is full of terrible storms, I found myself reading this book in preparation for work on a future novel. The deadliest tornado (by far) in American history, this tornado killed at least 695 people as it raced through Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana for more than 200 miles, the longest tornado in history.

My family moved to Annapolis, Missouri, the first town destroyed by the Tri-State Tornado, in 1965, and at that time, forty years after the event, there were people around who had lived through it. I particularly remember hearing the story of the tornado from Mr. Vincent Sutton, a kindly gentleman who went to our church and had served as the mayor of the town for many years. His memory was of how fast the tornado arrived, and how little time anyone had to act.

In an era of satellite weather forecasting and instant telecommunication, it’s hard to recall what a tornado would have been like in 1925. This book (which, by the way, is written by a meteorologist and probably best appreciated by fellow meteorology fanatics) describes the arrival of the storm to the many towns it devastated. People going about their ordinary business, children at school, workers on the job, families at home; occasionally a sense of unease at the size of the gathering clouds; then the storm’s unimaginably swift onslaught.

Imagine an F5 tornado appearing over the horizon, traveling at seventy miles an hour, a path of devastation more than a mile wide, and no word of warning or sirens, because such a system had not yet been invented. No wonder the people who lived through this storm talked about it in tones of awe.

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Favorite Ozarks Places – 16

Tags

Annapolis, Big Creek, folklife, folkways, grist mill, Robinson Mill

Robinson Mill

[UPDATE 3/28/2020: I’m immensely grateful to Judy Hampton, who grew up in Annapolis, across the creek from the mill. Thanks to Judy for sending me a couple of images: photos of paintings by Shirley Robinson, wife of Homer Robinson. One is of the mill and one of the Robinson house, and I’m posting them farther down in this essay. Judy remembers looking out her bedroom window when she was a little girl and watching with sadness when the mill burned down.]

You have to be a true old-timer to know about this one, as Robinson Mill, near Annapolis, burned down about 45 years ago. That’s a view of it from the Annapolis side of Big Creek; it sat on the west side of the creek, a little upstream from town.

Nowadays it’s commemorated only by the name of the road that once passed it; even photographs of it are hard to find, and I had to dig these out from the 1971 Annapolis centennial brochure. The mill was operated by Elmer Robinson and his son Homer, about whom I recall very little. They also smoked and sold hams and bacon. I remember visiting the mill and occasionally having some of their corn meal around the house; the mill was operated by a water wheel that turned from a long millrace that diverted water from the creek. Whenever the Robinsons wanted to grind some grain, they would crank up the sluice gates at the head of the millrace, and down would come the water. I believe it used a horizontal turbine underneath the mill—not as picturesque as an external water wheel, but more efficient.

Elmer and Homer Robinson grinding corn

A few mills still exist across the Ozarks, and I’ve been heartened to follow the progress of the restoration of the old mill at Greer. Not so long ago, having a mill nearby was essential to the economic life of a region, one of the first steps in moving from a life of strict subsistence to one where extra cash could be obtained. These structures link past to present in a tangible and physical way that brings folkways to life. I’ve never believed in nostalgia for its own sake; things of the past don’t necessarily gain value just because they’re old. But watching a grist mill grind corn is a wonderful window into a way of life—and a way of living—that is both surprisingly near and astonishingly distant.

Robinson Mill, painted by Shirley Robinson.

Robinson Mill house, painted by Shirley Robinson.

 

Woodcutting Season

Tags

Annapolis, firewood, Ozarks, rural

When I was a youngster, the afternoon of Thanksgiving was reserved for wood-cutting. My dad had a circular saw that hooked up to the PTO of the tractor, and for weeks beforehand my brother and I had been piling up slabs from the local sawmills. (For those of you who aren’t familiar with “slabs,” they are the edge pieces that are created when a sawmill shapes up a log for lumber — bark on a curved outer side, flat on the inner side, typically eight to twelve feet long.)

My brother would feed, my dad would run the saw, and I was the “off-bear” — the guy who would catch the cut section and toss it to the side. Occasionally my brother and I would trade jobs to keep from getting bored, but Dad always ran the saw. My mother’s task was to stand about twenty feet away and fret. She was convinced that one of us would eventually cut off a hand, and now when I think about that naked saw blade spinning about a foot away from Dad and me, I imagine her fears were justified. The footing was never smooth, and the weight of the cut pieces varied from featherlight to almost too heavy for me to carry. So yes, we were not exactly the poster children for the National Safety Council.

Somehow, we managed to make it through years of that labor without even losing a finger, so perhaps we were safer than it looked.

This image is not us (it’s a generation older, a photo I found via Google) but the operation is very similar. Our saw blade was about a foot larger in diameter, and the PTO belt from the tractor came out from beneath the seat, so it was fairly level rather than the high angle seen here. But I can definitely sympathize with the kid in the foreground plugging his ears.

Favorite Ozarks People – 5

Tags

Annapolis, libraries, Missouri, Ozarks

John Mertens

I remember when John Mertens was hired as the executive director of the Ozark Regional Library, replacing the retiring Gertrude Zimmer. Miss Zimmer had been director of the ORL since its creation, pretty much, and was legendary through the four-county region. (Gertrude passed away in 2011 at age 102, by the way).

But John leaped into the position with zest and became just as much a fixture around the eastern Ozarks as Miss Zimmer had been. He championed libraries around the Ozarks and kept the regional library system solvent in a time of ever-shrinking budgets and anti-intellectual sentiment. When I was a young newspaper reporter, I would drive the 40 miles to Ironton once a month to participate in the Great Books Club discussion. It was the closest thing the eastern Ozarks had to a “salon,” and I was fortunate to meet some incredibly wise and well-read people there.

John retired this past year and a new director has taken over, whom I have not yet met. May his tenure be as long and productive as his predecessors’!

A Fine Day in Annapolis

Tags

Annapolis, favorite_places, fiction, historical fiction, John Mertens, libraries, Missouri, Ozarks, rural, Slant of Light, writing

This gallery contains 4 photos.

It was a fine day in Annapolis yesterday, as I visited the library to give a reading and autograph some …

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Favorite Ozarks People – 2

Tags

Annapolis, Missouri, Ozarks

Eugene and Faye Wiegenstein

Eugene and Faye Wiegenstein at Greer Spring

Not only were these folks my mom and dad, they were two of the most interesting people you’d ever know.

Mom was a great Improver. She itched to make things better–the lives of those around her, the community where she lived, herself. The notion of standing pat, accepting the way things are, was not native to her. I’ll be doing a reading later this month at the Annapolis Branch of the Ozark Regional Library, named in her honor, which would not exist without her determination and her unwillingness to accept the status quo.

Dad, on the other hand, was a great Noticer. Whenever we went for a walk in the woods, he would invariably call my attention to something I hadn’t observed before–animal sign, a new flower in bloom, a curious feature in the landscape. Easygoing and even-tempered, he inspired fondness in everyone who met him, and he was a great storyteller and dreamer of dreams.

They both avoided the limelight and always sought to direct recognition to others. But they certainly deserved every bit of recognition they got–and more.

Libraries

Tags

Annapolis, libraries, Ozarks

What’s the greatest American invention of all time? You’ll get a lot of debate over this question, but for me, the free public library has to be up there in the top five.

My mom was a librarian . . . she started by working as a clerk in the Fredericktown Branch of the Ozarks Regional Library, then when we moved to Annapolis she was determined that it needed a library too. Her determination paid off when the city officials set aside space in the “old Bolch chickenhouse” where the Annapolis Branch began.

How many afternoons I spent in the library in both towns! And the patrons–what a marvelous assortment of people. Elderly folks who used the library as an opportunity for a conversation outing, school children needing help on a project, voracious readers of “great books” and addicts of escapist novels. Everyone came to the library, and all you needed to access the knowledge of the world was the little card in your wallet.

Librarians out there, if you ever want me to make an appearance or give a talk, say the word. I owe you.

Walnut-picking time

Tags

Annapolis, memory, Missouri, Ozarks

As the photo I just posted illustrates, we had a lot of black walnut trees on the farm where I grew up. My brother and I would pick up the walnuts for our Christmas money — it was nasty work, especially if the weather had been warm and the outer husk of the walnuts had grown mushy. Then our fingers would get black and smelly from the tannin of the soft, maggot-ridden hulls.

But oh! the thought of “free” money just lying on the ground, waiting to be picked up! We would wait for the huller to come around–a great, noisy machine that set up in the yard of the feed store or implement dealer. And the question around school was — what were they paying this year? Four cents a pound? Five? Six? Our Christmas present purchasing power was governed by it.

And second oh, the great letdown when twenty bags of walnuts went through the huller and were reduced to three or four of the hulled nuts. Dad always brought home a bag for winter cracking and picking. My clumsy hands were better suited for the gross work of picking walnuts out of the pasture than for the tedious, fine labor of picking out the nutmeats.