52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy: Natural Disasters: The Tornado of 1956

Week 10: Disasters. Did you experience any natural disasters in your lifetime? Tell us about them. If not, then discuss these events that happened to parents, grandparents or others in your family.

I have never experienced a natural disaster in my lifetime, nor do I care to.  My mom went through a tornado when she was about six years old that destroyed her house and her grandparents store.  She described it to me once that it "sounded like a freight train".  The family dog pulled my mom and my aunt (her sister) to safety, from under the table they were under  when the tornado hit the house.  But as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words:

The aftermath of the tornado- I believe this is what is left of their house.

My Grandparent's Dog (Collie) that saved my Mom and Aunt



My Grandpa (without the hat) and the sherrif (far right) and two local men



Somewhere in my files I have been collecting articles about the tornado, but it never occured until recently to talk to my family members about their first hand accounts of the tornado.  I do know that because of all the photos the press wanted to take of my mom after that she hates having her photo taken.  She has told me before that "Everytime you turned around someone was taking your photo".