52 Ancestors Week 16 - Storms

Question

Week 16: Storms
AJC - Considering the weird weather across much of the U.S. and Canada this past week, maybe "Storms" isn't the best prompt! Do you have an ancestor who survived a storm (or didn't)? Did they fight a storm, literal or figurative? Is there one with a weather-related name?

 

Comments

The Columbus day storm on the West coast, Northern Oregon, in the 1960s. My grgramma had  a raised ceramic (relief) gold and red dragon tea set from ww2 given to her by her returning soldier. The set was paper thin you could hold them in front of a light bulb, and see through the cups and there were suns visible under bright light that werent visible under regular light. As small children it was a fascinating show and so gorgeous with gold and red dragons on a creamy background and a secret... they had a special shelf with rails to hold them on it...I gues you know where this is going... the wind of the columbus day storm blew in a window and blew the tea set off its shelf along with a lot of other damage...only one cup survived out of  12 place settings and the tea pot... the last cup was treasured for many years as a look but dont touch except by my mom, who one day went to use it and while rinsing it it shattered into a great many shards...

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Growing up on the east coast of Florida, my mother (Chick-328) and her family survived several hurricanes. I remember her story of holding the door shut with my grandmother while my grandfather boarded it up...not sure what year that was (possibly fall 1939). I also have photos of her wading up to her knees in the street after a storm (probably not the best idea). This may explain my lackadaisical attitude toward hurricanes growing up...fill up the bathtub, board up the windows, get out the candles and a deck of cards...though these days the storms are much worse.

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16. Not sure if this qualifies but I have a friend who maned their daughter "Storm".

Answer 1

Children's Blizzard of 1888. Map of MN relatives shortly before, during, or after the storm. The stormed moved east to west.

 

Answer 2

Here is a blog entry I created some time ago about some of my family affected by the Columbus (Ohio) Flood of 1913.  It was my first attempt at blogging apparently I did not continue :)  Need to work on that!

https://unlesssomeone.blogspot.com/2013/03/anniversary-of-great-flood-of-1913.html

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wilkin-41

 

Comments

What a tragedy for your family!  Your blog was quite interesting and well written, in my opinion.

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I started perusing the death records for Columbus, Ohio for the time around the flood.  I started adding the other victims to the category I had created.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Category:1913_Columbus_Ohio_Flood

It is very sad to see just how devastating this flood was to families and extended families.

Any other Columbus Ohio flood researchers out there?

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Good idea to create a category. How incredibly tragic!

Answer 3

Went through my list of 4765 ancestors and could only find two wives of 1st cousins once of twice removed with storm related names.

Annie Mae Cox Rainwater married my grandmother's (Mazie Daughtry) sister's son, Reese Fowler.  Don't have her on Wikitree and have been unable to find any sources to verify her existence yet.

The other wife was Chelsey Ruth Snow.  I found out about her when I was searching for cousins to do DNA testing to try to locate the father of our great grandfather, Luther Stewart.   Two of the cousins I found, a brother and sister, were descended from my grandfather's (George Stewart) brother, Joseph.  Chelsey was Joseph's wife. Joseph was my 1st cousin once removed.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Snow-4219

Answer 4

I might be bending the rules a little bit, but I cannot let the prompt Storms go by without thinking about the Huskar Moorend Pit Colliery Disaster at Silkstone, Yorkshire, England. On the 8th June 1838 a terrible thunder storm hit Yorkshire. Newspaper reports from the time state that hail stones that were as large as cricket balls fell, perhaps an exaggeration. The storm was certainly bad and did a lot of damage in the area, washing away roadways, damaging roofs and breaking the glass in greenhouses at a stately home near Silkstone.

At the Huskar Colliery the miners were working underground and were unable to get out of the colliery due to damage on the surface. They were called to the pit bottom, but did not know the reason why. At that time children were employed in the mine. A group of these children, had heard the thunder and thought that there had been an explosion, and decided they needed to escape. The made their way to an old entrance which opened into woods near Silkstone. Unfortunately a stream running through the woodland flooded and the water flooded into mine blocking their escape. 26 children between the ages of 7 and 17 were trapped against a ventilation door and drowned.

Although my ancestors were involved, some of them were miners and living in the area. They would have been aware of the disaster, the news even reached the National Newspapers of the time. The resulting inquiry led to the 1842 Mines Act which sought to introduce some protection for child miners and meant that all girls and boys under the age of ten were prohibited from working underground.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Huskar_Moorend_Pit_Colliery_Disaster

Comments

Joan, I was at a presentation last month by someone from The National Mining Museum in Yorkshire. I think this was one of the disasters they mentioned. Have you managed to visit them? I am going to York in June and hoping to visit this museum.

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Yes, I have visited the Yorkshire Mining museum. I do not live far away from there. I went down the mine a few years ago with my cousin and granddaughter. Really interesting. The Huskar disaster is really important. It changed the course of mining history. Queen Victoria herself took and interest, and a few years later the law was changed preventing children under 10 working underground. If you are in Yorkshire, Silkstone is not far from the Mining Museum, and there is an interesting trail there, which shows some of the sites and monuments related to mining and to the disaster.

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I recognise one of the photographs on your page.

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That is a sad story...I have some miners in my family (lead and copper miners in Cornwall) and they led such a dangerous and hard life 

Answer 5

I will do this when I have time it will take some time.

Answer 6

This one is easy for me, as my maternal grandparents were born and raised in Kansas, before moving to California. My grandfather, Peter Stoner (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Stoner-632) told about after a tornado, that straw had been driven into wooden fence posts, like nails. He once saw a dead horse that had a barbed wire fence neatly rolled up on it.

The first one in his family to move to California was his sister, Ella (Stoner) Secrist (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Stoner-1103 ), who was sensitive to electricity and could no longer abide the electrical storms in Kansas. They "would take Ella to a cave (when a storm was approaching,) and put her in a chair insulated from the ground by large glass insulators. Then it would still take her several hours to recover from the effects."

My grandmother, Edith (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Forrey-12 ), told about how a tornado was coming, and they all went into the storm cellar under the house. The tornado took the house away, and they were all standing around the edges of the cellar, right against the walls. A cow drifted down into the middle of the cellar, and stood there chewing her cud. Edith wanted to run out and get it, but her parents wouldn't let her, and pretty soon, the cow drifted back out, as the vaccuum took it.

Edith Forrey, about 1901, Jewell county, Kansas.

Comments

The cow visiting the storm cellar leaves me with some interesting images in my brain. Thanks for the chuckles - despite the ocassion being in the middle of a tornado.

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Wow! I guess gearing up for tornadoes is a part of life in Kansas.

Answer 7

The only Connection my family has to any storm that has been documented, is the case of my 2x great grandfather - John Thompson senior (he was married to Catherine Thompson from the Strong Woman Prompt) who was supposedly swept overboard and lost during a gale off the coast of the south island in 1865.

I apologise for the Blurry Death Certificate I have just uploaded to his profile, but it's the only image I have. There is a transcription in the Image description.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Thomson-5483

Comments

I have the same p or no p problem with my Thomson/Thompsons. What a way to go...scary and sad.

Answer 8

not an ancestor of mine, but i think that's ok?

When I was working with Donnie's Dad on the Shifflett family tree, I was intrigued by "Icy Snow" who married a Shifflett. Now I cannot remember how she is related to Albert Freedman Shifflett (Donnie's grandfather). So for this week's challenge, I'll see if I can find my notes & add a profile for her (funny - searching WikiTree to see if there was one already, I discovered another Icy Snow, daughter of Henry & Mary (Frost) Snow!).

Cheers, Liz

P.S. for those wondering why I haven't done much with the Shifflett tree in WikiTree, I keep hoping that one or more of his children will get the genealogy bug and have fun entering the easy info.

Comments

Mary Frost Snow? What are the chances of having the last name Frost and marrying a Snow!

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I know! And researching Icy (Snow) Shiflett, I discovered her brother, Early Snow and that Shifflett family records have Icy's middle name as "And" (Icy and Snow!). Love the names given children in early America!

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Goal was to create her profile and connect her to my late husband's family. Done and done! See Icy's profile & the Relationship path to Donnie's grandfather.

Answer 9

I fell down a storm rabbit hole this week! I must have spent 2 hours reading about this weather event in 1816 called The Year Without a Summer. I found it fascinating, and had never known much about it. My newly discovered Lac Mégantic, Quebec ancestors were farmers, and right in the thick of it, so I wrote about them. There was a huge railway disaster in Lac Mégantic in 2013, so this little town was national news. The take away for me from this week's prompt is this...If you are researching ancestors from the time period of 1816 - 1818, their movements may have been  effected by this major global catastrophe. Something I had never thought of before. Now I'm going to read your posts, which look great! 

http://www.libbyonthelabel.ca/2018/04/if-i-have-ancestor-whose-life-was.html#more

 

Comments

I remember reading all the news about the 2013 train derailment. But was that caused by a storm or not?

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No storm, it was crazy standing operating procedure and a train that shouldn't have been running in the first place. The engineer was found not responsible recently, but it's still something he has to live with which must be very hard. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/mma-railway-created-perfect-storm-defence-for-tom-harding-tells-lac-mégantic-trial-1.4480171

Answer 10

This took a while, and I imagine many others had ancestors in this 'storm'

The Dust Bowl, a time of dust storms...It began with many homesteaders, plowing up prairie grass to grow wheat. Then the drought came, and the price of wheat dropped, and the stock market and economy crashed, and the winds came. Many folks lost their land, both people and livestock succumbed to what was called dust pneumonia. An excellent telling can be found in The Worst Hard Time

My grandfather's nephew Russell Scranton and his family were living in southeastern Colorado, an area that was hard hit by the dust bowl. The following summarizes the family experiences in this time, captured from a book written by his son.

He grew up in Moscow, Kansas, and ran away from home at age 8; he was taken in by the local livery stable and became a horse and mule trader. Shortly after he married Jessie in 1926 they moved to Baca County, in southeastern Colorado. Homesteaders grew broom corn in Baca County, used to make brooms and illegal whiskey from the seed. By the late 1920s, Baca County was suffering a drought, and many farmers had abandoned their land. High winds began around 1927, and the price of wheat plummeted. Russell, known as Scranton, purchased a ranch in Baca County on Horse Creek near Two Buttes, Colorado. He had an alfalfa field, some hogs, chicken and cattle. The ranch was in an area somewhat protected from the dirt storms. After a flood in 1937 and the loss of his 200 hogs and his cattle, he acquired sheep. He built a sheep camp, about 7 feet wide by 14 feet long, pulled by a pickup truck. They traveled through Colorado with this 'camp', the family of six and a hired man, along with a few chickens and a couple of goats, grazing a herd of about 250 to 300 sheep. The family later returned to Bent and Prowers Counties to begin ranching again.

Answer 11

My 3G grandfather Asa Simonds is said to have died from injuries incurred in a violent storm in May 1861, after the shed in which he took shelter was blown down with him inside. He died three days after the event -- I imagine that nowadays he would have been successfully treated for his injuries.

Answer 12

Living in Wisconsin my whole life I was tempted to use one of the tornadoes or blizzards or severe thunderstorms. In the end though I have to go with the major storm my 2nd Great Grandfather Jens Ellingsen survived while captaining a ship on Lake Michigan in 1928.

As it reads, I found this out from an article on Newspapers.com, this storm started very suddenly and very powerful. It produced 50 mph winds and 3 waterspouts, or water tornadoes. 2 of them hit the yacht and one was right in front of it. After the storm was done a triple rainbow was spotted. Water spouts on the Great Lakes were very rare (not sure if that's still true) and Jens had been a captain for over 50 years on them and had only seen 1 other one. The triple rainbow from what it says was a rare thing too.

Answer 13

My mom's family lived through "the flood", otherwise known as the Mississippi River Flood of 1927. It is considered one of the worst natural disasters in the US. The span between Mounds and Cairo, Illinois was decimated by water. I have photos of the house half under water. I also have lots of water stained family records. I have several handmade quilts that either survived the flood intact or have places were the fabric was soaked and eventually rotted. When I visited the house in the 60s high water marks were still visible on the house. On account of the damage from the flood my grandparents moved to Detroit, Michigan. Several of my grandma's siblings and my grandpa's sister moved to Detroit after they did. First moving in with my grandparents till they got on their feet. Many others from Mounds moved to Detroit also. My grandma ran a virtual soup kitchen out of her house, so many people needed help. So "the flood" was a real turning point in my families change from Southerners to Northerners. (Mounds definitely identifies as part of the south)

Answer 14

Considering the topic of “Storm”, warmer climates were in my thoughts as Michigan had just had another winter storm.  And where have Michigan people traditionally gone for the winter? Florida.  And what kind of storms are associated with Florida? Hurricanes.

My great-aunt Jennie (Wilkinson) Ellis and her husband Edgar spent four months of the winter of 1925-26 living in a tent at Sebring, Florida.  Edgar was a carpenter, an occupation that was in demand in Florida at the time as the Florida Land boom of the 1920's and its demand for new construction was peaking.

They had driven down in their automobile from Vernon, Michigan.  This link from Florida to Michigan using the Dixie Highway was already well established by 1925.  A group which still exists,  the “Tin Can Tourists” had been formed in 1919 to aid automobile travelers.  The trip had its challenges, Jennie wrote to her sister, my grandmother  Maude (Wilkinson) Perry,  and  mentioned they just received the new tires and tubes at the post office from Sears, Roebuck for the trip home and hoped to start late enough to miss bad weather in the Appalachians.

Unfortunately their plans to return to Florida the next winter were dashed by the hurricane of September 1926 which hit the Miami area.  The land boom was already starting to go bust and this storm dramatically finished it.

Answer 15

The wreck of the Queen Bee on Farewell Spit on the northern tip of the South Island, New Zealand is my response to the Storm prompt. The grounding of the vessel was not caused by a storm, though the dispersal of the survivors around Tasman Bay was storm-related. 

https://feetuptimetothink.blogspot.co.nz/2018/04/52-ancestors-week-16-storm-wreck-of.html

I have tried to come up with a map, but that just got too tricky!

The coxswain on the pinnace who found the last group of survivors was https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Nilsson-4137. He was my 2x great grandmother's brother-in-law.

Comments

Wow, Fiona. What an interesting story!!  Thanks.

Answer 16

One of the greatest storms in British history was the Eyemouth Disaster of October 14 1881,  This was a storm that hit the Scottish/English border without warning,  Eyemouth in particular, so that many fishing boats out at sea were caught by the storm. Nearly 200 fishermen were lost.

http://www.scottisharchivesforschools.org/naturalscotland/eyemouthdisaster.asp

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyemouth_disaster

Before it made landfall, it destroyed other fishing boats in the North Sea. One of these was the "Silver Dart" out of Ramsgate, Kent.

Vessel:	"Silver Dart" (1881 census)
	
Edward R. HODGEMAN	M	27 	M	St Lawrence, Kent, England	Master
Job GRAND	        M	36 	M	Ramsgate, Kent, England 	Mate
John ABOUT	        U	19 	M	Chatham, Kent, England    	 O Seaman
Walter EMPTAGE	        U	19 	M	Ramsgate, Kent, England 	O Seaman
Charles BOWERS	        U	17 	M	Ramsgate, Kent, England 	Cook

(from http://www.angelfire.com/de/BobSanders/Kent81_14.html )

My second cousin, 4 times removed, Job Grant ( https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Grant-5481 ) was the mate on the Silver Dart.  Job Grant was "lost at sea" on 14 October 1881.

 

Those who went down with the Silver Dart  on 14 October, 1881 were

Robert Hodgeman, Master,  born 1847

Job Grant, Mate, born 1848

Walter Gardner, born 1848

Frederick Keal, "boy", 1868

Walter John Emptage, apprentice, 1862

 

 

 

Answer 17

Yes I am way behind!  Trying to catch up.   I had a bunch of Penny and associated lines in Aberdeenshire. Most of the line were farmers but one branch, broke off and became whalers.  Captain William Penny and his and his wife Margaret (Irvine) Penny wrote books about their life aboard a whaling ship and time in the Baffin area of Canada.  William and I are first cousins five times removed both going back to Charles Penny.

One of the books written by William and his wife Margaret is 

This Distant and Unsurveyed Country: A Woman's Winter at Baffin Island, 1857 ...  By Gillies Ross, Margaret Penny, William Penny  https://books.google.com/books?id=-dF0xCrjMd4C&dq=Margaret+penny+alaska&source=gbs_navlinks_s

In the book many storms and arctic weather is documented.

From his biography:  PENNY, WILLIAM, whaling master and explorer; b. 12 July 1809 in Peterhead, Scotland, son of William Penny and Helen Robertson; m. Margaret Irvine, and they had two sons and three daughters; d. 1 Feb. 1892 in Aberdeen, Scotland.

William Penny made his first whaling voyage at the age of 12 on his father’s ship Alert. By 1829 he had attained the rank of mate, and was making annual trips to Davis Strait. He obtained his first command, Neptune, in 1835, a year in which the whalers met some of the worst ice conditions in history. 

Answer 18

More than 1,800 people drowned at the North Sea flood of February 1953. Here http://www.deramp.nl/  is a data file with the drowned people in the Netherlands.

Answer 19

52 Ancestors for 52 Weeks - Week 16 - Storms

Like I usually do, I am going to go in a different direction with this.

In our local newspaper's section "Looking Back"  20 Years Ago Oct. 22, 1964, it was announced that there was going to be an organization of the junior color guard. It was going to be an all girl guard, the average age of the girls was 14,  and guard would be called "The White Tornadoes", I think you may have a hint of where I am going with storms.

Their first competition was July 4, 1965. Although she was too young to be a member of the original corp, my sister, Diane, soon was accepted as a member of the White Tornadoes.

They hit the ground running and were soon receiving awards everywhere they went. It wasn't too long before they were known nationwide. And they grew as a corp.

My sister was like the other members of the corp. Very dedicated. I have to say at this point, that my sister lost interest fast in a lot of things in her life, but the corp kept her attention.

The White Tornadoes were SO good, that by March of 1968, The Momence White Tornadoes Drum and Bugle Corps was formed. This group consisted of 90 boys of girls between the ages of 12-21. The sole purpose of the group was to promote respect to the Flag of the United States of America and to develop the good character of the young men and women for the future.

I have to say, that I certainly noticed a difference in my sister's life. The stringent rules and regulations that the corps  enforced were good for her. She went into the corp kind of rebellious. But when she came out after graduating from high school in 1971, she was a mature, graceful woman. She was a rifle carrier, and learned how to toss the rifle, clean it, and do all of the tricks that were necessary in belonging to the corp.

I am very proud of my sister and what she accomplished, being a member of this wonderful group, that won many National awards

My sister in her gear.

My sister in one of their famous formations. [[Smith-159494|Diane Rae Smith]]

Answer 20

This one took a while, as I had already covered my ancestor Stephen Sandwell who died aged 25 years in a sudden squall off Nayland Rock, Margate, leaving a young, pregnant widow with 3 children and one on the way.

So it made me think, that as I am descended from a family of mariners that lived surrounded by coastline, there must be another relative caught up in the storms.

It was likely that all the mariners and pilots were involved in many storms over the years but I focussed on Stephen's 3x great grandson Percy Victor Sandwell who was a pilot, like his mariner father George Stephen Sandwell before him.

Percy Victor was the skipper of the Thanet Queen, which was resurrected after it's sinking in 1932. Percy Victor with his new Thanet Queen motor boat was involved in a massive rescue attempt in 1935 when a storm broke out.

All the men that went out to rescue vessels in distress were so brave, but I was amused to read that some poor budgerigar fell out of the sky, exhausted, into a life boat and was rescued!