The Mount Ayr Record-News
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
August 2, 1984

It has been almost two months now since the tragic day of June 7, 1984 when the tornado swept through Ringgold County leaving two persons dead and town properties in Kellerton and farms in the county with an estimated two million dollars in damage. How quickly is the repairable damage taken care of and how do individuals cope? These questions were asked and a variety of answers were received.

Following the storm there were the immediate problems of houseing, taking care of farm chores, picking up and looking for things scattered by the wind. There are emotional scars that may never disappear.

The state of Rex and Vesta SHAHA may be typical of the adjustments farm people had to make. The SHAHAS received as much damage as most anyone. They lost a large amount of fence and spent two weeks gathering cattle together to put in different pastures. They have erected a new shop to replace one that was destroyed but haven't started a barn yet. The toppled Harvestore hasn't been tended to.

Because of the time of the year that the storm hit, Mrs. SHAHA said they had to "get on with farming - haying, wheat harvest, and planting" and couldn't devote all their efforts to taking care of the damage.

They were left without the use of their house and moved to the farmstead a mobile home, loaned by friends, to live in while a new roof was put on and new wiring installed throughout their house.

They told a similar story at the farm of Myron and Shirley INGRAM, but their large hog operation (they raise between 800-900 head) added another dimension of concern.

The finishing floor where hogs are automatically fed and sprayers for cool thermostatically controlled, was destroyed and left some 450 hogs without the use of such a confinement. They had to be put in dirt lots and also a neighbor's confinement was activated. The lack of full facilities and the stress of changed conditions did result in some hog losses, however, INGRAMS said.

"There is frustration when the use of equipment is lost," Mrs. INGRAM commented. She explained what the destruction of a 10-ton bulk bin, used for bean meal storage, meant. Bean meal had to be taken to a wagon, then to buckets and put into the grinder, where before this procesing had been done automatically.

"There is much emotional stress living in such a changed environment during an extremely busy time for farmers," Mrs. INGRAM concluded.

For Mrs. Rodney (JoAnn) DOSER of Kellerton it was an adjustment of a different sort.

Her husband, a farmhand for H and M AKERS farm east of Kellerton, was killed when their mobile home was destroyed by the tornado. She found herself a widow at the age of 20 after one year and four days of marriage.

For five weeks she lived at the home of her in-laws, Mr. and Mrs. Raymond DOSER, and now has moved to a house in Kellerton which she is renting. She continues in her parttime bookkeeping job at the Corner Truck Stop at Decatur.

Dean and Rose FUGATE had just finished remodeling their large, four-bedroom home at the edge of Kellerton when it was hit by the tornado. The fact that there was something left testified to how well it was built, Mrs. FUGATE said. It took two men to lift off the big, heavy front door of the home where the FUGATES had lived for 31 years.

Even with good insurance coverage (the company "totaled" it), Mrs. FUGATE said they couldn't begin to replace such a home in kind. Right now her husband is tearing it down, trying to save the ornate yellow pine woodwork and "tongue and groove" flooring which they would like the opportunity to use in a new house - sometime.

Things that even money won't be able to replace are the many old maple trees that stood in the back yard. Obviously, these 75-100 year old trees won't be duplicated in the FUGATES' lifetime.

The home was in such a condition that the FUGATES had to look for alternate lodging right away for themselves and their 13-year-old son, the only one of their four children who is still at home. They were fortunate to find a fully-furnished rental home that had belonged to the late Lenora BASSETT.

In the "picking up"process they salvaged most of their clothes, but some of the smaller things they missed were a picnic basket, lawn chairs, picnic table and a ladder. They are still discovering personal things, mostly in the immediate area. They spotted part of their electric ice cream freezer but the rest has disappeared.

Their new, nearly-full deep freeze was left intact except that the thing valuable to its functioning, the door, was blown away. The beef, fruits and vegetables thawed overnight, in the confusion after the storm, and were not salvageable. The bicycles they are trying to restore but their pickup was wrecked. All were much-used items.

These weren't the only ones recovering from much tornado damage but were thought to be fairly representative of what goes into "picking up the pieces" after such a tragedy.

Transcription and submission by Sharon R. Becker, 2007

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