by Steve Dunford – franklincounty-news.com

When I began to see news stories ran yesterday about the anniversary of the Tri-State Tornado, my mind began to wander about the conversations I used to have with my Great Grandmother Beulah “Granny” Dunford.

“Granny” was not a family name, it was a T’ville name.  She ran a restaurant back in the 1940’s and 50’s in Thompsonville.  Troops that were deployed during WWII and Korea would send her letters from overseas entitled “Granny.”

She was born in 1901.  Being a history buff, I would like to pick her mind about things.  She would always tell me stories about the depression.  She would say how wild things would get at times growing up in Saline County.

 

She was a high school graduate which was rare during those days.  I would occasionally watch NFL games with her. She loved watching the NFL Films that Harry Kalas used to narrate.  Granny would tell me how she used to love playing football in PE, and would have loved to been a Harrisburg Bulldog if they would have let girls go out for the team.  She also would tell me that she would have loved to been a NASCAR driver as well.

During the Tri-State Tornado she lived in Parrish.  My Great Grandpa “Shorty” worked in the mines there.  He had an ice route in Parrish and Logan and worked second shift at the mine.

She told me off from the distance she thought the tornado was a huge fire, and wondered if it was at the mine.  She began to realize when the wind picked up, it was a tornado.

She huddled with her young family and rode the storm out.  In my recollection, the house was damaged but not destroyed.  My Grandpa, Charles, was a baby then.  She was afraid he would be blown out of her arms, so she threw him in a heavy cedar hope chest she had to ride out the storm.

She said there were few things left standing in Parrish.  Accounts of the tornado have the community 90% destroyed.  She told me she met Shorty close to the mine.  The tipple was blown over and the miners were able to walk out.

She had another close call with a tornado, when the one struck Thompsonville on April 27, 1971, narrowly missing her house.  There was a buckeye tree in her yard that I always climbed as a kid the storm split into.

She told me that God must always had his hand on my grandpa. When the mine was idle, they family went to the river.  She said they lived off of fish and tomatoes that summer as well as times during the depression.  In the middle of the night that summer my Grandpa rolled out of the tent when they were asleep, and they fund him laying outside sound asleep.

God is not finished with my Grandpa because he is still living. Growing up as a kid, he was a rural mail carrier by day, and an electrician by night.  He also pastored the McKinney Chapel Free Will Baptist Church near Goreville.  It was a large congregation for a rural church, running around 100 in Sunday School.  My grandparents made the long drive from Thompsonville to the Lake of Egypt several times a week.

He was the happiest man that I ever met.  I never seen him in a bad mood.  He is hard working and always has a can do attitude.  He started college i and became a real estate agent when he was well into his 70’s.

He will be 93 in September.  He now lives at Heritage Woods in Benton.  He holds bible studies with residents, and he spends a lot of time on the internet.  He does not get into social media, but he will tell me about articles he read on the Drudge Report. He is well versed in the issues of his day.

He is a World War II veteran.  The story I provided a link to about the Honor Flight yesterday, he was a participant a couple of years ago.

I am going to throw another little tidbit in about my family. Yesterday would have been my grandma, Pansy Dunford’s birthday. Being born on St. Partrick’s day, she had a knack of spotting four leaf clovers.  She began collecting them in quart mason jars, and had several of them.  They Daily American and The Southern wrote stories about this.  I would like to access them one day on Microfilm.

Thank you for allowing me to go down memory lane today.