Yesterday I made the drive to the Elkhart County Historical Museum in Bristol, Indiana, to attend the forty-fourth memorial observance of the 1965 Palm Sunday Tornadoes. The occasion may have been low-key, but it was nevertheless remarkable. A couple of the factors that made it so were purely personal. I finally got to meet my long-distance friend and owner of the Tornado Memorial Park in nearby Dunlap, Debbie Watters. We’ve connected so well across the miles via email that when we finally got to talk person to person, it was as natural as if we’d hung out together forever. It was a double pleasure to meet her daughter and husband as well.
Then there was my other “tornado lady” friend, Pat McIntosh, who attended the meeting with her brother, John. What a sweetie! The three of us caught dinner afterward near Middlebury.
The stories and memories were amazing, and some quite touching and emotional. One huge highlight for me is captured in the photos below. In the first photo, the image shown on the projector screen depicts the notorious twin funnels that swept through the Midway Trailer Park south of Dunlap, Indiana. The image is one of the most famous tornado photographs ever taken, and the man standing next to it is the person who took it, retired Elkhart Truth newspaper photographer Paul Huffman.
Paul Huffman stands next to a projection of his Pulitzer Award-winning photo of the Midway twin funnels.
Paul and his wife were traveling north on US 33 shortly after 6:00 p.m. on April 11, 1965, when they spotted the tornado moving in from the southwest. Stopping the car, Paul grabbed his camera and snapped a series of six dramatic photographs as the tornado morphed from a narrow funnel into the two-legged monster that devastated the hapless trailer court, then moved off to the northeast in a cloak of rain.
How fast was the tornado moving, I wanted to know. Fast, Paul said. Probably seventy miles an hour. How close was he, someone else asked. Around a quarter-mile. Were he and his wife at all close to the debris? An ironic smile. Yes, his wife replied, the two of them experienced some debris falling around them. Would a flattened automobile qualify?
Paul Huffman speaks at the 2008 memorial observance of the 1965 Palm Sunday Tornadoes.
One powerful moment occurred after the event had officially ended and people were milling around the tables full of memorabilia. My friend Pat was showing me a photo Paul had taken during rescue operations at the trailer court. In the photo was a young Pat, laying on a stretcher. Over her hovered her husband, Bill. To the right stood a fireman.
As we looked at the photo, an elderly gentleman standing nearby named Dwight Kime said, “That fireman was my brother-in-law.” Dwight himself had been one of the rescue workers. As it turned out, he was the one who found Pat and Bill’s baby, Chris, amid the rubble–one of the youngest of the ten fatalities in the trailer court. Dwight was visibly moved as he came to understand that Pat had been the child’s mother. It has been forty-four years since that terrible evening, but the memories–and the hidden sadness–never fade. I am glad that Pat’s little boy was found and cared for in death by such a tenderhearted man as Dwight Kime. And I am just as glad that, after all these years, he and Pat got to meet and talk at last. That is God’s grace.
My mother tells me we were one of several (7 or 9) trailors that survived that day. I dont which trailor park it was it could have been mid way, I was only about 14 months at the time so I do not remember a thing. She tells me that anther couple was over and when they suspected trouble they piled matresses on top of me and then themsleves. She always said it was a miracle we survived. My grandparents who lived nearby came to the park and was not allowed to get to us by police or some type of security. once they saw the damage they always said that from that day forward if they were caught in a tornado they were gonna go sit on the toilet becasue thats all that remained of the 100 or so trailers. My mOm was Jeannette valarie Scott and my father Roland leroy Scott. my Mothers parents were Grace and paul Scott. just thought I would share this.
Thanks for sharing that account, Rich. Sounds like it could very well have been the Midway Trailer Court you were at. I believe another trailer park also got struck farther to the east by the same tornado at Jefferson Place, but the Midway was pretty well mulched and ten people died there.
I know that Debbie Watters is planning a 45th anniversary memorial in Dunlap this year. You and your mom may want to consider coming to it.
Your picture brings back a memory of that terrible day. I was 19 years old and on my to Goshen for a date. As I was leaving Elkhart an Austin Healey 3000 pulled in behind me and followed me all the way to Goshen. I saw the people pulled over and out of their cars but had no idea what they were looking at as my windows were all fogged up! When I saw the picture in the paper the next day the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. That Austin Healey was in the lower left hand corner on your picture! I just missed being a victim myself. John O. Martin Elkhart Fire Department (Retired)
Thanks for sharing that story, John. That’s pretty incredible. Talk about a close call! You never felt the wind, never suspected anything unusual was happening?