Cyclone photos were captivating

By Tom Hintgen (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published 11:21 a.m., June 22, 2009

Many of us who grew up in Fergus Falls during the 1950s and 1960s recall visiting the county museum, at that time located in the lower level of the Court House just south of downtown. Most of us still remember the photo racks, full of pictures from the cyclone that struck Fergus Falls 90 years ago today, on June 22, 1919.

As a kid Lance Johnson, a 1956 graduate of Fergus Falls High School, went to the lower level of the museum on hot summer days, to stay cool. Those visits, and seeing all of the cyclone photos, prompted Johnson to write a book about the cyclone, published in November 1982.

My high school classmate, Hank Rasmussen, talks about his recollections of visiting the museum — and seeing all of the cyclone photos — in another story in the Daily Journal. His father, Hank, Sr., was a survivor of the cyclone in 1919.

As a member of Our Lady of Victory Church, I also was aware — for many years — of the church and rectory being hit head on by one of the twisters. An updraft lifted out the entire center section of the church, leaving only the west and east ends standing.

Others recall seeing photos of destruction near Lake Alice and pictures of the toppled Grand Hotel that once stood on the northeast corner of Lincoln and Vine, where the new Walgreens stands.

Worst of all was the loss of 56 lives, and injuries to another 160 people. Those victims are honored at a monument that sits on the northeast side of Lake Alice, thanks to the donors — VFW Post 612 and Auxiliary members.

The late Ken Severn, a Fergus Falls dentist, also survived the cyclone.

“Dad was six years old at the time and lived in the group of houses that occupied the space just down from Lake Alice next to the Federated Church,” said his son, John Severn. “That was a vacant lot when I was growing up — next to the Junior High. He remembered the chaos of the event and the fact that his relatives, who lived on the 700 block of North Union, were spared.”

John Severn is an associate professor of history and associate provost of the University of Alabama.

The greatest loss of life occurred at the Grand Hotel, a three-story building. More than 30 people were killed when the hotel was smashed by one of two twisters that fateful day.

The mother of rural Rothsay resident Phyllis Rossow, the late Ella Wahl Nelson, was the 11th of 14 children of Anton and Helena Wahl. They lived on an 80-acre farm southeast of Erhard. Rossow remembers her mother, whose third birthday was the day of the cyclone, talking about the event each year at this time.

“I imagine the news of the tornadoes took a while to even reach them, although I recall my mother mentioning the threatening weather,” said Rossow. “Mom lived in the Erhard area her entire life, except briefly during World War II in California while Dad was in Army training.”

A short while after the war, Rossow’s parents worked on farms near Rothsay to earn money to buy the farm that adjoined the Wahl home place. They lived there for 52 years. Ella died in 1998.

One of the twisters struck a passenger train west of Fergus Falls. Only the high banks saved the coaches from toppling over when the rear coaches slid into the hole gouged in the road-bed. Twisted across the rails, the baggage car halted coaches which remained almost upright.

Ask a hundred people about the cyclone and you’ll probably receive a hundred different responses. All, however, would agree that tragedy can and does strike quickly. That was the case with the Fergus Falls cyclone that struck our community 90 years ago today.

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