Ruskin Heights Tornado Memorial Where were YOU
Where
were you May 20, 1957, when the Ruskin Heights Tornado hit? If you were
alive and living in Ottawa or Spring Hill, Kansas or the metropolitan
Kansas City, Missouri area, you probably remember where you were and
what you were doing.
It is amazing how many people in our area remember that night to this
day in vivid detail. Not just people who were hit by the tornado, but
people all around remember this one and only F5 tornado in our area.
People remember where they were when President Kennedy was shot, and it
seems that the Ruskin Heights Tornado affected many in a similar way.
That huge cloud on the horizon did not look like the typical single
vortex tornado. As it moved closer you could see the destruction and the
fingers of many vortexes ripping the path.
So we ask YOU! "Where were you when the Ruskin Heights Tornado hit?"
Send us an email and tell us your story. We would love to hear from you.
Photo by Montgomery available through the Kansas City Public Library
As a graduate of the Ruskin High School class of 1957, I have vivid memories of the tornado and its aftermath. We had a baccalaureate service on Sunday night and were to graduate on Tuesday evening. Had graduation been held then instead of the fateful Monday evening, hundreds of us would have been killed. When the tornado hit, a group of us soon-to-be graduates were dining at a restaurant in the Plaza area to celebrate our upcoming commencement. The waitress appeared and said there was a phone call for one of the girls present, and we learned of the tornado that way. Of course, we hurried home--some of us to now-missing houses. My house was at 11109 Applewood Drive, right behind some of the major damage. We lost a few trees and shingles, but nothing major. Memories of that night are many...Mary Ann (Douglas) King
We lived on Oakland, so we were 4 or 5 blocks from the tornado's path. My Dad was at work and my Mother was watching the sky with our neighbors when they saw the funnel cloud coming our way. My brothers and sister and I were herded along with the Seider kids into the hallway of their house as our mothers led us in saying the Rosary. I can still remember the sound of the storm as it passed. It was truly terrifying for us but lethal to so many others.
As a result of the storm one of our neighbors had a basement dug under their home which became a neighborhood refuge during tornado alerts. No one who saw the devastation in our area could ever be casual about tornados ever again. I remember merchant s passing out maps so that we could track storms as they roared out of the southwest towards us. I cannot count the number of times we had the television tuned to weathermen issuing warnings as my parents peered out the window to see when the Valliers ! would open -Jim Brown
What a surprise to find this website. I was 13 when the tornado hit. I was supposed to graduate from the 8th Grade in just a few days. I have a picture somewhere of me and my friend across the street, Joyce Hammer, in our caps and gowns. I lived at 11802 Lawndale, just south from Bob Gandy, and Henry Stewart's back yard met our back yard. (Oakley is west of Lawndale).
This is a night forever etched into my brain and I remember far too many things to relate here. On a note of interest in 1976 my husband and I moved to Ottawa, Kansas and a few years later I was employed by Peoples Bank in Ottawa. The gentleman who was my "boss" was from Homewood, Kansas which is just a bit SW of Ottawa. The tornado started on his farm. Small world. Roberta (LaVelle) Compton
I am a Flora and I was in the back seat of the car with Hill Flora who now lives in Bedford, TX that night the tornado took our house in Hickman Mills. We lived at 11509 Sunnyside Dr which is just one block east of 71 Hwy. Like my brother, Hill, I remember watching "I Love Lucy" and the tornado warning but not having a clue what they were telling us. I was only six years old. Our dad was outside by the garage watching the weather. He put the car away because of the large hail. When the power went off I went outside to join our dad. We, kids, where picking up some of the hail and running back into the garage. I remember that suddenly dad was having us get in the car. He was yelling for our mom to "get in the damn car". She was making sure that the house windows where closed and had to get her cigarettes. Like us kids she did not realize a tornado was tearing up the bank and other buildings on 71 hwy. It was coming towards us and our dad had been watching it. I
remember what I call an eerie green color to the sky. As we drove away, the storm was picking up the back of our car. I remember mom was turned around in the front seat watching and saw our house explode. She cried out "there goes our house!"
It seemed that the storm was chasing us up 71 hwy. Luckily at a point our dad went left and the storm went right. We immediately returned to our street. When we got there our neighbors who had taken shelter in the closet in the house right next to ours were very glad to see us. They thought we all were dead. When they had taken shelter, we were in our driveway. When they came out after the storm, our house was totally gone and so were we.
As my brother said there were power lines down, cars upside down with the gas running out along with all the debris. One of the neighbor�s husband was a truck driver who had been working that night pulled up in his truck. He had a time getting into check on his family. Naturally the road blocks where up but he had threatened to drive his truck over the blocks to get in.
Our older brothers were in another area at a scout meeting. Our parents with us four younger ones in the car set out to find them. I don�t remember that drive to the scout house but I do remember my dad coming back to the car saying that someone had taken the boys to our house but they were safe. We had to work our way back to Sunnyside Dr but could only make it up Sunny slope Dr. There was what to me was a massive tree blocking the rest of the way. We were close enough that our dad left us there in the car in the DARK to walk to our street to get our older brothers.
There we were with only the clothes that we were wearing, our car and a hole in the ground. Somehow a friend of our parents, who lived in town, had driven out hoping to find us. He was calling our dad�s name in the dark. He and his family took us in for a time, eight additional people who had lost everything. I don't remember the drive from there to the people�s home. I do remember sitting on their stairway feeling very sad and lost. I remember my dad and brothers coming back from the disaster area. They had been going thru the rubble trying to find some of our stuff. I remember that he was very grateful not to be looking through that stuff for one of us.
Later there came a very generous family from the Red Bridge area who contacted our church to offer their home to a needy family for a time that summer. They were going to be gone for a month. I have no idea who they were but I thank them from my heart. They gave a hand to a homeless family with six kids.
When the month was up, we four older kids where sent to California to stay with our aunt and uncle. Our little sisters stayed with them. I don't know where our parents stayed during that time while they managed to have our house rebuilt. All six of us kids did graduate from Ruskin High School. Our family was at the original dedication to the memorial.
To this day I have a very healthy respect for storms and weather. As a resident on the Gulf of Mexico in the Houston area, two years ago I had that flash back. As a hurricane was bearing down on the Houston area, we were ordered to evacuate in the "Great Houston Evacuation." As we were pulling away from our home, I knew exactly what it would be like to come back to nothing. I also knew that if that did happen, I would survive the loss. My daughters were already safely out of the area and that was what was important. -
Reba Flora Evans
I will never forget the night of the Ruskin tornado. I was 11 years old. My mom, older sister and the lady across the street had gone shopping for shoes for my sister's 8th grade graduation. My dad worked nights so I was home alone with my two older brothers and two younger sisters. As my brothers were preparing to take all of us under our house for shelter ( we had a crawl space under the house) my mom, sister, and neighbor returned home after hearing about the severe weather conditions on the car radio. All of us, my mom, a total of six children, the family across the street (mom, dad, and three children) all piled up in their car ready to go up the street to a neighbor who had a basement. When the adults realized we would not make it up the street they told us kids to get out of the car and go inside. But we soon realized we were locked out so we had no other alternative but to huddle on the ground along the north side of the house, as close as we could get. I'll never forget looking up a seeing the tornado go overhead with all the debris flying around in it. We were all spared that night and the damage to our homes was minimal but the long term effects for myself and so many others goes far beyond that night. I am now 61 years old and am still terrified when we have severe weather conditions. - Carol Wade
I was 10 years old. We didn't live in the Ruskin area at the time, but at 54th & Norton. I was helping my father put down sod in our back yard as the sky darkened. I had no idea that that my life and the events of that night would come together just a few years later when we moved south. I became a student at the rebuilt Ruskin high school and had many friends who had survived the tornado. We would talk about it quite often.
Even into the mid '60's, there were still many vacant slabs left as silent testament to
the destruction of that night. Blaine Steck was our principal. Everyone's favorite math teacher, Miss Hall, would tell us how she was saved by being covered by banks of wall lockers in the hall and how Mr. Steck had found her. She would also lament the loss of life as well as the beautiful colored terra cotta decorations that covered the entrance to the high school. -Larry Potts -Ruskin Class of '65
My name is Shirley A. Stewart Dowling. I lived at 7813 E. 112th Street at the time of the tornado. Having no basement in our home my husband Paul, baby daughter Susan, myself with neighbors Lora and Gene Price out ran the tornado in their car. When our family heard the tragedy on the radio that a Shirley A. Stewart had her baby ripped from her arms
they of course thought it was myself and daughter. It would be hours before they realized that it wasn't our family. I'm so thankful that my family made it out unharmed but so sorry for the loss of the other Shirley Stewart family, and all the families that suffered loss of
loved ones. I now live in Cape Coral, Florida and have been through two hurricanes. They do not even begin to compare to this Ruskin tornado. God Bless everyone who lived through this tragedy and a very heartfelt thanks to everyone involved with this 50 year memorial. - Shirley A. Stewart Dowling
I remember being crouched down under the house in a crawl space. My two brothers, my Mom and Dad. Our house was torn from the foundation. Nothing left.
My Brother was holding onto the water pipes and my Mother had to pull him down or he would have gone up too. My head was injured and I had to go to the hospital with a neighbor. We lived in Martin City at 13513 Oak St. My Father rebuilt our home on the same site. I remember how the Red Cross was so wonderful to us. after the tornado. I also remember the terror my Mother and siblings felt every year after that when the spring season came and the storms were on us. I am Betsy DeShon. Then Crawford.
My wife Donna and I lived on Stubbs Road between two houses of Stubbs cousins and a third owned by my Aunt Edna and Uncle Bill Stubbs. My mother Cally Pennington Brown and my Gramps E.R. Pennington also lived in the Stubbs two-story home. Donna and I had bought a house directly across from Burke School and we planned to move the coming Saturday. On Monday night, I was taking two final exams at Rockhurst College. As we finished the first, we were advised that a tornado may have hit Ruskin Heights. My second exam was in a different building but a vicious rain was in full blast. Also sirens were everywhere as ambulances whizzed south on Troost Street. With Stubbs Road being a perfect north-east line from Ruskin Heights, I took the soaking to get my car and drove to a phone. Neither call to my home nor Uncle Bill's went through. Long story short, the tornado was so early that too many people were already out, taking me two hours from Rockhurst to reach a friend on Raytown Road where we could see lights and wires all over Bannister Rd. Still not knowing, I walked east and got a lucky lift to Stubbs. All houses were gone. My mother's car was upside down in one cousin's basement but all our families were safe. How lucky can you be to have two homes six miles apart in the same tornado? - J.B. Brown, Jr.
"It
started in Martin City, and moved directly to our neighborhood. I
remember my Father looking out the window in my parent's bedroom. My Mom
and I were under the bed, and the sound of trains shook the house. Mom
called Dad to get under the bed and quickly the roar passed over our
house. Our neighbor across the street my best friend was asleep in his
bedroom against the wall facing the street westward. His bedroom window
imploded and sent glass shards into the wall opposite his bed. Rubble
was everywhere, but we were safe."--Tim Cushing Class of '72
I grew up in Hickman Mills, west of US 71, at 11710 Lawndale. It was a small neighborhood of three streets, Lawndale, Oakley and Drury, from East to West. We got it first. That night my Father, Robert S. Gandy, was on the phone with my grandparents who lived in Leawood, telling them to go to the basement. My Mother, Betty J. Gandy, went out through our garage, and down the driveway to go to the neighbors, who had no basement, to tell them to come to our house. At the street she said something made her turnaround and come back into the house. She went to the kitchen window, which faced to the West, and saw it coming. She yelled, "Here it comes!" and we all headed for the basement. We all (Robert S., Betty J. Robert/Bob/Bobby, Kathy, and Terry) got in the SW corner, under my Dad's heavy workbench and the only injury was a small cut on my Mother's leg. Our house was completely destroyed . . . . everything gone but the floor ! -- Bob Gandy Class of '69.
My family's house was completely destroyed in the Ruskin Heights tornado, a direct hit, nothing left but the floor. We lived on Applewood and had just sat down to dinner when the lights went out. My dad was Jack Overbey, he taught music and choir at Ruskin High School. He ran to the window, saw it coming and yelled at my mom Rosemary to take my sister Carolyn and me to the basement. By the time Daddy got to the basement the house was lifting off the foundation.
We lost everything but the clothes we had on that night. My father also lost his job for some time, as Ruskin High School was destroyed as well. We were luckier than some though, we all survived, even our collie dog in the back yard lived through it by crawling behind a brick BBQ oven that my dad had built. My parents have told many stories about the horrors of that night and the days following, as well as the kindness and charity of friends, neighbors and strangers. My father spoke of that night and the acts of heroism, bravery and superhuman strength of which he was a participant and witness until he passed away in September of 2005. My parents did not rebuild in Hickman Mills, but my mother, sister and I still live in the Kansas City area. Kathryn Overbey Gordon
"My parent's house was totally destroyed. Both my Mom and Dad are still alive, now living with me in Texas. My sister was 3 at the time the tornado hit, and she's in Minneapolis now. I think this is a great crusade to be on. My Dad was always angry when he saw trash around the monument, wondering why people didn't honor the dead. He spent many an afternoon picking up junk from Blue Ridge to the traffic circle. Thanks for doing this." --Gil Potter, Class of '76
"My name is Peggy McNamara and a Ruskin tornado survivor. I lived at 7611 E. 110th St. and was in second grade at St. Catherine Gardens school at the time. I remember very well attending the dedication of the memorial (in 1958). For the past 50 years, that day has played a very important part in my family's lives. We now live in the Chicago area." - Peggy McNamara
It was devastating coming up out of that basement stairway. We had to climb over rubble that was 10 feet high because the house was totally gone, as was our house and all the others for blocks around us. Cars were on fire, live power lines were down, explosions were happening, people were wandering around in a daze. We started walking toward the high school in mass with other families. Injured people were being carried on doors used as stretchers. We caught a ride with a person who had driven into the area to help. He took our family to our friends' house, The Butterworths, on Blue Ridge, where we stayed for two weeks. Then we stayed at The Worden's house while they were on vacation. Then a church member's home while they were on vacation. After that we rented a house on Grandview Road 'til ours was rebuilt. Individual and organizations were so generous during that rebuilding time. It was actually a really fun summer. The community made sure there were lots of activities for kids & teens. Sock Hops in the huge tent at Ruskin Shopping Center, activities at the Y and Holiday Swim Club, the skating rink on Blue Ridge, church camps. Red Cross had good food and tons of clothes for anything that we needed. I think Red Cross even gave out money as the families needed it. All the area churches were so helpful too.
To this day there seems to be a real special affection among all of us who were raised in the Ruskin area during the 60s, 70s, & 80s. It may have originated with the tornado. Hundreds of Ruskin graduates still gather at least once a year to stay in close touch with one another. I think it's awesome. Caught In The Path is a great book about the tornado. It is the first publication that told the story of where we were and what we all did that night. Now we have this reunion that is bringing us many more heartfelt stories. This upcoming gathering is a "good thing" !! Special blessings to all those who lost loved ones. It's so sad to hear your stories and realize how so many of us narrowly escaped. PS...many of you know my mom. She was your school nurse ! - Lora Frounfelter Jones
I was nine years old in May of 1957 and living with my parents in a new housing subdivision in what is now southern Raytown. There was a farm immediately to the south of us, and we had a good unobstructed view to the south and west. Monday, May 20 had been a warm humid day and towards early evening the air became exceptionally still with clouds gathering. After our evening meal, I was set to watch some of my favorite television programs: "I Love Lucy" and December Bride." The star of the latter, Spring Byington, played a character named "Lily Ruskin." My recollection is that the tornado warnings came during those programs - a simple slide graphic indicating "Weather Bulletin." Program interruptions for weather bulletins were not common back then. The station announcer proceeded to tell us of a tornado on the ground in Kansas headed toward Kansas City.
We started watching the sky to the southwest. Sure enough, the sky got darker and darker. Mother was the first to see it from her kitchen windows. She said that saw a funnel pull down from the dark line of clouds on the horizon. Since we know the funnel had been on the ground for many miles, this could have been either a case of it retreating and coming back down or an optical illusion. Anyway, we could see it was moving our way. We watched in horrified fascination from the concrete back porch (which was close to the steps to the basement). It was a dirty funnel. There was an extremely dark "core" which was surrounded by a dust shroud and silhouetted against a light southwestern sky underneath the line of thunderclouds. I have never seen such dark clouds before or since. I now know that the spring of '57 had been very dry in Kansas and that the storm had picked up massive quantities of dust. The funnel appeared to come right towards us from due south. I remember going to the basement, but I'm not sure that my parents ever did. Perhaps they were mesmerized by the awesome spectacle.
Anyway, the funnel moved off to the east, hitting at Raytown Road and Bannister, about a mile and a half away. That was the closest it got to us, which was plenty close enough. The storm produced no wind, rain or hail in our neighborhood. I don't think that I slept well that night and I heard sirens all night long from emergency vehicles traveling to and from Ruskin Heights along Raytown Road. I remember also that I had occasional tornado nightmares for years afterward. The next morning the events of the previous evening were a national story. It was the lead item in Frank Blair's news segment on Dave Garroway's "Today" show. The network immediately went to its Kansas City affiliate, WDAF-TV for live coverage from the disaster scene. Local remotes with live television cameras were a rare occurrence in 1957 and even rarer when they were connected to the national network. Soon after the disaster, a family whose house was destroyed in Ruskin Heights moved in next door. A few months after that, the father was killed in an automobile accident. The remaining family members were understandably terrified of thunderstorms and would come over to our house to share our basement (even though they had one of their own) during the frequent tornado alerts that occurred in the months and years following the events of May 20, 1957. - John Wegner Roeland Park, KS
My name is Jerre Williams. My husband. Bill, our 10 month old daughter and I lived southwest of Martin City in Kansas. It was approximately 155th and Mission Rd. - out in the country then. Our landlord, Mr. Hay had bought an old schoolhouse and had renovated it into a duplex. It was solidly built, with hardwood floors and it was wonderful place to live. We moved in April, l957. On the evening of May 20, my husband was at his regular Friday night sales meeting at the Go9odrich store on Broadway in K. C. I was watching a quiz show - "21", I believe was the name of it. There were weather bulletins on TV about the storm, so I called my husband and told him he's better get home. The young family in the other side of the building were home and we decided that maybe we should get out of there. So we got in their car and left. Fortunately, we drove in the right direction of get away from the storm. Afterward, we drove back home and by then my husband had arrived. The storm had gone through.. I t picked up that schoolhouse up and set it down about 25 feet away. The house was more or less intact, but was on top of a tree stump made by the storm. The beautiful hardwood floors were up and down like a roller coaster. We were so lucky that since the building was so sturdy we did not have a great loss. The show I had been watching started at 7:00 and I had watched almost all of it. When we went back the next day to start getting our belongings out, we saw that the clocks had stopped at 7:30. We had gotten out in the nick of time. - Jerre Williams.
"I think the plan to renovate the Ruskin Heights Memorial is an excellent one. It will be a great way to connect present residents to the past. I love the idea of replanting the trees. It was a beautiful tribute in 1958 (I remember being at the dedication--a very bored, hot eight year old) and I'm afraid everyone's forgotten what those trees represent." --Carolyn Glenn Brewer, Class of '67
"I had a baby cousin that died in that tornado. My aunt was paralyzed and another cousin died later from complications he got from a blood disease due to the tornado. They lived cattycorner from the High School and were trying to get across to the Presbyterian church when the tornado hit. My baby cousin was taken from my Aunt's arms and was found out by Lee's Summit." --Brenda (Allen) Henslee, Class of '77
I also remember walking around in the rubble above the basement afterwards, and for many YEARS afterwards digging up soap dishes, and small household things in the backyard. Every classmate had tornado stories, and even when I stand in line for flights back to KC, I find myself hearing a Ruskin tornado story now and then! As new folks moved into the area, and the tornado watches/warnings were out, we were always in the basement with our battery powered radio, water, flashlight, deck of cards...and newer residents were outside playing/mowing....they just didn't know what we had been through.
It is great reading these stories, and I recall so many of them from my friends and classmates - wasn't there a story about a large group of folks in the Ruskin Heights area near the High School looking for shelter...hello to all of you! I have since survived a Plaza flood, and the Northridge, CA earthquake, and I never ever have seen the kind of closeness and neighborly kind acts since those I saw after the Ruskin tornado. I remember several summers where our neighbors would get together with their tornado films, and pictures. I look at these pictures now, and I see those young mothers and fathers faces, many faces younger than I am now, and know that many, like my family and neighbors, rebuilt in the exact same place - and pulled together helping each other rebuild. There is a picture in the book of my parents next to the open pit (basement) where we weathered the storm....my mother had that look on her face that I grew to know as "you need to clean up your room NOW"! I cannot imagine the devastation they really felt, but so many folks did not give up!
"I am familiar with this tornado, my family's house was completely destroyed in it, while my family huddled in the Plasketts' basement next door as the tornado passed overhead removing the complete home and floor/ceiling above them. While my father's sports car was destroyed (it was in the garage) my mother's Rambler station wagon sat in the driveway--went untouched and was used that day to take people to the hospital." -- Mark Strauss
We (Harry, Ann, Vicki, Cinda, and Melanie McMahon) were living at 9914 Belmont (Crane Road at the time). Our family had just finished supper that evening, and I was trying to get my wife to go to the Ruskin Drug Store to pick up her prescription. She was cleaning up supper dishes when I decided to go out back to watch the clouds and noticed that shingles and tree limbs were falling in our backyard. That put a stop to her trip. This happened almost a half hour before we saw the tornado.
Our neighbors to the north, the Andersons, didn't have a basement, so Mary Anderson and her three children and Ann and our three girls went to our basement. Ron Anderson and I stayed upstairs and watched the progress of the tornado until we thought it was coming our way. Then we fled to the southwest corner of the basement. We had lots of blankets and all the adults laid on top of the kids to provide protection, then we just waited. After about five minutes I got up and looked out the south basement window and could see it was going to miss us, so I ran up to our front porch about the time the tornado hit Blue Ridge. At that time the sun came out and lit up the tornado. I could see tanks, explosions, electric wire sparking, and a lot of white objects, probably refrigerators, washers and dryers. The sound was terrific and we were about a mile away.
Our neighborhood did not have a lot of damage, so I went to work the next morning; however, when I approached our neighborhood that night, I was turned away by a soldier. Marshall Law had been declared so I had to go to Grandview to get a permit showing proof of residence. An armed soldier was posted at every intersection in the area for a week or more after the tornado.
Since telephones were affected, we could not communicate with my parents who lived in Belton. For several days they were very worried for our safety. I finally was able to get an outgoing line from work to call them. - Harry McMahon
Its funny how most of the things in my past live of being 3 years old, I can't remember. This tornado of Ruskin Heights is not one. I remember my mom laying on me and my brother almost 5 in the hall of our Ruskin home as my daddy stood at the front door watching, my mother screaming for him to come join us, which he never did. This was the saddest thing I have ever experienced. My dad helped with trying to find people at the Ruskin Shopping Center. I have been so scared of Tornados every since that horrible day in May 1957. My GOD bless us and keep us safe from hells furry. - Belton Bandit
Sandy that is very interesting what you are getting done at Ruskin--I printed it to look at later. We moved down here in 1955 so we were fairly new to the area--my husband was at work and the kids and I were home alone with no basement--we were scared--I saw several small funnel clouds go over as then we lived clear down on 59th street--it is an Industrial area now.- Harold.
I do indeed remember the night. I was 8 yrs old and living with my family at 4605 Elmwood in Kansas City. That's about a mile north of the intersection of 50 hi-way and Elmwood. The location of our house was high enough on the northwest side of the Blue River valley that while standing on our back porch we could see across the valley and watch the tornado move across the horizon about 4 miles to the SE of our house. The only effect the storm had at our house was change in the wind direction and the sudden stillness in between.
Right after the storm had moved on we were able to go the edge of the destruction on Blue Ridge but were finally turned away by officials in the area. At that time the closest hospitals were St. Joseph on Linwood and Prospect, Menorah on Troost and the K.U. Med Center and one of the best ways to get from Ruskin to the hospitals was 50 hi-way. I remember listening to the ambulances going back and forth all night. The next day my dad and I went to the area and saw some incredible things. At the corner of Blue Ridge and Hickman Mills Dr. (where the bank was until recently) the storm had removed just one end of the bank building almost brick for brick but didn't touch anything inside the bank. The destruction was so complete that unless you were very familiar with the area, you could
not even tell where you were.
I also remember that for several years you could drive around in the Ruskin area and pick out larger trees that had survived the storm but were twisted so grotesquely that it quickly brought back the memories. When I went to work for railroad in 1967 I met a man (Dick Davis) whose wife and young daughter had been killed in the tornado. (Cornelia and Katherine Davis) This is the family of Barbara (Bobbi) Davis,
who also submitted her memories of the storm. He told us that without a storm shelter they decided to get in their car and outrun the tornado. When it was over he and a daughter had been critically injured, his wife and daughter had been killed and his house had almost no damage. Makes a person seem so small when we encounter natures fury. - Richard Clark
“OK,” Tom said. “Be careful and hurry back.” The four of us had planned a leisurely dinner and an evening together at our house. I noticed the western sky was an eerie green color, like sea water, as I eased my considerable bulk into our Jaguar roadster. Rain began to pelt the windshield soon after I left the house, coming down harder and harder. I eased over to the side of the road to stop and put the top up, no small feat for a pregnant lady, getting myself thoroughly drenched in the process. I didn’t mind, because the rain was so cool and exhilarating. There was no radio in the car. On the way home, Dolores and I summoned our bravado, laughing together about our predicament. “Here we are, two pregnant women together in a sports car, in the ravages of the storm!” The wipers struggled to keep up with the rain slashing against the windshield. Visibility was limited to the tail lights in front of us, illuminated by frequent flashes of lightning.
At last, thankful to be home, I pulled into our driveway. In an instant, Tom and Denny raced across the yard, frantic, yelling to us and pointing to the west…and then I saw it: a huge monstrous black churning thing, roaring directly at us, tossing pieces of lumber and tree branches as it came. We saw flashes of light as the monster popped power lines in its path. It was impossible to know how far away it was, how fast it was moving—and how much time we had. “That’s a tornado!” I blurted out, in the most extreme under-statement of my life. “Quick! Get in the car-NOW!!!” Tom said, scooping up Colleen, our almost-two-year-old daughter. All of us piled into the big sedan and drove as fast as we could, away from the storm’s track. “That thing came from the west,” Tom said, “so we’d better start checking on people, fast.”
Our home was on Chipman Road. All our friends and families—and our high school—were to the west of us. I graduated from Ruskin High in 1953, and Tom and Denny in the class of 1951. At my parents’ home, near Raytown & Bannister Rd. where I grew up, we found them emerging from their basement shelter. They, and my brother, Robert, and sister, Marge, were unharmed, but their brick ranch house suffered roof damage and broken windows. The house across from them on Raytown Rd. simply wasn’t there any more. Its lot swept clean of bushes, trees, and grass, leaving only a bare concrete slab as a memorial to what had been there before.
Farther down Raytown Rd., we drove up the long curving driveway to my grandmother’s farm house. We waited in the car as Tom and Denny went to check on her. My grandmother met them at her front door. “Hello, boys! Come on in!” she said. “This is some storm, isn’t it? Grandpa used to make me go down in the storm cellar, but this time I got to watch it! “Come on in and I’ll fix us some coffee.” That was when she discovered, walking to the back of the house in the gathering dark, that her kitchen was completely gone.
We made our way on to Hickman Mills, struggling to get our minds around what we saw: piles of splintered wood where familiar houses should have been… uprooted old-growth trees, their roots and leaf-less branches lying helpless on the ground…cars crumpled like Kleenexes, tossed on manicured lawns that no longer had houses to go with them… The darkness wrapped us in its depth, along with other dazed people that we saw, staring, climbing out of wreckages, trudging by the side of the road, trying in vain to comprehend what had just happened to all of us. By our headlights, we desperately searched for the reassurance that Ruskin was still there. Then we understood. Where the silhouette of our high school should have been, there was only empty sky. What we couldn’t yet know was the enormous extent of death and destruction the storm had dealt to Hickman Mills and to Ruskin Heights. We knew what we had seen, but we had no way to know how many people had just died, and how many homes and livelihoods had just been demolished.
At Denny’s parents’ home, we found them and their home safe and unharmed. We stayed for a while into the night, to visit and try to understand this night ’s new realities. While we were at their house, first responders had arrived in the storm’s strike zone; the National Guard came, and martial law had been declared. Starting to drive home, we soon learned there was no valid reason for us to enter the declared disaster area, so we weren’t allowed to go home the way we had come. It was thus near dawn when we finally did get home, after driving nearly 80 miles around the perimeter of the destruction. Our house sustained no damage--and the table was still set for the dinner we didn’t get to eat.
As is the case for so many people, events of May 20, 1957 remain permanently etched in memory. Over time, for me, something important began to emerge: the idea that it is often the smallest, most insignificant choices that we make--the decision to go to the dry cleaners before the grocery store, to mow the lawn before weeding the garden, to get the oil changed Tuesday instead of Wednesday…those little everyday decisions, and their outcomes, can govern the whole future course of a lifetime. For me, that salad made all the difference. Had I stayed home long enough that day to chop up the salad before I went to town to get Dolores, she and I would likely have arrived at Raytown & Bannister in the Jaguar at the very same time the tornado arrived to demolish the buildings there… As it was, I gave birth to a beautiful healthy baby girl 36 days after the storm. Soon after, a perfect baby boy was born to Dolores and Denny. I have thought about this a lot in the past fifty years. - June O’Neill King
I was born on June 19, 1957, about a month and a half after the tornado struck. My mother and father and four older siblings were at the Ruskin Heights Shopping Center, my mother getting groceries and Dad was at the hardware store next to A&P. After shopping, they drove home to the 11400 block of Richmond Avenue and had just walked in the door of their house when the all-too-familiar sound of a freight train could be heard. My father thought it was a train, but my mother, being from rural Kansas, dropped the groceries she was holding and let out a piercing scream and yelled "It's a tornado." Had my parents been at the shopping center a few minutes longer, I guess that I would not be here today, as Richmond Avenue was not hit, although it was only five or so blocks from the high school. My parents lived in Ruskin until 1971. I lived there from '57 to 71. I know this is the 50th Anniversary of the tornado and it is also my 50th birthday. - Brian M McDonald
"I'm Judee Pronovost, formerly Schumacher, who lived at 7601 E. 108th Terr. Our house was directly behind the park where the big pit was dug and where the debris from the destroyed houses were burned for weeks on end, and we were about a block from the most destructive part of the tornado, so we still had a house when it passed by. I was 7 years old when the tornado happened, and it had a profound effect on me. My father helped to get people on my street down into the basement of the house on the corner."
I remember the evening of May 20, 1957, weighing heavy with humidity in Ruskin Heights. Outside our windows, dark clouds, twisting into one another, gathered energy from the evening sky, as the story that was ours unfolded in a Ruskin home at 7505 E. 109th Terrace. Mom’s trip to the grocery store that day had produced fresh strawberries and other tasty treats for the refrigerator. Mom was busying herself with putting away piles of groceries and treating Jennifer to some pickles.
At about 7:20 p.m. the phone rang. It was Dad’s Mother calling. Mom answered the phone, listened intently without saying much, and then hung up. "Who was that?" I asked Mom after she hung up the phone. "Mee-maw," Mom said. "What did she say?" I asked. But, Mom didn’t answer. I urgently wanted to know what was going on. I remember feeling something haunting the air around us. I was 8 years old. My brother, David, was 9; my sisters, Jennifer, 5, and Carolyn, 1. Mom was at home with us that evening, while Dad attended a meeting away from home. David was in the den watching "I Love Lucy" on TV. Carolyn had been put to bed for the night. Jennifer, who had been strangely upset about something all day long, stayed close to Mom. We had moved into a newly constructed house in Ruskin Heights in February of that year.
I was excited to be in our new house and found the underground basement to be most intriguing. I imagined setting up a restaurant with card tables and little lamps in that wide open space and inviting neighborhood friends in for lunches. I thought the steps would be a wonderful place to conduct a school where I would instruct children from the floor at the base of the stairs. Our location, directly down the street from the hot spot, Ruskin High School, brought children of all ages out into the yards and streets in the evening. On this particular evening, however, children stayed at home with their families and the neighborhood stood strangely quiet.
It was minutes before 7:30 p.m. on that fateful evening. I remember Mom walking to the window to look outside. And I remember watching her walk over to the door and step outside to look at the sky. When she returned I asked again, "What did Mee-maw say?" "Oh, she was just telling me about the weather." Mom then returned to her activity of putting away the groceries. "But, what did she say?" I repeated with urgency in my voice. Just then David appeared in the kitchen. "Mom! a bulletin came on TV that said a tornado is on the ground 2 miles from the Grandview Air Base!" I remember all of us rushing to the den to see what more was being reported about the approaching storm, but by the time we got there, programming had resumed. "I Love Lucy" had ended and "December Bride" was about to start. Mom again returned to look out of the kitchen window. David and I watched her closely. Jennifer began crying and tugging on Mom’s apron. "Mom!" I cried. "We’re supposed to go to the basement. That’s what we learned in school." Just days earlier we had read about tornadoes in our Weekly Reader. "Come on, Mom!" David said, "Let’s go to the basement." "Well," she said, "What am I going to do with all of this food? Do you kids want something to eat?" As she spoke, she continued putting away her groceries. "No, Mom!" I pleaded, "Can’t we go to the basement?" "Yeah, Mom!" said David, "Let’s go to the basement." "You need to turn off the TV if you’re not going to watch it," she said to David.
Mom grew up on a farm in southern Missouri, not far from the Kansas, Arkansas and Oklahoma borders. She knew about tornadoes from her mother, who often instructed her how to tell if one was approaching. "Look at the leaves on the trees to see if they are moving. The atmosphere will get very still. No wind will be moving anything. That’s when you need to run for cover," her mom would say. And she added, "Once you get into the cellar you should sit in the southwest corner." Mom was 32 years old as I watched her looking through the window again. I can "see" her eyes tensing as she studied the evening air. I remember the quiet eeriness outside. "Well, maybe we should go to the basement," Mom said, bringing her focus back inside. "Why don’t you kids go on down and I’ll get Carolyn and be there in a few minutes." "No!" cried David and Jennifer and I together. We weren’t about to let ourselves become separated from Mom. "You come with us!" By now we were all tugging at Mom’s apron. "Okay, well, let me get Carolyn out of bed," said Mom. "Hurry, Mom!" we all chanted. David and I excitedly jumped around the kitchen, trying to keep Jennifer with us, waiting anxiously for Mom to return with the baby. "Hurry, Mom!" we kept calling to her. "Hurry! P-l-e-a-s-e hurry!" After several minutes Mom finally returned with Carolyn in her arms, a radio, and a few other items she had gathered along her way. "Well, okay, I guess we should go on down," she said to us.
One of us opened the door that led to the garage. Before we could descend the stairs, we had to climb over Mom’s car. We crawled over the front bumper as we all held onto Mom, looking back at her frequently to make sure she had not slipped away from us. Halfway to the staircase, Mom announced, "Oh, I forgot my purse! Let me run back and get that quickly." "No!" we all yelled together, "Don’t go back!" cried Jennifer. "Stay with us!" I pleaded. "Come on! Mom! We need to go now!" urged David. Reluctantly, Mom relaxed her need to retrieve the purse and continued on with us. Within a minute or two we were all standing in the basement. It was about a quarter to eight. All eyes on Mom, we watched her look around the basement and then heard her wonder aloud, "Let’s see, which corner is the southwest corner?" She laid the radio and other things on a table. She then drug a chair over and sat down with Carolyn in her lap. The three of us stood around her. Immediately upon sitting down, Mom giggled and wondered aloud, "What would people think of us sitting down here like this?" No sooner had that sentence left her mouth than a thunderous roar, similar to the locomotive of an approaching train, began rolling towards us.
The tornado struck Ruskin Heights at 7:48 p.m. The ceiling light above us flickered on and off. Mom, recognizing what was happening, said to us, "Bow your heads now, and let’s say the Lord’s prayer." Obediently, David and I did just that. As we prayed Mom felt a desire to pull David in closer. She reached for his shirt to draw him to her. David, his eyes closed, thought the tornado had hold of him and was sucking him out of the basement! He resisted the pull with all his might. Later, Mom asked him why he wouldn’t come closer to her when she pulled on him. "That was you?" he asked with huge eyes. It never occurred to me to raise my head and watch the stirrings of the storm. But I wish I had. How many times does one get the opportunity in life to experience such a dramatic production of nature from a "front row seat"? What would I have seen flying overhead, if I had looked? Carolyn must have seen a grand display of the power of wind. Too young to discipline her look downward in obedience to Mom’s command, she kept her eyes open. As the noisy activity above our heads drew her look upward, she giggled and screamed with delight at the sights and sounds she saw and heard.
By the time we finished the Lord’s Prayer, the house overhead was gone – including the floor that once covered our view of the outdoors. I recall looking up after the noise subsided and watching rapidly moving clouds pass overhead. A ragged cloth hung from our steel support beam. Water was pouring onto the basement floor out of the pipe from where the washing machine had been attached to the wall. And I remember a heavy musty odor filling the air. David was the first to explore ways to get out of the basement. The staircase we had earlier descended was now cluttered with debris. I cut my finger on something; blood was oozing out. It was the only thing I could muster a complaint about and I gave my mother an earful, going on about how I was bleeding and trying to work up a good cry about it. Mom just kept saying, "You’re okay," which sent me into a tizzy.
If I could travel back to those first moments again, how I would love to just stand quietly and observe the many details of the scene around me. A few years older I may have given deep thought to the eerie timing of our settlement in the basement. Mom’s car parked a few feet above us was now in full view from where we stood in the basement. The storm had moved the car forward from it’s earlier parked position. A window hung against the wall by a metal thread, behind us. Firemen raced to the disaster scene and appeared within minutes. One of them stooped down near our foundation wall and shouted, "Is everyone down there accounted for? David had managed to scramble atop the washing machine and climb from the basement to meet up with his friend, Topper Collier, who lived next door. Mom looked around and said that everyone was okay, except for me. "My daughter has a cut finger," Mom reported to him. Hearing that, I quickly reclaimed my injury. "It’s nothing!" I shouted. "Only a small cut." I felt terrified at the thought that I might be carried away in an ambulance and separated from Mom.
Five miles away, in Grandview, Missouri, Dad had been attending his Optimist Meeting. It was later recounted to me that during the meeting someone came in and beckoned the men to come outside to see a tornado on the ground in the distance. All left the meeting and ran out to see the storm. They saw objects flying through the air and cars tossed around in the sky. After watching it, the men returned to the building and finished their meeting. After the meeting Dad drove home. As he neared our neighborhood, he said he began to see clutter and debris lying about. Moving closer to home, he noticed houses damaged. The closer he got to home, the faster his heart beat. Could the tornado he had watched earlier . . ? No! It couldn’t possibly have hit...!
He approached Ruskin High School and saw the destruction. Only the gym remained standing, and on it, only the letters "RU IN". Before he reached the top of our street he found the roads blocked with the storm’s debris. No longer thinking clearly, he threw his gearshift in park, jumped out of the car without turning off the motor, and ran to our street, his heart pounding, his breath panicked, his legs racing to get to our house. On and on he ran, inhaling the horror of nature’s powerful destruction as he raced to find his family. Out of breath he finally reached the end of our long block and stood before the house that he had left earlier, intact. The house completely gone now, he peered into the open, cluttered basement and searched for any signs of life.
He could spot not one member of his precious family! Shaking, his emotions exhausted, he put his hands to his head and began to weep. As I look at the photograph that was taken of our house a day after the storm, I’m simply amazed that none of us were injured by the large pieces of debris that fell all around us, cluttering the basement. The little chair that Mom sat in remains unmoved in the photo. At the front steps of the house, the photo captures Dad in his youth -- much younger than I am today -- a bit disheveled and appearing quite sober at the scene of destruction before him. Shortly after Dad arrived on the scene, Reverend Collier came up to him and laid his arm on Dad’s shoulder. "All of them were in the basement when the storm hit and everyone survived. Maxine took the children to a house where they would be cared for and bedded down for the night." Relieved to learn that we were alive and in a safe place, Dad plunged his gratitude into the task of helping others in distress. He worked well into the night and finally caught up with us long past our bedtime.
For awhile the family was split up, staying with different families that we knew. Soon, the Red Cross and Salvation Army set up tents in Ruskin Heights. National Guardsmen stood guarding the neighborhoods from potential looters. Mom and Dad had to produce identification to get into the area. By mid-June we were all back together as a family living together in temporary housing. The devastation brought new construction, both of buildings and of lives. My dad, Russ Millin, 34 years old at the time, presided over The Ruskin Heights Homes Association during the reconstruction period. Ruskin High School was rebuilt fairly quickly. Something in the spirit of rebuilding the school seem to make the kids even prouder of it. Dad and Mom hired Praver and Sons, the original developer of Ruskin, to rebuild our house. Slowly, we gathered our lives back together and by August we were back into our rebuilt home again.
I remember properties around us sitting in ruin for months to come. As we reconnected with neighbors we shared stories and odd happenings of that storm-torn night. Someone in Milan, Missouri, more than 150 miles away discovered my library card on their lawn. My mother uncovered a closet full of her clothes a couple of blocks from our property. Unusual things showed up in our front yard. One such item was fresh shoots of popcorn. Yards would have been rich soil for metal detecting! Missouri’s U.S. Senator Symington toured the devastation after the tornado. A twisted, mangled bicycle caught his eye. He asked who it belonged to and was given my name. One day I came home to find a brand new bicycle in my house with my name on it, compliments of Senator Symington.
We occupied the re-built residence in Ruskin Heights for three years before moving on to another house. Our family left the Ruskin school district in the middle of David’s junior year, cheating all of us of graduation from our beloved Ruskin High School. In 1962, we relocated to the City, and lived in a house near Loose Park. Dad’s position in the Homes Association paved the way for him to strike up a relationship with Senator Symington. That eventually led to President Kennedy appointing him as the U. S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri. Today, each of us lives in the Greater Kansas City Area, except for Jennifer, who resides in Maine.
None of us ever returned to live in Ruskin. However, my husband, Bill Wright, has been working in the Ruskin area recently on a project to rebuild some of the Ruskin sewers. David is a real estate appraiser, living in Independence, MO. Carolyn owns a bar in Shawnee, KS. And I live with Bill in Kansas City, MO, halfway between Mom and Dad’s houses. They divorced in 1971. Fear of storms was prevalent in my psyche for many years to come. Clouds frightened me. Thunder hastened my heartbeat. Lightning sent currents of terror through my body. I remember Dad trying to calm me down with philosophical statistics of the chances that I would ever be in a tornado again. How I wanted to embrace that comfort! But my nerves were too full of rich memories to settle at such talk. I would be in my 20’s before I came once again to appreciate the wonder and beauty of our stormy Midwest weather. I am amazed, Sandy, at the energy you have exerted to bring together the Memorial event. Thanks for all you have done! -Chris Kraft
"I'm Shannon McNamara and was only 14 months old at the time. Our house was destroyed. My mother ran my sister, brother and me down the street to someone's basement while my father stayed behind to turn things off. My mom was sure he had been killed. When we were dug out of the basement, a man reached into the window to help my mom with her baby. It turned out that man was my dad and I was the baby. When we rebuilt, we had a storm cellar put in the back yard."
I was 17 years old at the time. My parents and I were sitting on the patio at 6701 Raytown Road in Raytown, MO. We saw the tornado from that point tracking from 87th Street and James A. Reed Rd, heading easterly towards Knob Town. I will never forget the sound and the size of the storm. I now live on James A. Reed Rd. where it came through. - Jim McClanahan
We lived at 10709 Newton Ave during the 1957 tornado. We were extremely lucky that we received no damage as many others nearby did. We were standing outside observing the approaching storm clouds when we noticed a 2x4 aloft drifting lazily to the ground. That is when we realized homes were being destroyed. That 2X4 was the only warning of the destruction that would follow. We immediately took our 2 year old son Chris and 6 month old Danny to shelter at a close neighbor's basement, because our house didn't have one. The noise was terrific as the funnel passed overhead and dust rose from the floor about 2 feet into the air. My husband Chris Sr., who was a WW2 veteran of both the European and Pacific theaters, commented that he experienced more fear at this time than he did in combat as he could not return fire on the monster. After the tornado there was a parade of refugee pets. Some would stay only briefly, but one dog a beautiful English Sheep dog stayed longer until one day he came to me and looked directly into my eyes as if to say " Thanks for everything but I have to find my family now". Then he left for good. I hope he was successful. My 2 year old son experienced nightmares involving tornados until adulthood.- Sally Stolfa, Lees Summit Mo.
When we arrived at Peggy Summer's home, 1010 10th Street, Grandview, news had come over the T. V. regarding the tornado, and advising every one to head for the basement. Naturally, my niece, Lynn Ann Summers, (a fourth grader) and I were anxious to go out on the front porch to see what was really going on. (Porch faced West) After a few minutes a funnel cloud appeared almost due north of us traveling in an Easterly direction. It looked to be over Grandview Road in the area of Blue Ridge. All of a sudden there appeared a structure looking like a house, appeared in the funnel. We only saw it for a few, 15-30, seconds before it disappeared back into the funnel.
I tried to get back to Westridge school to get my wife and son. At the same time they had taken rides with five different people in an attempt to get to our home. It took us over five hours to reconnect with each other. I tried to go to 71 Highway, it was blocked at Blue Ridge intersection. Went further East on Blue Ridge. By the time I got to Ruskin it was almost fully blocked with cars, fire equipment, and ambulances. I literally drove on the shoulder as far North as Bannister and then turned West. Finally got home.
My boss, Mr. Theo Bird, of Bird's Rexall Drugstore called, our lines were still functional, and asked if I could come to the Grandview High School. The Salvation Army was setting up a receiving station for the injured. By the time I navigated my way back to Grandview, the Salvation Army had the cots all set up. (See picture in the Grandview Advocate's publication of the tornado) . We never got any patients since they were taken care of on site and transported to local hospitals.
Finally my family got together and went to Peggy Summers' home to discuss our frightening experiences. Peggy's husband, Kenneth H. Summers (Kenny), owned the Truman Corner Filling Station at the intersection of Blue Ridge and 71 Highway. He had attempted to get to his home and was in his pickup truck headed South West on Blue Ridge when his truck was picked up and rotated 180 degrees and set back down. (His station was where the White Castle building is now.) My brothers-in-law, Stanley Phillips and Chester Phillips, drove South from 60th and Jackson to try to be of assistance. They helped secure a grocery store. While there, a man calmly tried to walk out of the store carrying a cash register. One of the Guardsmen stopped him. The day after, the police issued our drug store a permit to allow us entry into the Ruskin area for the purpose of taking medicines into residents. We made a few trips into the area and saw the destruction. - Robert Wolf
Hi my name is Shirley (Dunbar) Buxton class of 1961. We were very lucky our home was not hit by the tornado, the only reason was because we lived on the east side of the railroad tracks where they came above ground level, we felt that the tracks turned the tornado at that point. We lived next to the Phillips 66 station that sat on the southeast corner of Longview Rd & Blue Ridge. My sister Brona class of 1959, my father and I went to the station thinking it would be a safer place to be. We were inside the station inside a car looking out the big glass garage door that faced north, we say the car hit the water tower and a lot of debris flying in the air. My sister worked at the drug store at the Ruskin Shopping Center but luckily she was not scheduled to work that night, but she did have a class friend (Linda Glick) that did work and was seriously injured. Our mom was at a union meeting down town K.C. when she got the news that Ruskin Heights was hit, it took her hours to get home not knowing if we were O.K. or not. This was a night I will never forget and hope I never see another one.- Shirley (Dunbar) BuxtonMy name is Virginia Knight . My family lived at 7408 E .111 Terr. from 1954 until 1991. I remember May 20Th, 1957 as follows. The day was hot and windy, perfect for drying clothes outside. My husband and I and our seven children [with number eight on the way] had lived in Ruskin Heights since 1954. Around 5 o'clock the sky became overcast and weather warnings were on the TV . My husband, Charles , had just left for a meeting at a church. I heard on the news that a tornado was on the ground in Grandview and heading right towards us. I gathered my children and sent them to the basement to play with some Silly Putty.
Not too long afterwards our cousins who lived close by , the Brosnahan family, and some of our neighbors without basements, including the Harris family, started to arrive. We ended up with about twenty five people in the basement when the tornado struck. At first the lights blinked off and on and then we lost power all together in a matter of seconds! We huddled together in the southwest corner under the stairs of the basement .The sound of a powerful surge of wind and my pots and pans hitting each other is what I remember. The amount of time it took to completely destroy our house seemed like an eternity but was probably less than thirty seconds!
Someone hollered from up above "is anyone hurt down there?" That is when I realized it was over and we started up the basement stairs. I remember the water was running in the kitchen sink and I asked someone to turn it off. It was an odd feeling when they reached in from the outside to turn the water off ! The front yard was littered with strange things. A car was turned upside down, power lines were everywhere, my kitchen curtains were hanging from telephone pole and my refrigerator was in the hallway. A plate glass mirror that had been on the south side of the wall was gone along with the wall. Outside on the driveway we found a mattress. The yard was littered with debris and electric cables lay everywhere . I remember my eight year old son was hopping over the cables. Then I saw my husband coming down the street. He had been trying to get through but the guards from Richards Gebaur were stopping everyone and he had left our car at Burke School and walked.
Neighbors from across the street invited us to come into their basement and it was there that a close family friend, Bob Boland, invited us to go their house on Red Bridge Road. I remember calling my parents who lived in Gardner, Ks at 2:00 a.m. to tell them we were all okay but they had no idea what I was talking about because they hadn't heard the news. We were out of our house for five months while we rebuilt. - Virginia Knight
I was almost 5 years old in May 1957. We were shopping at the hobby shop in the Ruskin Heights shopping center when we heard the sirens go off. My dad looked out the window and saw nothing but sunshine. However, he said "Maybe we better go home and see what's going on". It's a good thing we did. When we reached the house at 7301 E. 102nd St, we turned on the TV and the announcer was saying that people in the Ruskin Heights area needed to take immediate cover because the shopping center had just been hit. We were there only 7 minutes before. We looked out the back door and the sight was terrible. A black wall was coming toward us. We didn't have a basement so my dad picked me up, yelled to my brother and sister to run next door to our neighbor's basement. Afterward, we drove around in an open jeep and surveyed the damage. We returned home a little later and found my mother standing in the middle of the street crying. She had been working at Western Electric in Lee's Summit and when she heard about the tornado, left immediately to come home. When she got there, she didn't know where we were and thought we had been blown away in the storm. - Debra (Gibson) Helbling, Class of 1970.I was in the 5th grade at Burke Elementary on that dreadful evening. We lived at 10724 Cambridge and had one of the few houses with a basement. When the Warning came out my folks made all of us kids go to the basement along with about 20 neighbors. When the tornado came through the whole house shook and it sounded like several trains were passing at once. Luckily we still had a place to live but we were close enough to hear and feel it passing. I still remember what sounds and the destruction. - Carol Bollin
I keep hearing and thinking about the various stories surrounding the 1957 tornado.Whether or not this is of interest, I have no idea, but for what it’s worth—
One week before the storm, I left my home in Grainfield, Kansas for interviews with four separate school districts, since I had tendered my resignation for the coming term in Grainfield. My last interview was with Dr. Carl Wagner, the then superintendent of CSD #1.
I was interviewed in the office in the C.A.Burke Building. After touring the district during which he showed the existing elementary buildings, the new Ruskin, the ongoing construction at Westridge and the very beginning of the Johnson Elementary. He also took me inside the existing Ruskin Jr High school to which I was to be assigned as Principal of Westridge, replacing Mr. Paul Province.
After a brief interview I was offered a contract, which I signed that evening. I returned to my home and family in Western Kansas and was told to report for duty on July 1, 1957.
It was not until three days later, when I read in the Kansas City Times/Star that there had been a terrible tornado in western Missouri with numerous deaths in an area called Ruskin Heights. In all honesty, I did not realize it was my district until I saw the front page photo of the Ruskin gymnasium with the letters R U I N suspended from the wall left standing. That is the first knowledge I had and began immediately attempting to contact the superintendent. I was not able to make contact with him until May 30 and was told to come to the district ASAP.
I left my family in Grainfield and bachelored throughout the months of June, July and part of August until my home was completed in St. Catherine’s.
High school students were assigned to Burke, 7th and 8th graders to Westridge and Truman until Baptiste was completed in October 1959. It was far from completion, but we opened with almost 1,000 seventh & eighth grade students.I remained employed by the district until 1968 when I began work for the R. W. Harmon & Sons, who were bus contractors for the district. - Roscoe Bernard
My name is Cathy Fenner. I was 6 years old in 1957. My family lived in southeast Kansas City around 31st and Norton. I will never forget that night. I was with a babysitter that evening. Being such a young child I didn't realize what was going on. I had always been afraid of loud thunder but I don't really remember anything unusual that evening.
What is burned into my memory is that suddenly my babysitter was frantically dragging me across the street to her parents house ( I remember crying and trying to get my foot into one of my shoes as she pulled me by the hand across the street). It was kind of greenish and dark and raining hard. When we got to her house we sat in her
parents living room and listened to the news reports. I remember the newscaster talking about where you should go if the tornado came. I also remember the adults discussing if we would have to go into the crawl space of their house, and wondering if we would have to do that.
The whole night is a blur after that. Of course the tornado didn't hit our neighborhood. A few weeks later my grandfather drove the whole family out to the Ruskin area and we saw the damage. I will never forget those sights. I remember seeing a car twisted like a towel and wrapped around a tree, a whole house gone except for one bathroom wall with a medicine cabinet with all the medicine still in it and the house with the "all shook up" sign in the front. When you are 6 years old images like that make a big impression on you. For any years after that every time the tornado sirens blew I would just break down in tears. I was terrified of stormy weather. I actually
got to see a tornado in 1966 when one struck out in Overland Park. As I got older my fear turned into interest and I decided to learn all I could about tornados. I still have a great respect for the weather and whenever the sirens wail I take it very seriously. I
don't think people who haven't experienced this can totally understand the impact it has on a person. - Cathy Fenner
Participants in the events occuring on MAY 20 1957 at 7709 E. 113th St., Ruskin Heights, are as follows: The James C. Miller, Sr., family, former wife, Joanne Miller, Dan Miller, age 4, Dave Miller, age 3, Jim Jr., age 18 months, Dawn, yet to be born in March of 1959. Elmer and Madelyn Weaver, Joanne’s parents, who lived on the next block behind us and four houses east of ours, at 7820 E. 113 th Terr.
As I recall the events of fifty (50) years ago, it was a hot sunny day and we were planning to go to the Crest Drive-in movies that evening. We had not been watching TV, nor did we have the radio on, in other words we had no indication of the events in store for us later in the evening. The plan was to take Jim Jr., around the block to his Grandparents, Elmer & Madelyn, and they would baby-sit him while we went to the movies.
I would guess that we packed up and proceeded around the block to Elmer & Madelyn’s at a little after 6:45 PM. As I pulled up in front of their house, I noticed it was very cloudy off to the North and the clouds seemed very low. However, from where I was standing beside my car the sky to the South was cloudless and was a very bright blue, in fact it was like there was a straight line going from East to West, with clouds on the North of the line and bright blue sky South of the line.
We proceeded into the house and I went out on the back patio with Elmer. We visited for a little bit and then we could hear a slight roaring, like the wind howling to the north of us towards Kansas City. Elmer said it sounded like a Texas rain squall. About the same time, there were a few dollar-size rain drops fell on the patio, but not even enough to cover the whole patio. Elmer said, “You better go out and pull your car up as close as you can to the garage door, ‘cause we’re liable to get some hail out of this.” We still did not have the TV or radio on.
I walked through the house and went out to my car, and as I did, I noticed the man diagonally across the street was standing in front of his open garage door, looking up towards Ruskin High School and Blue Ridge. The area we were in sits down low and you are not able to see the High School from there. I pulled my car up into the driveway as close as I could to the garage door. When I got out of my car, I heard the man across the street yell “Here it comes!” I very quickly went into the house and said, “I think there is a tornado coming!” About that time, the telephone rang, and it was a relative from Northeast Kansas City calling and asking if we knew there was a tornado on the ground in Grandview. Madelyn, who had answered the phone reached over and turned on the TV. It came on just long enough to say a few words and then the power went off on everything.
I went to the back door and was looking up towards the high school and could hear the tremendous noise of the tornado, and could see the upper part of the tornado, still several blocks away, and then I turned and grabbed Dan, Dave, & Jim, and set them on the floor with their backs to the garage wall in the kitchen. (Note: The house does not have a basement, but is on a concrete slab.) I then led Joanne and Madelyn over to where the boys were and had them lay on top of them. I then threw a small rug over them and kneeled down over them, putting one hand over the top of my head, and was in a position where I could see Elmer standing at the back door watching the tornado.
He turned to look at us and was hollering, but I couldn’t hear him for all of the noise, but I could read his lips as he said, “If you ever prayed, you’d better pray now as that #%@ is headed straight for us!” A minute or two later, as I read his lips again he said, “I think it is going to miss us!”
hen I heard it was going to miss us, I got up and went to the back door, and saw that it was straight out in front of us, about three (3) blocks north of us. I could see a house explode in the air, and like it was in slow-motion, a door turned over & over in the air, catching fire momentarily and then going out. Elmer and I walked out on the patio and watched as the tornado, still on the ground, exited through the Northeast section of Ruskin and across what is now the Clark Ketterman baseball fields towards Raytown Road and Bannister.
Joanne’s grandparents lived at 99th and Blue Ridge, and we didn’t know how far North the tornado had caused damage, so Elmer got in his car and attempted to go West on Sycamore to Blue Ridge so he could check on them. He was back in just a few minutes. He said there were too many wires and fences and other debris in the street, and he couldn’t get through.
Two families lived next door west of Elmer & Madelyn. The Miller brothers came out and said they wanted to go see if they could help in the area where all of the damage was. So, the Miller brothers, Elmer, and I got into Elmer’s car and headed out the opposite direction,and stopped at the Ruskin Heights Shopping Center. I told them to let me out and I would see if I could help out at the A&P store. The south wall was still standing as was part of the back wall. They had removed some people from the store before I arrived, but were trying to check the rest room, which had a jammed door. One of the volunteers mentioned that the south wall should probably be knocked down as it was a hazard standing there with very little support. I told them I thought there was a bull-dozer in Ruskin at about 112th and Sycamore, and if the owner was at home, he would probably help us out.
I ran down to 112th and Sycamore from the A&P store, knocked on the door, and the owner volunteered to come to the shopping center with his dozer. Since it was dark and there were no street lights, due to the power being out all over the area, I ask him if he had a flashlight. He got a flashlight from his house, gave it to me, and I ran in front of him and the dozer back up to the A&P store, making sure there were no downed power lines in front of him.
As I left the shopping area and headed back home, I noticed that it seemed like the A&P Store, the Ben Franklin Dime Store, and the Crown Drug Store were the hardest ones hit in our area. Walking up Blue Ridge towards 110th Street, I noticed the Dairy Queen on the south side of the Standard Station was completely gone, and the Standard Station was leveled. I arrived home between 1:00 & 1:30 A.M.
The next day, Tuesday, May 21st I went to work at the Phillips Refinery in Fairfax, Kansas and I think I was still in a little bit of shock, as I did very little talking about what had happened the night before. On the drive home, I was stopped at 71 Highway and Bannister by the National Guard, and was told I could not enter the area without a pass and would have to go to the City Hall in Grandview to get a pass. This was on old 71 Highway, before the new Bruce Watkins Freeway was built. So, I went east on Bannister to Raytown Road, south on Raytown Road to 150 Highway, west to 71 Highway, north on 71 Highway to Main Street, west on Main Street to the City Hall, showed them proof that I lived in Ruskin Heights, and they gave me a pass so I could go home, arriving at about 7:30 PM, instead of my usual 5:30 PM.
My children have heard this story so many times that I’m sure they have it memorized by now.