Remembering the tornado of 1965
buckeye67bob
The day of April 11, 1965, is a day many from Ohio will never forget - it was the day that nine tornadoes, many at highest levels of intensity, touched down and turned the lives of those in its path upside down.
Grafton Township residents Robert and Annie Overy, both 70, who formerly lived at 104 Chestnut St. in Grafton will never forget the night the devastating winds blew through Grafton.
Annie Overy said she will always remember the peculiar weather on Palm Sunday 1965, the day the tornado touched down.
“It rained real hard and then it stopped and got real quiet. The sky was eerie that entire day,” she said flipping through a scrapbook detailing the tornado and its effects.
As for Robert Overy, when the twister came through, he at first dismissed it as just another train passing through town. In 1965, there weren`t any tornado sirens, nor TV alerts to warn folks to seek shelter.
“The tornado hit in the evening hours and we were watching ‘The Big Country` on television - I never saw the end of it,” Robert Overy said looking at his wife.
Annie Overy, who was pregnant with the couple`s third child and was experiencing false labor pains throughout the day, can recall that the tornado touched down about 11:15 p.m. They scurried around the house - improvising since they had no basement.
“We got our two children up, who were sleeping upstairs, and they hid under the couch, I went under the dining room table,” she said.
While Annie Overy led the children downstairs, her husband was trying to close the back door, which had swung open. But the pressure was too much - he couldn`t close it until the tornado whirled away.
It wasn`t until the next morning when the residents of Grafton were able to see what the tornado had wrought.
The Overys, who lived across the street from the mill, were lucky - the only damage sustained was to the backyard fence. However, for those who lived in the southern portion of the city, their homes were destroyed.
One man, Tom Hengartner, of Grafton, was killed.
“We think the mill stopped the tornado and forced it to turn to Sunshine Court and then it hit Willow and Hickory,” Annie Overy said. “We were protected.”
It`s because of stories like the Overys that the Grafton-Midview Public Library is hosting an open house 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday that will highlight the events surrounding the 1965 tornado, which also leveled every building in Pittsfield Township.
According to Grafton-Midview Public Library young adult coordinator Donna Dowdell, former Grafton resident Lois Anderson - now Lois Szabrak - donated slides from the Palm Sunday tornado to the library last summer.
“We wanted to do something with them. This was too wonderful of a program to pass up,” Dowdell said.
And while several residents have come forward with their stories from that day, there are a couple of residents who are a bit skeptical because they do not want to relive the bad memories associated with the tornado, Dowdell said.
“Most are very enthusiastic and want to share their memories. It`s time to remember,” she said.
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Filed by buckeye67bob March 14th, 2008 in Local and State.
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