z
Schools superintendent
remembers storm that
killed her grandmother
By JULIE CROTHERS
GOSHEN — Like many local
residents, Diane Woodworth
recalls how sunny and calm the
weather was on April 11, 1965
— and what a stark contrast
that was to the roaring winds
and destruction that followed.
Woodworth had just cele-
brated her 10th birthday when
the Palm Sunday tornadoes
ripped through Elkhart and
LaGrange counties.
“It was this balmy Sunday
and we were out in the yard
playing pitch-and-catch,” said
Woodworth, the
current superin-
tendent of Gos-
hen Community
Schools.
At the time,
Woodworth was
living in rural
Shipshewana
with her parents,
Mark and Clara
Bontrager.
Sunday afternoon, her father
had pulled the family’s car
around to the hip roof barn
to begin milking their several
dozen cows when a big wind
whipped through the area and
a loud roaring noise followed.
Woodworth said she remem-
bers her mother standing in a
large picture window, watching
as dark clouds replaced the
sunny blue skies they’d been
playing in moments before.
“My mom took us down into
the basement and we just sat
there — my brother who was
6 years old and me — on the
bottom steps of the basement
stairs,” Woodworth said. “Mom
told us to pray. So I started
praying.”
Woodworth’s father burst
into the basement from an
exterior door and joined his
family.
A short time later, as the
winds grew silent and the fam-
ily came up from the basement,
they found the car smashed
and the top of the barn had
been picked up and tossed into
a nearby woods.
The house had been spared,
as had the cows her father
had just been milking, and the
family’s dog, which had been
carried off in the storm, was
returned several hours later by
an Amish family.
Woodworth’s grandmother,
Mabel Mishler, was injured on
her way to shelter at a friends
house.
Mishler had been visiting a
home when they saw the storm
coming and sought shelter
in the basement. She was the
last to descend the stairs and
as she stepped down, a large
piece of wood barreled through
her thigh, Woodworth said.
Mishler died later that week
at a hospital in Fort Wayne
from infection.
The Bontragers would later
learn from neighbors that the
funnel clouds that circled the
area had bypassed their home,
but a tail could be seen extrud-
ing from a tornado.
“From what they said, this
small white tail came down, hit
the barn roof and then disap-
peared again,” Woodworth
said.
It seemed their home — and
the homes surrounding it —
had been spared.
Woodworth’s father pre-
pared for his quartet perfor-
mance at Shore Mennonite
Church scheduled for later that
evening.
“He knew someone would
come by and pick him up,”
Woodworth said. “So we just
sat and waited with our candles
and lamps.”
Little did the family know,
the church where Bontrager
was to perform had been de-
molished in the storm.
Follow Julie on Twitter @
jcrothers_tgn
P
alm
S
unday
T
ornadoes
| 50
th
A
nniversary
10
| Saturday, April 11, 2015 The Goshen News
R
emembering
T
he
S
hore
M
ennonite
/ R
ainbow
L
ake
C
ommunity
The FINAL blow
z
Killer storm helped bring
religious communities
together in Shipshewana
By SHEILA SELMAN
SHIPSHEWANA
T
here is time before the
Palm Sunday storm and
time after it. It’s that sim-
ple. Time split that day for the
people of this small community
of Shore, just south of Shipshe-
wana near Rainbow Lake in
LaGrange County.
The day was unusually warm,
in the 70s, people remember.
Children were out playing.
Families were visiting after
Sunday dinner. Evening church
services at Shore Mennonite
Church would start in about an
hour or so, with many looking
forward to a performance by a
quartet.
In an instant, the fury of an F4
tornado that had just struck in
Elkhart County barreled down
on residents. Unknown to many
Shore area residents, tornadoes
were ruthlessly ripping apart
Dunlap.
As Midway Trailer Court was
destroyed in Elkhart County, a
new tornado dipped east of Ind.
13 north of Ind. 4.
According to the National
Weather Service this tornado
plowed northeast, devastat-
ing the Amish countryside of
eastern Elkhart County and the
northwest quarter of LaGrange
County.
As the tornado barreled
through Forks, it continued
northeast toward the intersec-
tion of Ind. 5 and U.S. 20. In
its path were several homes
and Shore Mennonite Church,
where the congregation was
preparing for evening services.
Haarers suffer loss
Paul Haarer, whose family
owned a farm near Shore, said
he and his immediate fam-
ily were at Marion Mennonite
Church, off of Ind. 120 northeast
of Shipshewana listening to a
men’s quartet from Ohio when
the storm hit several miles
south.
“We didn’t know it had hap-
pened,” he said.
His family, including his young
daughter Rebecca, piled in the
family car to head home and
could only get to the power plant
on C.R. 675.
“We sat in the car, waiting and
waiting and waiting,” he said.
They soon learned that their
family farm had been struck by
the tornado.
His grandmother had just
gotten inside the porch when
the tornado hit, Haarer recalled.
The only side of the house that
remained, was the side she
entered. She survived. Haarer’s
parents, Frank and Grace, and
his brother Noble, however,
weren’t as lucky. All three of
them were killed by the storm.
One of the treasures that was
salvaged from the rubble was a
bottle that held a carving inside.
The bottle was still intact. Haarer
said his Grandpa Eash used to
have this particular bottle. It was
inscribed with the words “Fear
God” on one side and “God is
love” on the other.
For Haarer, the inscription fit
the circumstances. He gave the
bottle to his daughter, who still
has it.
Death toll hits 16
Sixteen died altogether from
the tornado in LaGrange County.
Eight of those attended Shore
Mennonite Church — John and
Jennie Yoder, Iva Nofzinger, Bes-
sie and Bernis Hostetler, Noble
Haarer, and Frank and Grace
Haarer.
Three members of the quartet
that was scheduled to sing were
also killed: Willis and Grayce
Bontrager and LeRoy Yoder.
Another person who died was
Mable Mishler. Her son, Paul
Mishler, said his mom was taken
to a hospital where she later
died of injuries sustained in the
storm.
Mishler said he was on the
north end of Shipshewana and
didn’t know anything was going
on until his daughter saw a
trailer being tossed around in
the air.
Then he heard something had
happened at Ind. 5 and U.S. 20.
“When I got to 5 and 20 I
didn’t know where I was,”
Mishler said. “Everything was
flat.”
On foot, Mishler got to Amos
Miller’s house and found him
walking around in the yard. He
heard someone crying and found
the Millers’ son out in their
garden.
A Shipshewana police officer
told Mishler to stay and take con-
trol of the family until more help
could arrive.
Mishler did that, but said
he had a sister and mother he
wanted to check on as well.
“But before I left there ... here
comes a tall person walking
down through (U.S.) 20 and
I said to myself, ‘That’s Ivan
Birky,’” Mishler said. “He and his
wife were walking down through
there. I tell ya, everybody looked
different. You didn’t know them.
Their hair was sticking straight
up full of mud. It was pathetic.”
Happy to be alive
Ivan Birky didn’t disagree
about how he, his wife and the
children with them looked. They
were just happy to be alive.
The sky was greenish, Birky
said, but he didn’t even think
about a tornado.
He and his wife had an infant
daughter and 6-year-old niece
with them that day. His wife, Do-
ris, was getting ready for church
and was just in her slip when
she heard a loud noise.
Ivan said he thought it was
‘Mom
told us
to pray’
See
Shore
| 26
sheila selman |
The Goshen News
At the memorial dedicated
to those of Shore Mennonite Church who lost their lives during the Palm Sunday tornadoes
of April 11, 1965 are, from left, Maurice and Cecelia Berkey, Truman Miller, Ivan Birky and Paul Mishler.
Woodworth
Funeral home owner knew it was going to be busy
By SHEILA SELMAN
MIDDLEBURY — The first real
inkling Richard Miller had that
something horrible had happened
came when he arrived at Goshen
Hospital for an ambulance call the
evening of April 11, 1965.
Miller, at the time 31, was
owner of Miller Funeral Home in
Middlebury. Back then funeral
home hearses were also used as
ambulances, and on this stormy
Palm Sunday evening, Elkhart
County needed all the ambulances
it could get.
“People were laying outside
(the hospital),” he remembered,
injured and caked in mud. Their
homes, he said, had been de-
stroyed by the twisters that swept
through the hour or so before.
He knew there was going to be
a busy and sad week to come for
him.
Back at the funeral home,
Miller’s wife, Lois, handled the
dispatches. She advised him that
several people from Shipshewana
may be coming to the funeral
home. Also, two tornadoes had
struck north of Middlebury, she
informed him. A couple that had
escaped the first tornado was
struck by the second tornado and
the wife was killed.
“Some guys came in and said
several (dead) from Shipshewana
were coming in,” Miller said. “I
knew immediately I needed to
contact the Civil Defense.”
SHEILA SELMAN |
THE GOSHEN NEWS
Richard Miller
shows a photo given to him by the Fort
Wayne Journal Gazette of the mass funeral he arranged for
the families of eight victims of the Palm Sunday tornadoes.
goshen news file photo
A group of Amish men
work to rebuild a home near Ship-
shewana in this April 1965 file photo.
See
busy
| 11
