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P
alm
S
unday
T
ornadoes
| 50
th
A
nniversary
14
| Saturday, April 11, 2015 The Goshen News
What a blessing it was
to see that all 11 of us
appeared to come
through this mix nearly
scratch free. In the mean-
time, we heard loud cries
from hurting people
throughout the court.
With our group intact, I
ran toward the highway
seeking help and met a
state trooper on the way,
so I turned back to find
that our 2-year-old Pontiac
was a total loss due to
propane tanks being
slammed into the driver’s
side. My truck had a back
window blasted out.
I then stayed at Midway
while Frank managed to
get their car on the high-
way.
He took the wives and
children to a home in
Goshen where Dr. Phil
Bowser came to examine
them.
Second storm in view
While I and many rescue
workers were sifting
through rubble a short
while later, someone yelled
“Here comes another one.”
Many of us ran into a
field to the south seeking
refuge behind a few huge
piles of soil. By the time we
got there, the storm
became a twin and was
headed just north of us.
This became the killer in
the Sunnyside section of
Dunlap along with other
areas in its path.
There were many rather
unbelievable happenings,
two of them more signifi-
cant to us personally.
First, on May 12, a lady
named Sam Velie from Cen-
treville, Michigan, sent us a
letter saying she was mush-
room hunting north of
Mendon, Michigan, where
she found a check that we
originally had in our can-
celed checks file. The
bank’s cancellation ink was
washed off. The letter was
mailed to the town (Sum-
mersville, West Virginia)
which was printed on the
check and is where we
lived prior to relocating to
Midway. The Summersville
postal workers forwarded
the letter to us.
The second “miracle”
came about midsummer. A
12-year classmate, Larry
Chupp, contacted me won-
dering if I was missing a
class ring. He said someone
found a ring miles away
from Midway and asked if
he knew anyone who would
have a ring with the letter T
(Topeka) and the initials
“LL” on it. He quickly had
an idea.
We were so fortunate.
The Good Lord was with
us.
LeRoy Lambright is retired
and lives with his wife near
Greenville, S.C. He spent
nearly three decades as
sports editor of The News
before retiring in 1999.
Lambright
Continued from page 6
his death caused by a
severe head injury.
They saw it
“I seen it coming,” said
Carl Burk as he paused his
spring chores in his large
yard along Kendall Street,
just behind the Baptist
church that was destroyed
by the tornado.
In 1965 he and a friend
were about three-quarters
of a mile away in Elkhart.
They noticed all the earlier
excitement along U.S. 33,
where firefighters and
police officers were speed-
ing south toward Midway
Mobile Home Park with
their vehicle lights and
sirens blaring. They went
over to the highway to get
a look-see.
“We wanted to see
where they were going,”
he said.
He recalls the tornado
being white at that point,
and further away than it
seemed.
“I would have sworn
it was just a block away
from us, but it was three-
quarters of a mile away,”
Burk said. He was living
on Lawton Avenue at the
time.
Like many families that
day, they were hosting
relatives on Palm Sunday.
He and his wife and their
two children and their
guests watched the twister
get closer.
“I said, ‘when it takes
that house back there,
we will head to the base-
ment,’” Burk recalls telling
his wife.
“All we could see was a
couple of Christmas (pine)
trees floating in the air,” he
said. “We didn’t have any
idea how bad it was until it
was over.”
Kingston Heights
Janet (Hess) Chupp re-
calls the Kingston Heights
subdivision as a fun place
to grow up. Her friends
were scattered throughout
the subdivision and they
would often gather for
some fun.
“Before the tornado,”
Janet said, “There were
three huge trees right on
the boulevard. And if you
wanted any of the neigh-
bor kids, that is where we
would be every night.”
Those trees were taken
by the tornado that moved
up the slight slope from
the Sunnyside Subdivision.
Janet was 16 and a Con-
cord High School junior
when the tornado took her
family’s home. The twister
picked up the house and
dropped it into the base-
ment of the neighbor’s
house, which had also
been blown away.
“The chimney and the
front steps, that’s all we
had left,” Janet said.
Before the storm hit, her
family, like many others,
had gathered on Palm
Sunday.
“It was so muggy and so
hot. We were just having
a get together, my brother
was home from the Air
Force so we were all over
there (along Wolfe Avenue
in Elkhart) at my sister’s
house. It was so extremely
hot. You could just see the
haze. You knew something
was going to happen.”
And happen it did. The
National Weather Service
began issuing tornado
warnings across northern
Indiana in the afternoon.
The outbreak of 47 tor-
nadoes in six states had
begun.
“We could see it going
down Mishawaka Road,”
Janet said. “It was huge.”
“It came through where
the Concord Mall is now
and it just hit and missed,”
she said as she pointed out
her home’s window across
Greenwood. “It didn’t get
any of the houses along
there ... but it came down
the boulevard and boom,
took all our houses right
here.”
While the tornado was
bearing down on their
home, the Hess family was
scurrying across Wolf Av-
enue to a church basement
to join many others already
there seeking shelter.
Janet’s future husband,
Don, was at a friend’s
home along Ind. 15 hav-
ing his own experience
with the Palm Sunday
storms. The teens watched
through the basement win-
dow of that home as the
tornado that had earlier
struck Midway Mobile
Home Park delivered an-
other blow, destroying the
Jefferson Place Subdivi-
sion and taking more lives
there.
“Boy, it was green as
grass outside,” he recalls.
“We could see junk flying
around in the sky. It was
something else.”
The Chupps now live at
the corner of Greenwood
Boulevard and Tennessee
Street. Her parents, Agnes
and Herald Hess, owned
that lot. Their home in
1965 was next door along
Greenwood.
“My mom and dad
rebuilt right away,” Janet
said. The family’s new
home was ready in July.
“They were putting them
up like mad out here,” she
said.
But not everyone
returned to Kingston
Heights and Sunnyside.
Visitors will find many
vacant lots, some with
the vestige of a concrete
driveway that is just visible
through the encroaching
grass.
The churches
“This is the place where
President Johnson stood.
Right here on this lot,”
said Dwaine Swartzentru-
ber as he pointed up.
Swartzentruber was in
the basement recently of
the Elkhart County Com-
munity Baptist Church
at 23805 Sunnyside Ave.
working on a plumbing
project. He attends there.
The church is across the
street from the Sunnyside
Mennonite Church. Both
buildings that stood on the
lots in 1965 were blown
away. Both were rebuilt to
serve as gathering places
for two flocks of Chris-
tians.
Swartzentruber, in his
easy, southern Indiana
accent, said he doesn’t
recall the event as he ar-
rived in 1966. But church
lore tells of Johnson’s visit
and the famous photo that
was taken by The Goshen
News photographer with
the president standing
next to an American flag
stuck to debris.
Across the road, the
scenario was the same.
The members present had
heard that the Sunnyside
Mennonite Church was
destroyed on Palm Sunday
1965, then was rebuilt with
help from the Mennonite
Disaster Service.
A small plaque just to
the right of the church
entrance honors those who
rebuilt the church with the
help of “God’s grace.” The
plaque was presented to
the church by Everett and
Helen Ford.
The congregation was
spared that day, because
the evening service was
canceled due to the tor-
nado warnings, according
to Pastor Terry Zehr. But
the Fords lived next to the
church. They were home
when the F4 tornado tore
up their street headed for
the church. One of their
daughters, Carolyn, 4,
was killed. A son, Doug,
13, and Mr. Ford were
severely injured. Others
in the family also suffered
injuries.
Zehr said the church
did not have a basement
in 1965, and doesn’t have
one now. The congregation
relies on the technology
available today to avoid
meeting during threats of
storms.
“We are so connected
anymore,” Zehr said.
“With cell phones, if we
have a meeting (sched-
uled), we just cancel. That
is probably the difference
between now and then.”
Fellow pastor Melissa
Fisher-Fast said the his-
tory of the storm has not
completely been passed by.
“Just this past Sunday
we had a member who was
a child then present the
Sunday school story,” she
said.
Never forget
That day’s events are
vivid and fresh for Watters
and the other survivors.
“It’s not something you
can forget,” she said.
But, according to
Watters, some survivors
have not told their stories
because they are painful
to recall. She urges them
to talk to others, but only a
few have.
Watters has addressed
her pain by maintaining
the memorial where her
brother’s life was lost. Ev-
ery five years she invites
the public to gather there
and share their stories
from April 11, 1965. That’s
something she does her-
self whenever a reporter
or someone else asks.
Recently Watters went
beyond her own memorial
and visited the Palm Sun-
day tornado exhibit at the
Elkhart County History
Museum in Bristol. She
was moved.
“I was very proud...
There was a big picture of
my dad at the Midway.”
Sunnyside
Continued from page 8
