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P
alm
S
unday
T
ornadoes
| 50
th
A
nniversary
The Goshen News Saturday, April 11, 2015 |
27
St. He’d use them to contact
other short-wave radio en-
thusiasts. He belonged to the
Goshen Amateur Radio Club.
On April 11, 1965, the
17-year-old Goshen High
School junior, in the wake
of the Palm Sunday torna-
does, would be tasked with
passing along messages to
emergency personnel and
concerned family members
after tornadoes blew through
the area, leaving death and
destruction in their wake.
That day
“I ran outside as the
weather rolled in,” Van Hout
recalled from his home
north of Watervliet, Michi-
gan. “The sky was like no
color I’d ever seen before.
The storms rolled through
and for the most part I guess
they missed us (in Goshen
proper).
“After it was over it was
real quiet. And I’d say about
15 minutes later, a fella from
the local American Red
Cross showed up at my
door,” Van Hout continued.
“They had known me from
the radio club. They had me
get on my radio and make
some calls.”
The first call was to the
national chapter of the
American Red Cross in
Washington D.C. with the
message “We have a major
emergency. We need your
help.”
Van Hout, by chance,
was able to reach another
short-wave radio enthusiast,
Charles Mills of Buchanan,
Michigan. Mills worked for
Michigan Bell Telephone
at the time. The phone
company set up a portable
operators station at Mills’
home with five operators on
duty at all times.
As word spread of their
connection to the outside
world, the Van Hout’s home
served as the de facto com-
munication center for Gos-
hen and surrounding areas.
Fifty years later, Van Hout
has kept old newspapers and
boxes of all the messages
he sent after the tornadoes
swept through.
Last week, Van Hout went
through a large binder read-
ing those dispatches.
“Come with trucks to
Midway Mobile Home Park,”
Van Hout bellowed. “Can’t
get a hold of state police.”
After delivering that mes-
sage, he then was able to
reach state police.
The shorthand language
was used between Mills and
Van Hout. AARL-1 meant
everything was O.K.
“It was sort of a message
system to let one family
member know the person
sending the message is fine
and it was their job to then let
the rest of the family know
they’re fine,” he said.
As Van Hout flipped
through page after page of
messages, many simply had
someone’s name with AARL-
1 next to it.
However many were far
more grim.
Breaking the news
Van Hout was given a list
of deaths of people from
Goshen, Dunlap, Jefferson,
Shipshewana and Middle-
bury. The Goshen Hospital
staff provided him with a list
of 102 who were injured.
He’d cross check both
lists when people called in to
check on a loved one. Often
he was the one who broke
the news of someone’s death.
“People would call or
contact us through amateur
radio,” Van Hout said looking
at the list of dead he’s kept
for the past 50 years. “And
they’d say, ‘Is Mrs. Vance
Jackson OK?’”
Following along with his
finger Van Hout read “An-
swer is no. She died as well
as her two children in the
Midway Trailer Court.”
Van Hout’s sister Mary
would stand on the front
porch of their home. People
would stream to the house
and scribble notes on sheets
of scrap paper. Mary would
then run piles of messages
upstairs to Thys’ room.
For four days, Thys and
Mary would miss school to
help relay messages nearly
24 hours a day.
“I’d take little five minute
breaks to stretch my legs or
grab some coffee, use the re-
stroom,” Van Hout said. “At
one point a young reporter
from CBS was sitting in my
bedroom. It was Dan Rather.
I was apparently on Walter
Cronkite, but I never saw it.”
Instead the teenager was
in charge of passing along
information to concerned
loved ones as far west as
California, as far east as New
York and everywhere in
between.
The kid who couldn’t
speak a word of English and
was nicknamed “John” by
Parkside Elementary Prin-
cipal Park Lantz on his first
day of school to fit in a bit
more, was now in charge of
communicating to a nation.
Those early days in
Goshen as an outcast, Lantz
said, in a way prepared him
for his role in the tornadoes’
aftermath.
“It was very difficult
to come to this country
and have the kids in the
school yard make fun of
you because you couldn’t
speak English. And when
you finally began to speak
English, you spoke with such
a brogue or accent they still
made fun of you. That kind of
toughens you up pretty fast.
“Like I’m sure that many
of the doctors and police and
all the emergency workers,
you have to kind of go into
this detached mode. You’re
there to try and help people.
You can’t be there to deal
with how you’re feeling
about stuff.”
Of the thousands of
messages Van Hout passed
along, one was from Lantz
and his wife Mary to let
Ethel Ewin in Visalia, Califor-
nia know they were all right.
50 years later
But looking back at those
messages, now 50 years
removed from his solemn
duty to pass that information
along, Van Hout couldn’t
help but get emotional at
times. His voice cracked and
his hand shook on the page
as he read notes like:
“To Mrs. Opal Higginbo-
tham in East Bank, West
Virginia. My wife’s dead and
your littlest boy. Can’t locate
the other one. Be sure to tell
Edward Dickinson.”
After high school, Van
Hout went on to Calvin
College in Grand Rapids,
Michigan, then the Kran-
nert School of Management
at Purdue where he’d earn
his MBA. He was recruited
out of school by Procter and
Gamble to do logistics using
linear programming, stuff
ahead of its time. He started
his own business, worked for
Kraft and later was the chief
technology officer for the
sandwich restaurant chain
Subway, before retiring.
But despite a life filled
with accomplishments, he
still carries the memories of
those four days in 1965 when
he was the only way for
many in and around Gos-
hen who had a voice to the
outside world.
“I still think about it. Every
April 11 I certainly think
about,” Van Hout said of the
Palm Sunday tornadoes.
“What always strikes me
is that I was the lucky one.
My house wasn’t destroyed.
I wasn’t hurt. My relatives
didn’t die. How fortunate I
am. I was just a small part of
it. The police and volunteers
— they’re the real heroes. I
could just fill a special little
void.
“When you’re not born
in this country, you gain a
different sort of appreciation
for it. I was never as proud of
being an American as I was
in that time being in a small
town in Indiana that rose to
the occasion.”
Messenger
Continued from page 18
photo contributed
Sam King
, left and Levi Mast, center, are shown wanting to assure relatives that they were “OK” in Thys Van
Hout’s bedroom where Van Hout’s amateur radio set up was located.
