Just My Opinion - by Mary Kilen
Remembering Another Storm
As storms ripped across the state last Friday, I think we all held our breath and prayed for everyone in their path. I know for us, we were watching Bismarck because Zach was at home, Fargo because Amanda and Carter were visiting family, and Devils Lake because Abel and Jozie were with their other grandparents. Things turned out to be fine for all of them but that didn’t stop this mom and nana from worrying.
On Saturday, I received an email from Jane Paulson in Powers Lake. She was reminded of an article her dad wrote of an account of the tornado that happened in Powers Township 90 years ago. She sent me a copy of the article from the Burke County-White Earth Valley historical book from 1971. She says that the people he wrote about were her great aunt and uncle, Marit and Henry Kragness. I appreciate her sending it to me and found this first person account fascinating to read.
Titled “The tornado of July 1, 1935”, it was written by Eddie Paulson and reads as follows:
The day of July 1, 1935 started with a warm, sunny breeze from the south and my uncle, Henry Kragness, decided that this would be a good day for me to paint his barn. The barn was a round, roofed building (36’x56’) built in 1927. I took my straw hat and denim jacket and went with him. I started painting and my uncle took his team of horses and went to cultivate his field of corn. At noon he mentioned that he had never known the flies to be so bad for his horses. Later in the afternoon it became very cloudy, humid and sultry. My uncle came in from the field about 5 o’clock as he had finished cultivating. I had painted one side of the barn and was finishing the other side when my aunt, Mrs. Kragness, called us in for supper.
It was 7 o’clock when we sat down to eat (she had prepared waffles).It became very dark, as the clouds were so heavy, that we had to light a lamp (which was a kerosene lamp) so that we could see. This was very unusual for this time of the day as the sun did not set until about 8:45 at this time of the year. It began raining very hard and some hail also fell. We finished are meal and were watching the rain and hail fall, the wind direction was still from the south. I went to a south window to look out and I saw the tornado moving slowly toward the place and I told them that we had better get to the cellar as I was sure that the house would not stand anything as fierce as this.
The tornado was totally black and was churning up mud and other debris in its path. We opened the trap door and went into the cellar and waited for the tornado, which took only a few seconds to reach the house. We heard the doors and windows break and in a second the house was lifted off the foundation. We stood in a cellar which was 7½ feet deep wondering how we would get out. We were amazed to see everything was completed demolished (including all the buildings and the machinery).
The weather had turned cold and here we were soaked with rain and mud and only our light clothing. We discovered a front axle and wheels from a 1929 Chevrolet, which belonged to a neighbor, Syverin Hovland, was laying in the Kragness yard. The Hovland farm is ½ mile directly south of the Kragness farm. We looked over there and saw that their place too had been hit by the tornado and everything there was completely destroyed, including all their buildings. Mr. and Mrs. Syverin Hovland and five children had saved their lives by also going into the cellar.
The storm having moved on we started walking to my home which is two miles to the northeast of the Kragness farm. As we walked we watched the tornado roar down the coulee, one fourth mile to the north of the place, and it sounded like a hundred freight trains. In its path was the Zion Lutheran Church which was completed demolished. The only thing left was the large church bell which was laying along side of the foundation, undamaged. The storm kept moving in a northwesterly direction and came very close to the Emil Moen farm where it created enough vacuum to lift two rugs off the floor and blew out all the windows and twisted the house. It moved on from there and came to the Palmer Moen pasture, here it looked like a heavy black rope hanging from the dark clouds. This is where it ended its destruction and split in middle where one half of it seemed to go into the ground and the other half going into the clouds. This place can still be found where the vacuum lifted the sod up, probably a foot deep and about 10 feet in the diameter. Luckily there were no lives lost in this area. At the Andrew Ege farm the barn was blown down. This is probably the longest and most powerful storm that has ever hit this part of the state.