2023/2024
Collection 19

The Twister and the Two-Year-Old

1950; Cleveland, Ohio, USA

When my grandmother was living in Ohio, she witnessed a tornado that ripped a boy away from his home. She was ten years old at the time, and was playing in the backyard when she heard a strange sound. The sky that day was purple, with just a hint of green. Looking into the woods behind her, my grandmother, Myrna, saw a long, twisted spiral — a tornado.

The tornado headed for the house across from hers and picked it right up, just like in The Wizard of Oz! Items such as the beds and the refrigerator came falling out. Then, as Myrna continued watching, a little boy at the age of two years was tumbling around the interior of the house.

It was terrifying to see something like that. Myrna felt like she couldn’t move. She was practically glued to the ground. She kept watching and saw the little boy get sucked out of the house!

Myrna went inside and told her dad what she had seen. Her dad had been watching the tornado from inside the house. When Myrna came in, he realized that she had been outside, and he started to scold her. However, Myrna told her father that she had seen the tornado pick up a house and cause a boy to fly out. Her father’s face expressed ambivalence — sadness for the boy and his parents, yet gladness that it wasn’t his own family.

After the tornado ended, Myrna’s father decided to go over to the remains of the house that had been destroyed. He saw that the owners had returned home and were searching through the mess. He asked what was wrong, and the owners worriedly replied that they couldn’t find their little boy.

Myrna had been following her dad and piped up. She explained to the owners what she had seen. They asked in which direction the boy had gone, and Myrna pointed. The owners rushed off, and Myrna and her father went home.

They received word a couple of days later that the owners had found the child, and he was alive! He had been flung one and a half miles way from his house at two years old, but had landed in a tree and had survived. The owners were very grateful for Myrna’s help in finding him. This news caused Myrna to nearly cry with emotion, and she wasn’t sure why. She was happy that she had been able to impact someone’s life at such a young age.

Phoebe Wenger-Stickel; Missouri, USA

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