Clif Hinds Rogene Scoville <rogene@charter.net> wrote:From: "Rogene Scoville" To: "Clif Hinds" Subject: Hinds Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 17:29:17 -0600 Recalls Berlin Storm of 50 Years Ago Anniversary of Tornado Is Still Vivid In Memory of Witness to disaster July 3, 1907 A woman who was in the midst of it 50 years ago, Mrs. Sarah Jane Hinds, 840 18th Street, recalls today the tornado that laid waste a two mile wide stretch between Berlin and Rush Lake. �A 2 by 4 driven through an oak tree trunk as if it grew there� and �cows and machinery flying through the air� were comments made by Mrs. Hinds, who saw the storm from the basement of the Lark Betry home where she was employed as a girl of 18. A postcard bearing a picture of the wreckage of the brand new $3,500 Ed Jordan home (located south of Highway 116 on the line between Winnebago and Green Lake Counties) came to light this week at the Hinds home. The postcard had been mailed by the former Miss Sarah Jane Blackburn, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Blackburn of Rush Lake to her boyfriend, Charles Hinds- then �billing� in Milladore, Wisconsin, for a vaudeville show. In recalling the event on the afternoon of July 3, 1907, Mrs. Hinds said she remembered having a butcher knife in her hand when a terrific lightning bolt �froze the knife in my hand.� Stopping to shut a wide-open window, she saw wire, trees, machinery, dirt and animals being blown into the maelstrom of the approaching tornado. With the rest of the Lark Betry family she got to the cellar and crouched there while the Betry house �lifted up and set down� several times. Mrs. Hinds stated that the storm hit first in the ravine south of the Berlin creamery and traveled in a more or less direct path to Rush Lake � destroying many farm homes along the way. �That�s why all the nice big barns in that area are less than 50 years old she explained. Because she was married that same year to Charles Hinds, Mrs. Hinds is certain of always remembering the year of the big tornado near her girlhood home. July 3, 1957 Oshkosh Northwestern __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com