I think this string of notes refers to the tornado of 27 Mar 1890 and the Tri-State tornado of 18 Mar 1925. Here are some notes from the Jackson County Illinois Trails web site regarding the impact of the 1890 tornado on the family of my g-g-grand uncle, Thomas Jefferson Cross: THE AVA ADVERTISTER EXTRA THE WIND'S WASTE JACKSON COUNTY VISITED BY A DEADLY CYCLONE... Friday, March 28, 1890 A cyclone passed over the northern part of this county on yesterday evening about 4 o'clock, crossing Bradley township traversing in a north-east direction. The first house in the tornado's track was on the farm of WM. C. DEAN sourth-west of Shiloh Hill, known as JACK BURK farm; THEODORE GILLESPIE has the place rented. Mr. GILLISPIE and his little son CALVIN were in the barn at work when the strom struck it they were blown ouside but fortunately escaped without injury. The barn was completely demolished, killing one horse and two mules belonging to MR. DEAN. At the house were MRS. GILLISPIE and the three younger children, the house suffered the same fate as the barn, but here too, the inmates were fortunate enough to come out of the wreck unhurt, with the exception of the hired girl, who had her collar bone broken. The storm traversing a north-east course, next struck the farm of Mr. T. J. CROSS. MR. CROSS saw the funnel like cloud approaching in time to get his family together and get them into the cellar before the force of the tornado struck them. MR. CROSS had a fine large barn demolished and his residence was almost completely torn away; the kitchen was blown down and one side and one end of the house torn out, every vestige of furniture was blown out of the sitting room and the room made as bare as an empty dry goods box. MR. CROSS' loss will amount to several thousand dollars, but he considers himself fortunate in that none of his family were hurt. TWS note: Thomas J. Cross replaced his tornado-demolished farm home with a home that he ordered from a Sears catalogue. This home is still standing. The Tri-State Tornado of 1925 was the most powerful tornado recorded in US history. As the name implies, it swept across three states - Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. Much of Gorham and Murphysboro, IL was swept away. The Jackson County Historical Society in Murphysboro has some amazing photographs of what remained of Murphysboro after the tornado. Many Jackson County residents lost their lives in this storm. Tom Shawcross ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2003 8:04 PM Subject: Re: [ILJACKSON] Goodbread Cemetery > These were the only Larisons in the book for cemeteries in Grand Tower > Township. I do not have the other cemetery books for Jackson County. > > I do know that a large tornado hit Murphysboro and killed many people. I > went through the Jackson Co Illinois death records and saw many, many people who > died because of it. I do not recall exactly when it was, but maybe someone > who lives in the area will know. > > Alice > > > ==== ILJACKSO Mailing List ==== > HAVE YOU INVESTIGATED THE LIST ARCHIVES YET??http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl?list=ILJACKSO-L > http://archiver.rootsweb.com/ILJACKSO-L/ > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 > >

Several of my husbands ancestors were killed during the Tri State Tornado. Go to Google.com and type that in, or click below http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=tri+state+tornado You will get some fabulous web sites and some unbelievable stories. If you read on it for a bit, you will hit the basement when the wind picks up the next storm that comes around :o) I think there is also a PBS show about it. Linda in MO - my business was hit by a tornado in 1998, shut us down for 3 days because it moved/broke the gas lines, it was just a small one but did the wierdest damage...