Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 7

Hypnotized Picnickers See Tornado Start on ay Gathering Belongings After Storm MICH HfL Anoka Armory Building Becomes a Mass of Wreckage MUM, SWOOP i Group at Crooked Lake Too Fascinated by Spectacle to Feel Fear. 1 THE MINNEAPOLIS TRIiU'NE: MONDAY 7Af S' Z'AVY-- tfM -y. "We were too fascinated to be frightened we were jut hyno- i tv -y lllll II.HIiiHiW I HAMl'MN The storm had passed, hut results of its furr Totiln gathered together Home of his belongings as he examined the wreckage of his home. The house was completely demolished and turned into a pile of timber. The kitchen store can be seen in the foreground, lying where it was tossed aside by the tornado.

1 I 10 Dead, Scores Injured In Anoka Area Tornado 'r of the armory was flattened. Only one small part of the brick structure was left upright. AMONG TORNADO DEAD National Guardsmen to Reach Storm Area 1 i. ..,1 era Mrs. James Bradley.

r- hjW hmW mmi lm The tornado broucht death to a Minneapolis woman, her two daughters and her snn-in-law as it swept toward Anoka. Mrs. Anna Freeman, 7fi; Miss Ellen Freeman, and Mr. and Mrs. James Bradley, all of 3011 West River road, were in their automobile when the twister caught them a mile east of Corcoran.

Their car was thrown several hundred yards and torn to shreds. Mr. and Mrs. Bradley and Miss Freeman were tossed into a field and killed outright. Mrs.

Freeman died two hours later at Northwestern hospital. il'ti l- 4 -if- i'Jyl I u-w ji tized." Thaf the way Mss Margaret Dittes, 449 Jefferson street north east, described formation of the twister over Anoka, as seen from Crooked Lake. At Crooked Lake for an Arion society picnic. Miss Dittes, a brother Arnold, their mother, Mrs. Au gusta Dittes, and a sister and brother-in-law, Mr.

and Mrs. Wil lis Bigbee, 4158 Pleasant avenue. first noted a blue baze in the air over the ill-fated community. "We talked about how funny It looked," she said, "and we just looked and looked. Then somebody yelled 'funnel'l We looked out across the lake and saw the fun nel forming.

We went right down to the shore and stood watching. We saw at first it was sort of square, then it took on funnel shape. It grew very wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, like an inverted cone. Then the bot torn widened. And then we saw things going up and down inside the funnel as it was moving.

We could see them, but we couldn't tell what they were: "We just didn't think of fear. We were fascinated. I guess may be we were just hypnotized by it because we just stood there and looked and looked. "Then we realized how danger ous it might be, but by that time we also realized it was going away from us instead of coming toward us." A short time later, she said, a smaller twister developed, but it was going the other way. Highlights of Storm (Continued From Page 1) bed.

"Deadhead" logs that had long been on the river bottom could be seen until the waters rushed together again. Many routes into Anoka were blocked by the storm, and deputy sheriffs and constables at outlying communities were kept busy directing traffic to avoid blockades. A. A. Meyer, of 522 Taylor street, Anoka, didn't know where to turn when the tornado struck.

He said he tucked a 7-year-old daughter under one arm, and with the other grabbed a clothesline pole. "I wasn't hurt" said Meyer, "and neither was my daughter, but the wind lifted my feet two feet into the air." Fire department units from Min neapolis, St Paul, Excelsior, Osseo, Forest Lake and Anoka aided in rescue work at Anoka until the arrival of national guardsmen. A squad of policemen under Inspec tor Frank Bleed and Captain Will iam Forby of the Minneapolis police department helped to patrol Anoka and prevent looting of wrecked houses. F.d Hammer, 608 Sixth street north, Anoka, and his 4-year-old son Lowell escaped serious injury when Mr. Hammer placed his son under him in a large hole to the rear of his residence.

Part of a garage fell on Mr. Hammer, but suffered only a back scratch. The farm of Jack Kutzra just outside of Anoka was demolished as the tornado swept toward the town. The house was lifted from its foundation and scattered several hundred feet away into a pile of broken timbers. Dead horses, cattle and pigs were strewn about the area.

Kutzra and some friends who were visiting him rushed into the cellar. Richard Karstad, another visitor, sought refuge in an auto mobile. The car was smashed against a tree and Karstad was in jured. The area of the Kutzra farm was one of the most seriously damaged sections. The principal meeting of the tenth district American Legion's session originally was planned for the armory.

Then at the invitation of A. W. Paulson, Anoka city commissioner and a member of the legion, the meeting was transferred to the city hall. The room in the armory where the meeting would have been held was demolished. The storm struck the George Sanderson residence, 539 Tyler street Anoka, while the Sanderson family was being visited by Mrs.

H. Kuhlman, 1770 Emerson ave nue south. Part of the house's roof was ripped off and all windows were broken. Other houses in the neighborhood suffered similar damage. The tornado picked up Kathryn RusselL 19, of 1D16 Jackson street northeast, Minneapolis, in Anoka Sunday and carried her half a block.

Among the freakish twists of the tornado was the fact that a family on one side of the street on Seventh ANOKA First group of national guardsmen on the scene was this unit of the 151st field artillery, under Immediate orders of Captain Joe F. Schoffman. 3 were seen everywhere. Milton i "4. Ellen Freeman.

The Injured (Continued From Page 1) Harold Campbell, 13, Anoka, electric shock. Arleen Olson. 13, Anoka, In-ternal Injuries. Critical. Matt Olson, 9, Anoka, lacerations.

Leo Olson, 12, Anoka, scalp injury. Irma Syring, 12. Anoka, Internal injuries. Critical. Richard Karstedt 21, Champlin, fractured right let.

Eitel hospital. Ed Hammer, Anoka, bark injury. The Rev. William Ilarmann, 61. Anoka, leg injury.

St. Barnabas hospital. Mrs. George A. McCauley, 67, Anoka, back injury.

Eitcl hospital. Mary Trainor, 61, Anoka, dislocated shoulder, slight pelvio fracture. University hospital. Ray Peterson, 20, Anoka, scalp laceration. University hospital.

Mrs. Myrtle Nodland, 37, route 4, Anoka, bruises. University hospital. Ronald Lee Nodland, 5, lacerations. University hospital.

Alice Nodland, 7, Rib fractures, lung puncture. University hospital. Dale Huston. 21, Anoka, bruises and lacerations. Ilattie Lane, 50, Anoka, compound fractures both legs.

University hospital. Stanley Soderlind, 31, Champlin, scalp lacerations. University hospital. Mrs. R.

B. Heinemann, Anoka, critical. Mrs. Tom Dorr, about 40, Corcoran, bruises and shock. Ray Barnes, about 40, Corcoran, leg and scalp injuries.

Kathryn Russell, 1916 Johnson street northeast, bruised knee. Mrs. H. G. Groat, 74, Anoka.

Mrs. Ed Morrissette, Anoka. Ed McCoy, 64, Anoka, head Injuries. N. J.

Cawvin, 67, Gilbert, Minn. Anoka hospital. Mrs. N. J.

Cawvin, 62, Gilbert. Anoka hospital. SUMMERSET MAN HURT. Duluth, June 18. (JP Miles Ri- vard, 30, of Summerset, Wis, suf fered serious injuries when his au tomobile overturned a mile south of Patterson state park on highway 53, early Sunday.

4 i sliver had to be removed from the fleshy part of Karstedt'l right ear. Karstedt was seett sitting in a chair at the hospital and a doctor asked him what he was doing there. "Oh, a chair came along and I thought I'd sit down and have a smoke," Karstedt said. Amateur Radio Operators Busy Amateur radio operators of neapolis and St. Paul made a valiant effort Sunday night to establish quick contact with Anoka, where regular communication systems were down.

They sent emergency equipment to a school hous in Anoka, where they set up a sending station. Two gasoline-powered generators were among the equipment. Adolphus Emerson, 5338 Elliot avenue, one of the amateurs, explained that the radio operators were handicapped by one of the worst conditions of static in their experience. A. E.

Swanberg, 1487 Breda street St Paul, headed a party of radio amateurs who planned to stay up all night to restore communication. Scores of Minnesota residents, rn their way home from outings in Wisconsin, were stalled by flood and drenching rain. On highway No. 12 between Hammond and Roberts, a quarter of a mile of highway was under water. Baldwin, suffered some damage from a heavy rain and windstorm which hit that community about 5:30 p.

m. Sunday. Electric service was put out of commission. Many trees between Baldwin and Roberts were felled. Golfers could see the Anoka tor.

nado from the Armour golf course, near Sunset Memorial park. The tornado produced, alor.f with tragedy and ruin, bits cf humor. Mrs. Maude McCall was visiting at a neighbor's home out of the path of the twister. Claude O'Dell, her brother, was at home alone.

When he heard the approaching storm, he ducked into the basement just as the house was sheered clear of its foundation. "I didn't mind, though," said O'Dell, "We were going to tear the hou't down and rebuild anyway," ANOKA Virtually all avenue in Anoka went to the basement at the storm's approach and their house was not touched, while just across the street another family remained on the second floor and were knocked into the basement Mr. and Mrs. Tony Manley were napping on the second floor above a grocery store when the storm struck. The side of the building was blown out, and they fell and slid to the basement but were not harmed.

Across the street Mr. and Mrs. H. A. Smith went to the basement immediately.

Fifteen minutes later they returned upstairs and found their house had not been touched. Light was needed in the storm area as the work of rescue was started, and the Standard Oil Co. sent a load of candles to Anoka to be used in th damaged areas. Hundreds of curious jammed highways leading to Anoka as soon as word of the storm reached Minneapolis. The traffic was so thick that police closed off Lyndale avenue north at Fifty-third avenue, the city limits.

Only emergency vehicles were allowed through. The 250 dinners that had been arranged in the Masonic temple for legionnaires were eaten by victims of the storm, left homeless by the disaster. After the tornado had passed, several musicians from the bands which were to be in the American Legion parade gathered in Anoka's central business district and played several tunes, in an effort to restore at least a semblance of order. Volunteers of America, Minneapolis unit were among the fast to set up aid headquarters at Anoka. In charge were Major Lillian Gould and Ma-.

jor J. P. Sutter. Seventy-two-year-old Frank Sadoski, of 601 Taylor street, Anoka, and his wife, 70, had a narrow escape. Mr.

Sadoski was standing in the doorway between the kitchen and a front room. His wife was in the kitchen. The storm tore down every part of the house ex- idviwt I. mill 111 inn 1 nm iMtitU First (Continued From rage 1) Anoka. Other guardsmen were sent from Camp Ripley, where a number guard units are in camp.

To expedite relief work, the military ordered a 10 p. m. curfew. Enforcement was difficult as scores cf persons sought for friends and relatives, and tried to recover what they could of their scattered belongings. Members of the American Legion of the tenth district, in convention in Anoka when the storm atruck, immediately Joined in the rescue and rehabilitation work.

They volunteered to stay on the Job all night Doctors, Nurses Respond. Calls went out for doctors and nurses, and were responded to speedily. Army and navy medical reserves were mobilized, and between 40 or 50 from Minneapolis went to Anoka. A score of purses also volunteered and went to help. Aiding the national guard and Legion members in policing Anoka Sunday night were 25 members of the state highway patrol, under the direction of Elden Rowe, patrol chief, and policemen from Minneapolis and St.

Paul. Inspector Frank Bleed of Minneapolis took 15 patrolmen to Anoka. The Minneapolis fire department also sent 12 men to operate the portable light plants. Highways leading Into Anoka were blocked by storm debris, and clogged with motorists. When the 'national guardsmen and highway patrol took charge, only ambulances and other vehicles on official business were permitted to enter the Anoka storm area.

Tath of Destruction. The path of destruction started between Hamcl and Corcoran, about 12 miles northwest of Min neapolis, and swung in a curve through Maple Grove and Champ-lin in Hennepin county, and across the Mississippi river into the town cf Anoka and Anoka county. It was about a mile east of Corcoran four persons were killed in the Bradley automobile. Four farms along highway 101, a short distance from the spot where the car was caught by the twister, were struck by the storm. Four adults and three children found refuge in the basement on the Mike Schommer farm, one of the group of four, when they saw the tornado coming.

In rooms on xne nrst nuur wae onium- mer, 73, Mrs. Schommer, 68, their son and daughter-in-law. Mr. and Mrs. Albert Schommer.

The younger couple's three children, Joan, 4, Audrey, 3, and Clarence, 8 months old, were asleep on the second floor. Carries Children to Basement. Albert carried the children into the basement a moment before the itorm hit the house. The house remained standing, but all win dnws were smashed, walls were cracked and furniture was churn ed about. The barn, silo and out buildings on the farmyard were shattered and strewn across the fields.

At the Tom Dorr farm, 8bout 200 yards away, Mrs. Dorr, about 40, was upstairs when the storm hit. All windows were blown out and the house was shoved half off its foundation. Mrs. Dorr was blown down the steps, and was bruised and scratch ed.

Two young women in the house, Bemiee Pounder and Ardice Norman, escaped injury. Thrown Into Garden. Mrs. Dorr's brother, Roy Barnes, about 40, was caught by the storm In the farm yard. He was carried in the air 100 feet or more, and thrown into the garden.

He had a ecalp wound and leg injury. On two other farms a short distance away, those of Frank Guers and Fritz Cortes, barns and outbuildings were wrecked, but the fcouses escaped major damage. A half mile farther east all buildings on the Clarence Shankey farm were wiped off the ground, ripped to bits and scattered along the storm's path. The Shankey family was in the basement when the house exploded above their heads. Farther along the twister wreck ed buildings on the George Gram- bart, Henry Elsen and Frank War- shek farms.

No one was hurt. In the village of Maple Grove the town hall was smashed and its boards strewn about. Also in the village the home of Jesse Moore-house was wiped from the ground. and the home of Al Moorehouse, father of Jesse, was knocked off its foundation. Both Moorehouse fam ilies were away at the edge of town.

The Bob Johnson family, a quar ter mile from Maple Grove village, saw the twister coming and escaped in the family automobile. Minor damage was done on the farm yard. Roads rmpassatile. Clouds of branches and other storm debris roaring past the windows warned F. H.

Grambart, 1 farmer at the edge of Maple Grove, of the storm's approach. He and Mrs. Grambart ran for the basement. The house was jolted but not seriously damaged. A poultry brooder house in the farmyard vanished.

Before it crossed the river into Anoka, the center the storm cut a swath just at the south edge of the village cf Champlin. Several witnesses said it was as though a scythe had swept across the country. Roads around Maple Grove were cluttered with chunks torn from buildings and tree trunks and branches, and were impassable. There was some damage in Champlin itself, but the worst force of the storm missed the village. The injured list includes two from Champlin.

After curving through Anoka, the twister, or another that formed at almost the same time, hit Cedar, a village of about 80 inhabitants, seven miles north of Anoka. The creamery, school house and three houses in Cedar were demolished. Minneapolis Is Hit By Heavy Rains Minneapolis, though escaping the twister which wrecked part of Anoka, was visited by a heavy rain and hail storm late Sunday. Skies were so heavily overcast that daylight was all but obliterated. Then the rain drenched the city.

cepting the kitrhen. Mr. Sadoski suffered only a bruised elbow, his wife a head laceration. So rapidly were the injured pouring into Anoka hospital that as many as 50 at one time were being treated. City Manager C.

R. Johnson estimated at least 100 to 150 persons were treated at the hospital. One of the busiest places in Anoka Sunday night was the hospital of Dr. F. E.

Mork but a week ago it was all but empty. And that brought out a strange circumstance. For with only one patient, a paralytic, in the hospital a week ago, Dr. Mork had a queer presentiment friends related. 'Now is the time to make surgical dressings," he told the nurses.

"Something is going to happen." So the nurses, under direction of Mrs. Delores Jackson, turned their attention to making dressings. And Sunday they came in handy, as the injured, four of them critical, were brought to the hospital. CORCORAN As neighbors huddled about the wrecked home of Tom Dorr near Corcoran shortly after the storm, they sought to trace the path of the twister across fields and through woods. The trail was quite plainly blazed by shattered tree trunks.

Then on the brow of a hill half a mile away, things had an unfamiliar look. It wasn't until a few minutes later they guessed what was wrong with the picture. The farm house of Clarence Shankey had been wiped off the landscape. Survivors of the twister which swept across from Corcoran to Maple Grove got another scare when a second storm this one of drenching rain and wind-hit the area more than an hour later. Skies got inky black, clouds mo-ed up fast, and then came the rain which fell in tor- rents.

Several cars were stalled at Maple Grove beside the razed home of Jesse Moorehouse. There, in the midst of the ruins, they had to stay until the storm passed. James C. Finnegan, Hennepin county deputy sheriff, was on an outing Sunday when he learned the storm had hit near Corcoran. He got out there in time to find a heavy traffic job on his hands.

Word that three persons had been blown to death in their automobile had begun to spread over the countryside, and spectators began to gather. The deputy sheriff, in a driving rain, went on impromptu traffic duty and kept the cars moving. The automobile in which three persons were killed on the Bass Lake road near Corcoran was shot off into space like some missile. It was twisted and torn, and its doors ripped off before it fell more than 100 yards from the roadway. When examined, it presented one of the most freakish exhibits of the storm, for blades of grass were driven into the tire casings, as if planted there.

CHAMPLIN Police and Hennepin county deputies were sent to Champlin to aid in rescue work and to help in the storm emergency. A number of Minneapolis and St. Paul firemen also volunteered their services. As word of the storm spread. switchboards at newspapers, radio stations, the police department and other agencies were swamped with calls.

Hundreds of persons wanted to know the identity of dead and injured. The storm struck while hundreds of motorists were on afternoon trips, and worried relatives wanted to know of their whereabouts. Richard Karstedt 21, of Champlin, was one of the first of the injured to be brought to Minneapolis hospitals. He appeared at Eitel hospital with a leg fracture. Before doctors could treat his leg, a 12-inch.