The body of a girl about four was dropped into the arms of a pedestrian, Charles Allen, at Forty-fifth and Center Streets. Efforts to identify the child failed.
In a field half a mile from their home were found the bodies of Mrs. Mary Rathkey and her two grown sons, Frank and James. All three were dead but no bruises were found. The wind had cut their clothing completely away.
Mrs. F. Bryant, ninety-two, lived with her son, Dr. D. C. Bryant, at 3006 Sherman Avenue. She was in bed on the third floor of the house when the tornado struck. The three floors beneath her were shifted out and her bed fell to the basement. Except for the shock she was uninjured. Dr. Bryant and his wife were dropped to the basement from the ground floor. They, too, miraculously escaped injury.
VIVID TALES OF THE STORM
Perhaps the most vivid single description of the tornado's havoc was given by John Porter:
"I stood on the rear porch of my home when the great cloud of the storm began its race across the city," he said. "Before it rushed the traditional 'ball of fire,' which was in reality a yellow cloud, spherical in shape.
"My wife was visiting at the moment in the home of her father. I saw the house caught in the vortex of the cloud. It rose straight up into the air, its walls shattered and broken, but holding partially together. I am sure that I could not have moved an eyelash, if my life had depended upon the exertion.
"From the risen house I saw a myriad of black specks falling to the earth. Then I watched that home soar upward. It hurtled five blocks through the murky twilight, sustained at a height of one hundred and fifty feet.
"The Sacred Heart Convent was the target at which it was hurled. It struck the fifth story. The convent was demolished. The home of my father-in-law became splinters.
"Then I recovered my senses partially, and ran to the site of the structure. God himself must have directed that storm, for my wife, her father and her mother had been dropped behind, only bruised."