Survivor tells story of 1925 Tri-State Tornado

Waking up after being knocked out by flying debris, Ellen Van Way (Sears) Nottingham didn't know where she was.
Nottingham is one out of a handful survivors who lived through the nation's most devastating tornado, the 1925 Tri-State Tornado, and she told her story to more than 40 people who attended a presentation hosted by the Posey County Historical Society on Saturday.
Nottingham, who's 98, gave a crystal-clear recount of what happened March 18, 1925 — a day that devastated a thriving Posey County town.
She was interviewed in front of the audience by her grandson, Timothy Gist.
On March 17, 1925, Nottingham remembered a lightning storm at night. The family dog, Buster, stayed close to the family because he didn't like storms.
The next day, Nottingham remembers it being a cool spring day. Her mother allowed the children to wear capes to school.
Nottingham and her sisters, Helen, 9 and Evelyn, 8, and brother Harry, 15, boarded the bus with 30 other children for a normal day at Griffin School.
The two older Van Way brothers, Aubrey, 21, and Liburn, 20, were not in the area when the tornado struck. Aubrey was living in St. Petersburg, Fla. Liburn left that day to find a job in Evansville.
At 3:45 p.m., the children were let out of school and the high winds began. The bus driver got the children home through the high winds, just before the deadly tornado to traveled through the area.
Nottingham recalled getting off the bus and getting into the back of the house, trying to avoid flying debris.
Their mother, Martha Van Way, had driven to town to mail some shoes to her brother who lived in Illinois.
While in town, their mother stopped at Bill Fisher's Grocery Store when she noticed the storm brewing, heading straight for Griffin from the southeast.
When she got to the store, Nottingham remembered her mother seeing Bill and his nephew, Winford, 18, looking out the back window.
As she approached them to see what they were looking at, the storm hit.
Their father, Kell Van Way, was in the smoke house on the family's property. He noticed the animals become restless and put the horses in their stable. Kell then saw the children get off the bus and tried to make it to the family's house.
However, he had to stop and lay down while holding on to a fence post until the storm moved through.
Ellen remembers Harry standing at the kitchen window looking out at the storm.
“Boy, that's some cloud,” she remembers hearing him say. Those were the last words Harry spoke before running out the side kitchen door. He was immediately struck by flying debris, which killed him instantly, Nottingham recalled.
Kell, their father, found Helen outside with a laceration to her abdomen, and Harry, who was fatally injured.
Evelyn suffered severe lacerations to her leg and Ellen was disoriented but had cuts and scratches.
When she stood up, Ellen said she remembers not knowing where she was. Then, she saw some of the school children gathered outside after the storm had passed. Two of the children on the bus perished.
Meanwhile, after the storm had passed, the children's mother arose in a pile of rubble, what used to be the grocery store. Bill Fisher had survived, but his young nephew didn't.
Her feet were caught under fallen debris and the only way she could get free was to take her feet out of the shoes.
Martha walked the more than three miles home.
“It's a miracle how she ever got through town,” Ellen said during the presentation.
She walked the three miles to the family's home, “not knowing what she'd find when she got there,” Ellen said.
Helen, who had suffered a gash to her abdomen, lived until 3 a.m. the next morning. She died at a hospital in Illinois.
Ellen said trains were taking the injured to the hospital in Evansville and Illinois.
The family, robbed of everything, was helped by the Brooks family, who clothed them and gave them a place to stay. Two of the Van Way children died that day. Ellen and her younger sister Evelyn lived on.
“I can't imagine how sad and how horrible it must have been to lose everything besides two children,” Ellen said.
Another tornado survivor, Cathryn Carr, a Mount Vernon resident, was also at the presentation. Though she was 3 at the time the storm hit, Cathryn said her mother held on to the four children on the floor of their home until the storm passed.
Her brother, Virgil Horton, was in the same grocery store as Nottingham's mother. Virgil was killed in the tornado.
More than 695 people died in the tornado, which traveled  a 219 mile track. According to the National Weather Service, the 1925 Tri-State Tornado is the world's longest recorded and the world's deadliest.
Griffin was said to have been 100 percent destroyed. The tornado, during it's 3.5 hours, injured nearly 3,000 people and destroyed 15,000 homes. A written account of Ellen's survival of the Tri-State Tornado is now on hand at Alexandrian Public Library, and is also a part of the Posey County Historical Society.

Sara Manifold

Above, Ellen Van Way Nottingham, left, is interviewed by her grandson, Timothy Gist, right about the 1925 tornado that hit Griffin. Nottingham was one of few survivors in the town.

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