52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Disaster!

Week 10: Disasters. Did you experience any natural disasters in your lifetime? Tell us about them. If not, then discuss these events that happened to parents, grandparents or others in your family.

I'm happy to say I've never had what I'd call  disaster happen to me or my family.  Living in Minnesota, we have always had interesting weather, and spent time in the basement waiting out tornadoes, but nothing ever came too close.  I do remember a time when I was young that a tornado did hit a mobile home park (why do they always target those?) but that was on the far side of town.

My paternal grandmother Alta May (Day) Dillman wrote and photographed about a tornado that went through their farm at Sheffield, Beadle County, South Dakota on 20 Aug 1934.

Dillman Cottage after Aug 1934 tornado.  Wreckage is from another structure.

Clyde W. Day's barn destroyed by tornado on 20 Aug 1934.

Fortunately, no one in either of the houses on the farm was hurt.  The barn was replaced the following year.