Tornado Pictures

These pictures are from the home farm in Viroqua after being hit by a tornado. I’m [JPN] not sure of the date but it may have been 1921 since that is the date on the church picture [Kate Scott found an article indicating the tornado may have been in 1913]. I had heard stories that when the storm hit Knute Domincusson Nelson, (Dominicus’ younger son who remained on the farm) refused to leave the house. The story is that as he sat in the living room smoking his pipe the stove in the middle of the room was sucked up through the roof. Arlene and I visited the site in the 1970’s and when talking to the farmer who now owned the property it seemed the story is true. A new house was built next to the log house and around 1950 the log house was sold to a party who wanted to move it to Indiana. When they were dismantling the building they found the hole in the roof where the stove had apparently been sucked up. I don’t have any identification for the people in the pictures but assume they were family members living there. I believe the picture of the church is the church that was at the South Kickapoo cemetery where the Nelsons are buried. See the cemetery pictures.