Before its wrath was spent, it had traveled 219 miles, the longest uninterrupted track on record. My father had just opened a new automobile dealership in the southern Illinois town of Murphysboro. A former mining and farming community of twelve thousand people, Murphysboro had become a bustling manufacturing and railroad center. As the blackness approached, bells had just signaled the end of recess, summoning children back into their classrooms. Striking with demonic fury from the southwest, the monster storm smashed its way through the city, killing 234 people and injuring 623, while laying waste 152 blocks and destroying twelve hundred buildings.
Water mains burst, electric wires fell, and fires raged out of control.
Tall brick school buildings collapsed on students gathered in the hallways. Some children crawled from under the debris and in shock wandered home to find no house and, in some cases, no neighborhood. Searching through old newspapers, I found a remarkable letter published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch four days after the storm. It was written by May Williams, a religious mission worker from the St. Louis area, who was in Murphysboro assisting at a revival meeting held by the Reverend and Mrs. Parrott. Mrs. Parrott opened the service singing More About Jesus.