Samuel & Minerva(Jones)Burdge &Bertha,Wm.,Ann&Arthur*(-1893)

JONES, BURDGE

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 4/11/2011 at 21:45:56

From Story County Watchman July 14, 1893

Maxwell Tribune: Relatives in this county received sad intelligence that Sam'l Burdge, wife and four children were killed in the cyclone at Pomeroy last week. Mrs. Burdge was a sister of Mrs. Jones of this place and John Jones of Nevada.

In the same paper:

In Cherokee county where the death list from the cyclone reached ten, a sad case is that of the family of Samuel Burgh. He and his wife and three children were instantly killed, and another child, the last of the family, was fatally injured. The bodies of those who were killed were carried from sixty rods to half a mile from the house by wind and pounded into the ground. At another place a young lady was blown eighty rods from the house, her right leg was twisted off and it was found two miles away.

*SUBMITTER'S NOTE: The 1885 Cherokee County, Iowa census lists the Burdge family with four children. I am assuming these are the four killed. The "cyclone" is documented: On July 6, 1893, Pomeroy, Iowa as well as parts of Cherokee County, Iowa was struck by a tornado that was later estimated to be F5 on the Fujita scale. With a damage path 500 yards wide and 55 miles long, the tornado destroyed about 80% of the homes in Pomeroy. The tornado killed 71 people and injured 200.[1]

[1] Sprague, F.W. Story of a Storm. Chicago: Shepard, 1893.