found: a tornado

In February I posted a Monday Memory post about a tornado that hit my paternal grandparents house in Elbert County, Georgia. The story was from my Aunt June Partain and didn't include a date. I've been searching for more information about this tornado, but haven't had much luck.

Because of certain elements in the story, I was able to narrow the date down to 1943 - 1947. I was unable to find weather records of this period and without a specific date, it was very difficult to search newspapers.

Yesterday though, things fell together. I saw a tweet from geneabloggers about a website called GenDisasters. I searched their database for tornadoes in Georgia and this article caught my eye. The tornado discussed in the article was within the correct time frame and just a short distance away from the area I was looking at.

Now that I had a possible date, I went to newspaperarchive.com, where I have a subscription, and searched for "tornado" in April of 1944 in South Carolina (their GA newspaper collection is pathetic but luckily my ancestors lived on the border). Very quickly I found an article that correlated to the one from GenDisasters. But, was this the tornado I was looking for?

Yes, it was! The article listed the areas hit, which included Elberton, GA (!) and the people who were hospitalized in the aftermath. Included as 17 year old Augustus Seawright, who I assume is the 17 year-old Seawright boy from the story.

Success! Happy Dance ensues.

Here are the newspapers (click for larger image):

Monday Memories - The Tornado

No audio this week.  This story is from my Aunt June Partain and takes place in Elbert County, Georgia, sometime between 1943 and 1947.

"Mama and Daddy [Sarah (Britt) and Thomas Craft] had been to the movies and were on their way home. They saw the bad weather and thought it was a tornado. When we got home Daddy handed me to Mama and she got under the bed. Daddy had Charlotte and did not have time to get under anything. Mama said the next thing she remembered she was outside in the rain. She felt me and I was sticky and she thought it was blood and I was dead. Then I started crying. None of us were hurt.. The house had been lifted off it's foundation and was a total loss. They started walking (I do not know where they were going) Charlotte told me that Mama told her that she was barefoot and there was glass everywhere and she did not get cut (seems God was looking out for all of us). Mama told me they were walking past a house and this woman was screaming that her baby was dead. Mama was going to stop, but Daddy said they needed to keep going, there was nothing they could do. Also, a 17 year old boy who lived in that area was paralyzed from the waist down. His name was "Punk" Seawright. As an adult he had a jewelry shop in Hartwell. Mama and Daddy and Troy and I would take our watches to be cleaned by him. That was before battery operated watches."