Dunkel Station, Illinois Tornado
May 26, 1917
Fifty years ago, May 26, 1917 a tornado hit
Dunkel Station. I,
Louella Duncan McDonald, had started
to Assumption to deliver the week’s supply of
butter and eggs to the grocery store for my
mother. I got as far as Dunkel Station, when a
storm brewing in the northwest grew suddenly
worse. I returned home, which was one-half mile
distant. Our farmhand,
John Bowers, put my team away. He
kept watching the clouds. Soon, a tornado was
spotted. My mother, two sisters, my brother, and
I sought shelter in the cellar.
John stood
on the porch and watched it pass north of our
house; it had done no damage except uprooting
ten apple trees in the orchard. The tornado
touched down at the home of
Gottlieb Berner
in Section 22 of Assumption Township — the
place where John
Maihoit now lives — and demolished
it. The family of ten were saved by getting into
a cave. After the storm, the coal stove was in
the yard —with freshly-baked bread that
Mrs. Berner
was baking, still intact. Dunkel Station was
damaged, and Dunkel School to the northeast was
completely destroyed. The tornado caused further
havoc as it moved on and killed approximately
ten people.
Illinois sesquicentennial edition of
Christian County history Jacksonville, Ill.,
1968, pages 127-128
ONE FAMILY HIT HARD
The family of John Berner which consists
of his wife and twelve children at Dunkel was probably the hardest his of any
tornado victims in this section. Their home was smashed flat.
Luckily the mother gathered her large family and took refuge in their cave.
At that one end of the cave was knocked in. The mother and infant have
been sheltered in the home of Joseph Carman
since the storm. The other children have been distributed about the
community with other families. A fund was raised by subscription here
Sunday evening.
The Daily Review, Decatur, IL 30 May 1917
DUNKEL -- Elevator badly damaged and school building wrecked.
F. W. MIELKE, Bloomington, fireman on
Illinois Central, struck by flying timbers near Dunkel. May die.
The Daily Review, Decatur, IL 27 May 1917
The one-room school
built on the northeast corner of the
Humphery
farm was one of the larger schools in the area,
having an attendance of 70 pupils in grades one
through eight.
In May 1917 a
tornado completely destroyed the building. It
was rebuilt and that building was destroyed by
fire in 1920.
Illinois sesquicentennial edition of
Christian County history Jacksonville, Ill.,
1968, page 128
 Search
for more information on the Dunkel Station Tornado
and other disasters in the Historic
Newspapers Collection. The number of
newspapers on line has recently doubled - search
over 1000 different newspapers. Use this
Free trial to search for your ancestors.
Search for ancestors in
Dunkel Station, IL among billions of names at ancestry.com. Use this
Free trial to search for your ancestors.
Past and present
of Christian County, Illinois Read it on line!
Use this
Free trial to search for your ancestors.
| 
