Recently I was looking for a book (or books) to take along when we went north in Minnesota to visit family. I wanted the October Books & Beyond to be about Lyon County. We are celebrating this county’s 150th year anniversary! I do have some titles Paula at the Marshall Lyon County Library gave me.

This time I headed for the Lyon County Museum. Paul was there, and he looked through some titles and handed to me “Out of the Blue,” saying he had read it and did recommend it to me. So my book bag for traveling north included the book about the F5 Tornado that hit Tracy on June 13, 1968, written by Scott Thoma, c 2012.

Howard and I had moved to Lyon County in the summer of 1970, just two years after the tornado. To help us get settled in our Minnesota life, we often drove to explore the smaller towns nearby, like Minneota, Vesta, and Tracy. Each town had something memorable, and these trips helped us feel like Lyon County was our home.

We were both teaching at Southwest Minnesota State College (now the name is Southwest Minnesota State University). On my workload in the 1970s was supervising student teachers in some of the towns nearby, including Tracy. Someday I would like to visit the Tracy Elementary School. Am I remembering correctly that each classroom was open on one side, with the school library in the center?

One of the many things I learned about tornadoes in “Out of the Blue”: the best place to be in the basement is not the southwest area, but rather the north side of the basement or the north side of the first floor. In 1887, the first book about tornadoes was by John Park Finley, and he did write about safety in the southwest part of the basement. But a professor at the University of Kansas, Joseph Eagleman, did a study of the 1966 Topeka tornado and the Lubbock, TX, tornado in 1970. He found that “the southwest portion of the houses were unsafe” (p. 153).

A memorable theme in the book is expressed in this sentence: The townspeople “helped one another as if they were a family” (p. 145). This sentence means a lot to me today, because that’s what we sense during the COVID 19 Pandemic.

One of the important townspeople was Bernie Holm, who was Tracy’s fire marshal, fire chief, and civil defense director. (In 1960 he was mayor.) He and his wife owned the Tracy Greenhouse on Highway 14.

Bernie got a phone call reporting that the rain and hail Tracy was now getting was often a sign of an approaching tornado.

The National Weather Service said the tornado was officially spotted at 6:48 p.m. The twister came through the Greenwood area of Tracy. Bernie and his wife and daughter were safe. Their house in Greenwood had moderate damage, but the greenhouse was destroyed.

Bernie gives necessary first aid to many injured people before they are taken to the hospital. There was no fire in Tracy, but firemen came from many area towns to help. “Now, a three-block area had been flattened” (p. 95). Twenty-six railroad cars were blown over.

People were coming up from their basements, seeing all the damage and wanting to help in any way they could. One hundred National Guardsmen, the American Red Cross, and many city workers and volunteers began to help with whatever needed to be done. Bernie worked all night, and the next day at 6 a.m. he went home to sleep.

Now we begin to read more about tornado patients at Tracy Hospital. Linda and her sister Pam, her friend Susan, and little girl Nancy are present in much of “Out of the Blue.” The reader can see pictures of them in the photograph section in the middle of the book, along with pictures of places. These people are still present in my thoughts.

Please read the book “Out of the Blue” when you need to come close to courageous individuals who find a way to live through tragedy, to help others, and to continue to live the life they’ve been given in a positive way.

I hadn’t been to Tracy for a while, so recently I drove south to visit the museum –Wheels Across the Prairie. You will see on the museum website that Jon Wendorff is the president of the organization, and he is the person who generously opened the buildings I could enter. He hopes the museum can return next spring to a weekly schedule of open times one can visit. On a big table at the front of the main building were several copies of Lyon County Images.

First I walked through this building and saw a photo of Bernie Holm, b. April 12, 1928. He served in the U.S. Navy in the 1940s. After spending time in many of the museum buildings, I went to the Tracy Tornado Memorial at the corner of 5th Street and Highway 14. There is a small parking space, so you can get out of your car and walk to the memorial area. A statue has the names of the nine people who perished in the 1968 tornado. The first name is Nancy Vlahos, and immediately I thought of “Out of the Blue,” and what I remembered about the life and death of this 2-year-old little girl. Nancy, you will never be forgotten.

For more books about Lyon County, contact your Lyon County Libraries: Marshall-Lyon County Library (537-7003), Tracy Public Library (629-5548), and Minneota Public Library (872-5473). Many Lyon County towns also have historical museums — check those out, too!