A tornado’s fury, through the eyes of a child

This column follows up the recent two-part Yesteryears column on the tornado that struck Rye Cove Consolidated School on May 2, 1929, with the experiences of an eyewitness.

Staying in the classroom during lunch hour to play school made perfect sense to 6-year-old Irene Rhoten and three of her little girlfriends.

The skies that Thursday — May 2, 1929 — were overcast and threatening rain. The blustery weather made the first-grade classroom of Rye Cove Consolidated School more inviting than the playground outside the large two-story structure.

The youngsters were starting to prepare for real school to resume shortly before 1 p.m.

As it turned out, they never had a chance to return to their places.

Swirling papers

“All of a sudden papers started blowing off the teacher’s desk,” said Irene Rhoten Lawhorne, who has made her home in Nelson County since moving there with her late husband, George, in 1946.

“I started picking them up, and the more I picked up, the more would blow off. We then realized something dreadful was going on.

“The four of us ran over and huddled against the door.”

An instant later about 150 students, the school’s principal, A.S. Noblin, and eight teachers found themselves in the whirling vortex of a powerful tornado.

It proved to be the most deadly twister in Virginia history, killing one teacher and 12 students and injuring about 100 others.

An eyewitness to the tragedy described the school as appearing to explode when the tornado struck.

Mercifully, Mrs. Lawhorne doesn’t remember any of that.

Uncle Roy to the rescue

“I must have lost consciousness when the cyclone hit,” Mrs. Lawhorne said.

“The next thing I remember is my Uncle Roy calling my name and saying, ‘Don’t cry, Irene, I’m getting you out.’

“The door must have fallen very gently on me, because I just got cut by some shards of glass. I remember my fingers being stuck together by glass.”

Mrs. Lawhorne’s uncle and a swiftly gathering small army of rescuers used brute strength and two tractors to move debris off victims.

Others rushed about finding and helping children who had been tossed up to 100 yards away by the fierce winds.

One can only imagine the fear and horror Mrs. Lawhorne’s mother must have experienced as she ran toward the wreckage-strewn site.

Unlike many other parents, her heartfelt prayers for a miracle were answered.

“We lived near the school, and the next thing I knew I was in my mother’s arms,” Mrs. Lawhorne said. “I had worn a new, pink gingham dress to school that day.

“I remember saying, ‘Mommy, I got my dress dirty.’ I said that and all around me were these students either dead or dying.

“I was too young to realize the enormity of the situation. I really don’t know how any of us escaped, because the school was completely demolished.”

Mrs. Lawhorne was carried home by her thankful mother and treated there for her cuts and bruises.

Sadly, anguish soon shouldered its way into the joy-filled dwelling as well.

After Roy Carter pulled his niece out of the ruins, he went in search of his 14-year-old brother, James. This time he found only a lifeless body.

“They brought my little uncle home in the car,” Mrs. Lawhorne said.

“My grandmother was just running around the house screaming.

“His sister, who is still alive, was badly hurt and had a lot of internal injuries. The leg of one of the little girls I was with was only hanging by a bloody skin flap.

“They took her to a store next to the school, where they had made a makeshift operating table out of the counter.

“A doctor from nearby Clinchport cut away the flap, and because everything was so rushed he left the leg behind the counter.

“The next day they retrieved the leg, and gave it a proper burial.”

Mrs. Lawhorne said the tornado was so powerful that items as large as school desks were found on a place called High Knob miles away.

One of the most amazing stories was told by her cousin, Charlie Morrison, who was killed in World War II.

“Charlie landed way out in a field somewhere, but wasn’t injured very much,” Mrs. Lawhorne recalled.

“He swore he went over the top of a little building next to the school riding the school bell, and I believe it.

“After the cyclone, the Red Cross came in and stayed for a long time. They worked out of a little house, which was dedicated a few years ago as the Red Cross Building.

“Those nurses were so good, and all us young girls said when we grew up we were going to be nurses just like them.”

Those lofty aspirations faded without being realized.

But for Mrs. Lawhorne and others who experienced that terrible day in Virginia history, the memories of it remain vivid to this day.

“After the cyclone, every time a big storm would come up, even if it was in the middle of the night, my mother would get us up out of bed and we would go to my uncle’s place next door,” Mrs. Lawhorne said.

“A lot of people built these dugouts underground, and you could go in those things and feel safe. Even to this day, when I hear the ominous sound of thunder, it brings it all back.”