Bertha Freeman Simpson:
She was a marvelous combination of strength, courage, kindness, sensitivity, and intelligence. At the same time, she was reserved and rather shy.
One of the keenest and most traumatic memories of my childhood was the tornado. On April 4, 1928 (two days after Mayme and I had reached our sixth birthday), a devastating tornado stuck, destroying our home and causing the later death of Katie Pearl, our 17-year-old sister. The house we lived in (all 12 of us) was a temporary structure which Daddy had built to be used later as a chicken house. He had purchased 40 acres of land and moved the family to Arkansas from Texas in 1920. His plan was to build a permanent home on the place, but for those 7 or 8 years until this was accomplished, the family lived in the 4-room "chicken house." There were three partitions one right after the other, creating four rooms all in a row.On this particular afternoon (April 4), all members of the family were home except Irene who was married and living in Oklahoma, Byron who was on his way home from school that day (he stopped at a neighbor's home to get out of the storm), and Victor and Daddy who were building a house in Tontitown. About 5:00 p.m., ominous looking clouds began to move in rapidly. Although there may have been some, I don't recall thunder and lightning. I do remember greenish dark clouds, vicious wind and a heavy downpour of rain once the storm had moved on. On this fateful evening, Lois, who was teaching school at Salem then, had gotten home and was sitting at a table grading papers or preparing lesson plans for the next day. She had lit a kerosene lamp to work by but extinguished it when the winds began to blow. Mayme had developed an earache earlier in the afternoon, and Mama was holding her trying to ease her pain. We were all gathered at the foot of a bed in one of the rooms, except for Katie Pearl who had gone into an adjoining room, the kitchen, to check on the evening meal which was cooking on the wood stove. As the winds blew stronger it was necessary for Upton and Lois to hold the doors shut. I recall seeing through a window, barrels, etc., flying through the air - then next waking up lying on the bed and seeing sparks from the embers in a wood-burning heater which was also in that room. Mayme lay beside me. Mama and Genevieve were lying across the iron bedstead and one wall of the house was atop us all. I think we all lost consciousness for a few minutes. Lois and Newton had been blown clear of the structure into an apple orchard several yards away. Upton was freed somehow and able to lift the wall off Mama and Genevieve's backs. Miraculously, they suffered only minor injuries. Mama had some problem with her side, probably broken ribs, and Genevieve apparently bit the enameled bedstead with her mouth. There were bits of enamel embedded in her lips and other areas of her mouth. Her teeth were also damaged. Katie Pearl was pinned beneath the hot cook stove. All of her clothes were burned off and she suffered severe burns over most of her body. When they finally freed her, Mama sent Upton to Claypool's, our nearest neighbor, to telephone for an ambulance. In her intensively pain-crazed state, Katie Pearl ran after him and collapsed when she reached their house. The rain fell in torrents, which may have been a blessing. The ambulance transported her to the City Hospital in Fayetteville, where she remained for six months. The doctors repeatedly took skin from Mama's thighs and tried to graft it onto her body, but all those efforts failed and so she was brought home to the new spacious 4-bedroom home our Daddy had built during those months. She spent a few weeks at home, then died on November 14, 1928.
Excerpt from 'A Tribute to my Mother, Bertha Freeman Simpson', Mable Brown, April 1989
