May 31, 1985

Twenty-five years have past since that fateful day -- Friday, May 31, 1985. Some details are now vague.  I thought I'd never forget each little detail. I am sure for those who lived through that day, they still have vivid memories.

According to my calendar, Friday  had been a regular work day for me at the library. As was our routine, when my parents and I had nothing on in the evening, we were sitting in the family room of our 10th Street West home watching a television program. I don't remember what we were watching when the program was interrupted to say that there had been a devastating tornado in Barrie and in other parts of southern Ontario.

My mother became very anxious. Trying to be optimistic, I said that perhaps, my sister and her family might have been lucky to have escaped and we shouldn't panic until we knew more.

Then the phone rang. Who was calling? Would it be my sister?

It was a friend of my sister's calling to say that Nancy and the children were okay. (A was 8 1/2 and H was 6.) My brother-in-law had been at work when the tornado hit. Yes, Nancy and the children had been in the house at the time. Yes, the house was badly  damaged and unlivable, but the main thing was they were fine.

When we finally talked to my sister, we learned more about what happened. It was about quarter to 5 on Friday after a normal day at school.  A. was to be spending the weekend at cub camp and my sister had already packed the car with his stuff.  She didn't want to head out in the storm so they were just putting in time without power when the tornado hit.  The sky was an eerie colour and when the winds picked up she decided to shut the front door, but she couldn't close it; something told her to get the kids down to the basement, even though she had never heard of a tornado in Ontario.  She grabbed H; they had been sitting in front of the living room window.  They ran for the basement and she yelled for A. who was playing in the dining room to run too but he didn't make it as far as they did.  She described the sound like an airplane perhaps crashing close by.

There wasn't enough time to get to the basement. A. was still  on the main level of the split level and he ended up  under the dining room table saving him from being hit by a shelving unit. Nancy and H. were on the lower level. It was into that room a tree came through the window.  They too escaped being badly hurt.

It was over in a matter of seconds.  The roof was gone. The car had been lifted up. Furniture and appliances were shifted. The lawn furniture was swept away.

When their house was in the Toronto Star, we hardly recognized it.

They got back into their house in mid-September.

Here are photos taken when my parents and I visited them on Father's Day - June 16.

A view of the front of the house three weeks later.

The kitchen on the main level

A's bedroom on the top level.

 Information on the Barrie F4 tornado can be found on many different websites. It was only one of several tornadoes that hit Ontario and parts of the United States that day.

It is quite eerie to watch the videos. Today, the television station will have extras about it on the news and the Barrie newspaper will likely have more articles on it too.

The CBC archives has a video of one of the news reports on June 3, 1985
CKVR (Barrie station)  video report
Barrie Examiner May 27, 2010

Thanks to my sister for clarifying some of the points for me.

© 2010 Janet Iles

Spanish Flu Did it affect my ancestors?- Carnival of Genealogy

The theme for this Carnival of Genealogy is Disasters. How did it affect our ancestors?

I really do not know if any specific disaster directly affected any of my ancestors. No family stories have been passed down.

So I got to thinking. With all the recent talk about the H1N1 flu, it got me to thinking about the Spanish Flu of 1918.

The Great War was drawing near its end when the Spanish flu struck people around the world. Amid newspaper reports of injuries and deaths of local men in battles, appeared notices of casualties of a different kind -- those stricken with the Spanish Flu.

I turned to two local newspapers The Advertiser and The Sun to see what was being reported. It made for some interesting reading.

On October 10, the Acting Medical Officer of Health, Dr. A. B. Rutherford said that there were about 30 cases in town but none of them serious but one should not take chances with it.
"if you catch cold and feel any of the symptoms, such as fever and pain in the joints or limbs; got to bed at once, keep warm, and send for the doctor." [1] There were no plans to close the schools at that point.

On October 11, a headline read "Need help in caring for the 'flu' patients. All local nurses were already busy and an appeal was made to the women of the town to "give a helping hand". [2]

A week later, The Sun reported that while there were many Spanish flu victims, the local outbreak, according to the MOH, was not serious enough to require the schools to be closed. [3] Well, the schools ended up being closed as well as other institutions, such as churches and the library. [4] School teachers and others volunteered to look after the sick and to work in the diet kitchen. The diet kitchen prepared light nutritious meals for the sick who were unable to prepare food in their homes. In some families all were stricken. [5]

Churches re-opened on 10 November with schools opening the following day.
The epidemic wasn't over. It lasted until the spring of 1919 and returned again in the fall of 1919. World wide it is reported that more people were killed by the Spanish flu than during the War.

In 1918, my grandfather William Iles was still overseas; my dad was just a toddler; his five older siblings ranged in age from 5 to 14.

I have lots of questions. Did any of the Iles and related households get sick with the Spanish flu? I know that there were no deaths. Did any of my great aunts answer the call for volunteers to help out? I am sure my grandmother would have had her hands full just looking after her own children. But did she help others? The older children would be home from school when it was closed. Routines would be different when the churches were closed. Lots of questions but no answers.

[1] "Spanish 'flu' is Not Serious" Owen Sound The Advertiser, 10 October 1918, p. 1.
[2] "Need Help in Caring for the 'Flu' Patients" Owen Sound The Sun 11 October 1918, p. 1.
[3] "Will Not Close Public Schools" Owen Sound The Sun 18 October 1918 p. 1.
[4] "'Flu' Epidemic Still Raging" Owen Sound The Advertiser 21 October 1918 p. 1
[5] "Slight let-up in the 'Flu' Epidemic" Owen Sound The Advertiser 24 October 1918 p.1


© 2009 Janet Iles