The Cyclone of 1929

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As a young child I spent many a weekend at my maternal grandparent's house in Nokesville, VA. The Ridgley's (Violet and Ira; aka Paw-paw and Maw-maw) lived in the house on the corner of VA-28 (Nokesville Rd.) and Fitzwater Dr., just across from a little section of old Rt. 28 aka Minute Ln. It still stands, but sadly is not maintained as it was back in their day.

We would spend hours on that front porch watching traffic and just plain old rocking and talking. If only I could go back in time for a weekend and do that over again. Life was so simple. No cell phones or WiFi, just the long-and-shorts of a party phone line and three channels of B&W TV. You were treated to the sounds of hymns playing from the Brethren Church steeple speakers, passing trains and the firehouse siren. And what little traffic there was back then almost everyone honked and waived and easily identified either as a local or someone just passing through. There was no strip center or 7-11 back then, just Baker's and Whetzel's stores. Otherwise you had to go to Manassas.

These folks survived the Great Depression and lived through the deprivations of the home front during WWII. Their experiences always seemed to make it into the discussions at some point. But the one story that always got my attention as a child was The Great Cyclone of 1929, especially since The Wizard of Oz was a yearly event on TV. Tornadoes were one of those things we saw going on out in the mid-west on the evening news, not in Virginia and surely not in our little town.

From the article by Eugene Scheel

Several years ago my sister found an article on this particular swarm of twisters by the great northern Virginia historical map maker Eugene Scheel. Found on this link, it is a fascinating account because it gives the exact starting point for this swarm as beginning at the foot of the Shenandoah near the present town of Woodville way over in Rappahannock County. I always thought these things began further south in the flat plains of Orange and Culpepper Counties. Was I ever wrong.

From Scheel:

"Four of the six tornados, spawned by one storm system, hit this area within five hours. Of the many people who recall the disasters, most said they remembered that the cyclones touched ground after hours of driving rains and ever-increasing winds. Each tornado cut a runway of devastation about two miles long and 600 to 900 feet wide. 'It just went up and down, hopping from place to place,' Arabelle Laws Arrington told me recently, as she described the tornado that killed her father and demolished her family's house and dairy farm in Weaversville in lower Fauquier County. It 'cut through the woods like they had put in a power line'............."

"........Woodville, the third-largest town in Rappahannock County, was hit first. The hands of a wall clock found in the debris of the community's four-room frame school were stopped at 3:10 p.m. Marshall Hawkins, 14, who had stayed in the building to talk to his teachers, was killed by the collapsing building. Fifteen houses, two or three stores and three churches were destroyed, but not Shiloh Baptist, the town's black church. By telephone and telegraph, news of the Woodville twister soon reached Catlett, a large village on the Southern Railway, 30 miles east of Woodville and 11/2 miles north of Weaversville. There were no area radio stations in 1929. 'It had rained all the day long, and when the weather was bad, my father came and got us' at the Catlett school, Arrington recalled. 'We usually walked the 11/2 miles to school. There was no school bus'."

Maw-maw was an Allen, and their family originated from the Mt. Jackson area of the Shenandoah Valley. Her father, Luther Allen ran a store in Weaversville, a small town in Fauquier, the next county over from Nokesville in Prince William. We always heard how her dad's store was destroyed in the storm. But I didn't know the details or that her brother Elwood helped out with the rescue effort.

More from Scheel:

"...........Colvin, [Benjamin Franklin Colvin] telling of the tornado in a May 8, 1929, letter to the Fauquier Democrat, cited Catlett men Wilson, Donald Gray, Fisher Crittenden, Hoyt Orndorff, Leslie Colvin and James Day as the main rescue crew, along with Elwood Allen and Thomas Whiting Cowne, Blanche Laws's father, who lived in Weaversville. The tornado, possibly the same one that had hit Woodville, destroyed four of Weaversville's seven houses, and Luther Allen's store, across Elk Run Road from the Laws's farm. 'I invested a lot of money in that store,' Arrington recalled, 'Every time I got a few pennies, I'd go over there and buy candy.' Surveying the damage the next day, Colvin noted the destruction of the homes of Allen and his brother Charles Allen. Arrington remembered another destroyed home, whose occupant, Thomas Jackson, was found unconscious in a nearby field the next day. The homes of Lamar Colvin, Belle Coates and Thomas Whiting Cowne were badly damaged, but were rebuilt and stand today.........."

Although the Allens were living near Catlett at the time, I'm not sure where Maw-maw was during this maelstrom. I seem to remember her saying she was working "down the road", perhaps Manassas or beyond.

For a description of the Nokesville devastation we can turn to Robert Beahm's book, Nokesville, The Way It Was (2001). The 1929 twister leads off his "Stories and Sidelights" chapter on page-77:

"Before the tornado descended on the Nokesville area it had, unknown to the local populace, killed four people and demolished completely several houses and barns in Weaversville, a settlement about two miles east of Catlett, VA. The first property in its path as it approached the Nokesville area was the home of Oceola Marsteller where it caused relatively light damage. Next was the Edmund Hooker farm house with its numerous outbuildings and tenant house. Most were severely damaged or destroyed. At the storm's outset, Olive Hooker dashed upstairs where her son, one year old Ernest was sleeping, and removed him from his cradle which was partially filled with brick and other debris. The child was unharmed but the house damage was extensive. No one else was injured. Edmund Hooker, husband and father, was in Manassas on business at the time."

From Beahm's book; click for larger image

Compared to Woodville and Weaversville, Nokesville looks to have been lucky with no loss of life. Barns and houses were damaged but soon repaired by the locals most of whom were farmers or tradesmen. With no 911 or FEMA to the rescue, only the rugged men and women of that era were available to clean up the mess and move on.

R. Dwayne Lunsford, PhD