A Saturday storm—-destruction & helping hands BY DICK ANGLESTEIN SCHOENECK - Wet, curled and discolored, it lay in a cornfield along Spook Lane in northern Lancaster County. Quite small among the waist-high plants, it could easily have been missed. But the much larger pieces of f ORAL CALF FEEDER SAVE THAT DE HYDRATING & SCOURING CALF WITH THIS COMBINATION! Whitomyer Vytrate ZIMMERMAN’S ANIMAL HEALTH SUPPLY 3 mi W of Ephrata, Along Wood Corner Rd RD #4 Box 140 Lititz, PA 17543 717-733-4466 A piece of tin roofing lies in the middle of a cornfield hundreds of yards from where it was torn from a barn. In background is another building damaged on Melvin Nolt farm. debris scattered throughout the field seemed to call at tention to it. It’s a letter dated March 15, 1940 from the Mc- Corauck-Deermg Store in Ephrata addressed to Mr. Ezra Martin. The text of the letter extols the virtues of mechanical milkers and explains how sixty 10-hour days can be saved a year by switching from hand milking 10 cows tc the modem mechanical process. The back of the letter was used by Martin as an in formal ledger to keep track of his chick expenses on March 21, 1940. Among the items are $40.00 for 300 chicks, 85 cents for coal oil and 90 cents for cobs. By itself, this four-decade old letter amidst a muddy, ram-soaked cornfield seems quite inconsequential. But surrounded by pieces of bam roof, farmhome spouting and even scraps of wallpaper, it represents a i important aftermath of the fast, vicious storm that swept across northern Lancaster County last Saturday causing damages m the millions. The letter came from either the barn or farmhouse owned by Ezra Martin and occupied by the family of his son, Gerald. Both were severely damaged, stripped of their roofs, much the way an opener peels off the top of a can. Within walking distance, the storm also unleashed similar fury against the neighboring farm of Melvin H. Nolt. A barn was destroyed, along with 36 steers that died in an ensuing fire, as well as additional damages to the 1764 house and other buildings. In all, about a score of major buildings were destroyed or severely damaged m the section of Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July 5,1980—A15 Iso the center of a large baking and cooking operation. A mountain of food was brought to the farm as hundreds of volunteers from the Nolt and Martin cleanup ef forts were fed. Hackman, Indiantown, Durlach and Pleasant View Roads. The storm apparently entered the normal peaceful, pastoral countryside m the area of Agway along Rt. 322 and cut a wide swath of destruction in a nor theasterly direction. Two farms owned by Reuben Weaver, R 1 Ephrata, m the area of the Pennfield plant along Schoeneck Road received heavy damages. On one farm, a 160-foot tobacco shed, one of the largest m the county, was (Turn to Page Al 6)
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers