82-Uncaster Farming, Saturday, January 11,1986
Farmers rebuild in tornado's wake
Bruekherts count themselves among the luefy
. BY MARGIE FUSCO
Staff Correspondents
WATSONTOWN - When the
May 31 tornadoes took their bam
and part of their house, it was the
second disaster to befall the
Bruckharts in less than a year.
Glenn was working hours away
in Lancaster than night. Ruth was
home with sons Lamar, then 13,
Loren, 11, and Linwood, 6.
Daughter Lisa, 16, was out with
friends.
Ruth recalls the lightning as she
put her younger sons to bed up
stairs in the hundred-year-old
farmhouse. The flashes were
everywhere, like a fireworks
display. Then came the rain, and
with it the winds.
One gust blew the front door
open. Ruth and Lamar struggled in
vain to close it, and as the hail
pelted in, Ruth realized it was no
ordinary storm. She ran upstairs
and brought the boys from bed to
the front foyer.
Seconds later they saw the an
cient trees in the front yard lifting
up. One crashed through the front
gable, driving through two layers
of brick as if it were paper. Ruth
remembers seeing bricks and a
beam fall into her daughter’s
bedroom at the head of the stairs.
The wind sheared through the roof
opening and the rear gable wall
collapsed as well, leaving only the
steeply pitched roof.
“Someone said there was one
gust that lasted about 45 seconds,
then maybe 15 seconds of silence,
and another gust,” Ruth says. “I
don’t remember that. All 1
remember is that it seemed to go
on for hours.”
When the winds died at last, the
boys ran to a window. “Hol-ee,”
Lamar exclaimed, “The barn’s
gone.” There was nothing left of
the hundred-year-old structure but
the silo.
A neighbor was there in a few
minutes to make sure they were all
Neighbors rush to help
The Bruckharts, the Foresmans, and 160 other families in the
upper Susquehanna Valley would like to say thanks.
Only a few hours after tornadoes struck the corner where
Lycoming, Union and Northumberland Counties meet at the
Susquehanna’s West Branch, help was on the way.
Aladean Weaver of Watsontown was one of many local people
who hurried to help. The morning after the disaster, June 1, 1985,
she was working in the temporary kitchen set up in a firehouse by
the American Red Cross.
“We were waiting for food donations from local restaurants,
when all of a sudden cars began pulling up,” she recalls. Women
got out of the cars and came into the firehouse, each one carrying
something.
In those early hours there were gifts of food brought by the Amish
and Mennonite women of nearby Mifflinburg, including 25 pounds
of home-churned butter, gallons of strawberries and corn, enough
to provide meals for the workers and for families in need during the
disaster.
In subsequent days, groups began to pour into the area. Not only
did they contribute to the meals the Red Cross prepared and served
during the clean-up. They also came to work. Groups came from
Lancaster and Lebanon and even as far away as Ohio. And they
kept coming until the work has done in November.
Many came through the Mennonite Disaster Relieve Service and
worked in cooperation with the Northumberland County Farmers
Association. They brought hay, moved grain, and found shelter and
feed for livestock for the approximately 80 farm families hit by the
disaster. They also brought their skill to clear land and rebuild
houses, barns and other buildings for anyone who'd lost property or
sustained damage.
I Ray Zimmerman of the Eastern District Mennonite Disaster
Service, who coordinated the effort, notes that many of them took
time off from their jobs without pay or used their vacation tune or
left their farms in someone else’s hands to come help strangers As
he resumed his own contracting business in November. Zim
merman admitted that ne naan t Kept specitic records on the
number of workers who came.
“I just know there were always enough people to do what was
needed,” he says. Red Cross records show that more than 8,000
meals were served to the work crews from June 1 until mid-August,
when the majority of the work was done.
“There’s no way wef could know them all,” says Bob Foresman
Jr. “There were so tnany people' especially during the first weeks
But we’re grateful to every one of them. ’ ’
right. Ruth didn’t realize the
amount of damage to her home
until morning, but she knew im
mediately they weren’t alone. “We
could hear sirens and see lights,”
she says. “We knew we weren’t the
only ones hit.”
Downed trees blocked the road
and power lines made the going
dangerous. By the time the
neighbor persuaded Ruth to bring
the boys to his house, they could
hear a borough work crew trying to
clear the debris from the highway.
Ruth remembers hearing their
radios crackle messages,” Send
help...We have a girl missing. ..We
need more help.” That’s when she
knew she was among the lucky
ones.
Some days earlier, she hadn’t
felt so lucky. She and Glenn had
moved north from Lancaster
County eight years ago to find good
farming land. They located 110
acres with a fine old barn and
house. But they also found high
interest rates, high costs, and the
squeeze between low market
prices and uncooperative weather.
On July 13,1984 they were forced
to disperse their dairy herd in a
sale. “That was a black day for
us,” Ruth says. “We’re still trying
to recover from it.”
Glenn went to work in Lancaster
because there were few jobs to be
had locally. Ruth eventually found
a job, just two months before the
tornadoes hit, at a local college.
Ruth was touched that the
college paid her for the two weeks
she took off work after the tor
nadoes. They also took up a
collection at work and presented
the money to her. She was touched
as well by the support that came
from members of her church and
from others in the community.
The morning after the disaster,
Ruth returned to her home around
6:30. Not long afterward, about 75
members of her Mennonite church
appeared on the property, eager to
help her cleanup.
They worked all that day and the
next, Sunday, despite their
religious commitment to rest on
the Sabbath. “I guess they were
doing what had to be done,” Ruth
recalls. By Sunday evening they
had the house enclosed again.
The barn had to wait longer. It
was added to a list kept by the
Disaster Service, with working
farms getting priority. Finally on
Labor Day weekend, the
Bruckharts’ bam was raised. Ruth
recalls that for a while, the vacant
space was a painful reminder of
the farm they’d lost twice.
Now the bam is up. Glenn has a
new job in Williamsport, a few
miles away, and he’s holding tight
to the hope that the stately family
wilHte able to go back to fanning
one day.
With the house nearly completed
and the bam up, die disaster
sometimes seems distant. But
Ruth notes that the stately trees
are gone from the front yard, and
now the wind whips around the
house as never before.
During a recent morning of high
winds, Ruth was in the house
alone. The wind blew in the plastic
that covered the sashless second
floor windows.
Ruth found herself in terror,
reliving that night. Near hysteria,
she called the housing contractor.
Fomtnans start the year with new hope
BY MARGIE FUSCO
Staff Correspondent
WATSONTOWN - Bob
Foresman, Jr., made a New
Year’s resolution: No more bad
luck in 1986.
He has reasons to be hopeful
now. His herd is up to 120 cows and
heifers. He has a new house, a new
bam, a new garage and two new
storage buildings.
But a collapsed com crib in front
of the bam and twisted siding and
heaps of splintered wood out back
are solemn reminders that things
were not as bright seven months
ago, when tornadoes destroyed the
family home, barn, and out
buildings.
The Foresmans, with plenty of
help from visiting work crews,
have rebuilt. Their “new” farm is
located on a knoll about two-tenths
mile east of the original far
mhouse. The knoll, which con
tained several buildings, was
stripped by the tornadoes, but the
Foresmans preferred to build on
the higher ground since the
original buildings were in the path
of river flooding.
Looking west now, they can see
the remains of the old farmhouse
and the barn. Eventually the
Foresmans plan to clear the area
and install a shed and bunker
feeder for heifers.
Bob froresman, Sr., and his wife,
Eleanor, have moved into a house
in nearby Dewart, a move they’d
considered in the past but felt
hastened to make after the
disaster. Bob Jr., and his wife
occupy the new house on the farm
property.
“We’re still very lucky,”
Eleanor points out. They lost 30
head of cattle to the tornadoes, but
of their pregnant cows fewer than
half-dozen lost their calves. Their
milk production levels have
remained surprisingly even
despite the disaster and sub
sequent moves and feed changes.
Their problems since the tornado
have been mostly small, Eleanor
says. The most bothersome ones
have been with insurance com
panies. “Most folks don’t think to
take a lot of pictures or make notes
in the first few days after a
disaster,” she says.
The Bruckharts pose on their front porch. Rear from left,
are Lisa, 16, Ruth, and Lamar, 14. In front is Linwood.
who came immediately and put Today a brace of oak saplings
plywood over the window spaces. have been set into holes in the front
“You think you’re over it until yard. They look puny against the
something like that happens,” she single old tree that stands in the
says. “Then you realize it’s going eastern comer. Time, Ruth knows,
to take a while.” is needed for the wounds to heal.
Bob Foresman, Sr. pauses tor a moment in the heifer area
of the new barn.
When one insurance company
refused to believe the damage had
been severe, she presented the
adjustor with a copy of a “Lan
caster Farming” article on their
farm. “The next day he was ready
to settle up,” she reports.
After the difficulties with the
insurance companies, Bob Sr., is
wistful about returning to the days
when people depended on each
wmestead
t#o(es
other instead of insurance. “I
admire the Amish and how they
stick together to help each other
out,” he says. “The rest of us
should take a lesson from them.”
That admiration has been
heightened by what he’s seen in the
past seven months. Although the
Foresmans didn’t get to know
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