Museum Opens New Exhibit “Surviving Disasters”
Throughout history fires, tornadoes, and floods have wreaked havoc for the people who live in their paths. They have to find ways to endure. The museum is officially opening its newest exhibit segment, titled “Surviving Disasters,” with a roundtable program on Sunday, June 12 at 2 p.m. It will center on Batesville’s April 1973 storm. Many readers can vividly remember that day when a tornado whirled from the sky, ripping the roof off Central Elementary School and throwing students out of adjacent temporary buildings.
Joyce Richey, a sixth grade science teacher at the time, recalled, “I had just sent two boys down the hall to get water for a project. When I stepped into the hall I stooped to pick up a flower dropped from a student’s homemade Easter hat and suddenly noticed the double doors leading outside were buckling in and out by the force of the wind. I dashed into my classroom and told the students to get down and hold their heads. That was what we had practiced in case of a tornado. Within seconds the tornado rolled the roof back and debris was everywhere. The sky was green.”
Richey, and Charlotte Rose, a teacher who was teaching fourth grade in one of the portable buildings, will share their recollections during the museum program at Old Independence Regional Museum. They will be joined by Fred and Linda Wann who also survived that same tornado when it pummeled Arkansas College (now Lyon College). Mike West will participate as moderator.
“Perhaps some of those students in 1973, now grown, will tell us how it was for them.” West invited. “We want as many as possible to come share memories of their own experiences during tornados, or destructive fires, or floods.”
The museum’s exhibit features panels of photographs and text to tell the stories of several tornados: Guion in 1929 (said to be the only official F5 scale in Arkansas); Judsonia and Bald Knob in March 1952 in which 62 died; Vilonia in 2011 and again in 2014.
Visitors to the museum are encouraged to see how tornados form by creating one in a bottle, and pick up a brochure of facts about them. On average, Arkansas has 33 tornados annually, according to the Arkansas Weather Blog.
“In our exhibit we also illustrate and tell about disastrous fires that enveloped and destroyed many towns,” stated Twyla Gill Wright, exhibit curator. “In 1920 a fire started on Vine Street and devoured 40 houses, leaving 300 people homeless in Batesville. Yet, they survived and lived to rebuild. Then in 1926 a fire left 1,500 people in Newport homeless. Calico Rock was damaged several times and in 1923 twenty businesses were destroyed.”
Wright continued, “Fortunately, well-developed fire departments, the latest of equipment, and better knowledge of fire prevention have cut down on some of these widespread fires. Yet, when disasters do come our way, whether storms or fires or floods, we can hope and gather strength from people in the past who survived and continued on to build their future.”
The program will be free and open to the public. Normal museum hours are: Tuesday-Saturday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and from 1:30 to 4 p.m. on Sundays. Admission is $3.00 for adults, $2.00 for seniors and $1.00 for children. The museum is located at 380 South 9th street, between Boswell and Vine Streets in Batesville.
Old Independence is a regional museum serving a 12-county area: Baxter, Cleburne, Fulton, Independence, Izard, Jackson, Marion, Poinsett, Sharp, Stone, White, and Woodruff. Parts of these present-day counties comprised the original Independence County in 1820’s Arkansas territory.
