Show ci ADVENTURERS' ADVENTURERS CLUB J HEADLINES E A D L I N E S FRO FROM M THE L LIVES I V E 5 OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF Tragedy Closes IllBy Ill By FLOYD GIBBONS GIBBON'S Famous Headline Hunter ELLO EVERYBODY HELLO l You know they say troubles never come singly and andI I know doggone well weIl that is true in at least one case Its It's the case of Amy Castaldi of Chicago When fate began piling piling piling pil pil- ing up grief on Amys Amy's shoulders she piled it up high It was a Friday morning the second day of July 1933 when things began to go wrong Amys Amy's year old son out playing with some other kids burned the pupil o of his right eye eje He was in constant pain and for tor two days and nights after that Amy never left his beside until a far tar worse calamity forced her to And right on the thc heels of that accident came the news that an uncle had died in Louisville Ky Amy couldn't go to the funeral Not with her boy in constant agony So on Saturday night her husband went without her leaving her to take care of her son and her two young joung daughters Fierce Gale Struck Her House t Night had come on Amy had put her two little girls to bed and they had gone to sleep She was back at her sons son's bedside weary and worn for another long nights night's vigil The Thc hours rolled on The wind had begun to rise At 2 o'clock in the morning it was blowing a young gale The house was completely exposed to that wind on three sides On the other it was protected by a factory but the gale wasn't blowing from that direction The wind rose steadily It whistled and howled in the telephone telephone tele tele- phone wires outside The whistle rose to a shriek and still it kept on rising Then suddenly the lights went out in the street A burst of or hailstones rattled against the house And at almost the same time a window crashed In the front of or the dwelling The house w was s shaking shaking shaking-shaking shaking violently It was about all Amys Amy's frazzled nerves could stand She let out a scream The scream woke i a I 1 l l Amy grabbed her children and ran for the back door nip alp her two little girls and they came running from their beds The little boy was already awake He poor kid hadn't slept for two nights Fled With Her Three Children Another window broke with a clatter glass falling to the floor The kids huddled around Amy clutching at her dress One by one the windows win dows crashed there was a louder crash crash crash-a a shriek of rending wood and wood and anda a huge piece of sheet metal came TEARING RIGHT THROUGH THE SIDE OF THE HOUSE The fhe wind had stopped howling now Instead it tore by with a loud steady hissing roar The house was deluged with willi water that came through the broken windows Now rocks and pieces of lumber came hurtling in and Amy could hear more flying debris battering against the thc side ide of the house with a force that was all but tearing it to pieces I was about to faint with fright Amy says I grabbed my children and ran for the back door I took hold of the knob and tried to open it It wouldn't budge The Thc movement mo of the house under the force of the storm had bad warped It t tightly shut My ly children were screaming and and theIr cries gave me strength I tugged at the door with renewed vigor and finally opened it But when the door opened Amy paused and looked out on a scene that looked almost as uninviting as did the inside of her home Before her was nothing but the blackest of darkness and the terrible hissing roar of the wind Thunder boomed and a streak of lightning rent the sky sly As the flash illuminated the heavens she could see that the air airas was as lull full of flying debris More rocks and pieces of sheet metal metal boards boards bricks and everything imaginable Just Escaped a Live Wire Vireo Says she My 1 head was reeling I almost fainted tainted again A piece of sheet metal landed near us barely missing our heads as it fell from above For a n minute I wondered il ii the world were coming to an end and I began to pray Then with what little strength I had left I gathered my children close and made for the gate of our back yard The Thc wind tore at her almost sweeping her off oft her feet ClingIng Clinging Clinging Cling Cling- ing to all three of her children she led them across the yard When she came to where the gate should have been she found it gone and gone and the thc rest of the fence along with it Across the street was the factory the factory the nearest solid building building and and she headed for that We HWe walked and stumbled stumbled fell fell and picked ourselves up again she says I HI thought that trip would never come to an end but finally we reached the factory We learned later that we had walked over a live wire that had been blown down and we can only thank God that none non of 01 ofus ofus us liS stepped on n it But once we were inside the building the night watchman watch man came to our rescue When Amy went back to her house the next morning she found every window broken The furniture was water water soaked soaked and broken by flying debris and the whole doggone placed looked well like well like a cyclone had struck it wh which ch was the truth But I didn't care about that says Amy for my children were safe The next day the papers carried stories about the freak tornado and told about the damage it did But no newspaper will ever be able to describe the he way I felt during those awful moments while it was occurring Service |