The 1936 Gainesville Tornado
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- čas přidán 28. 06. 2022
- Released from our Members-Only 2021 season:
Historian Glen Kyle presents a program on the super tornado that swept through Gainesville, Georgia on April, 6th 1936. This remains the fifth deadliest tornado in United States history. During this program, you'll learn about the devastation of the tornado, the community's response, and the rebuilding of Gainesville.
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My great grandmother Rosa Dorsey (originally Rosa Campbell) survived this tornado and told me so many stories from it. The man on the mattress, the glass shop owner that slowly died in his shop as his child watched, the little boy who was impaled by a 2 by 4. there were so many more I can no longer remember. She also told me in detail about the horrors of people being pulled out of the pants factory and the burns bring so so bad
I'm reasonably certain that my aunt, Eliza Taliaferro Holmes Feldmann (1905-1990), is seated in the chair at the far right in "The Spirit of '36" photo (at about 20:23 in the video). She graduated from Brenau College in 1929 (Bachelor of Music in piano/organ), then began teaching on the music faculty (piano) in the early 1930's where she remained until she had a stroke in 1988. She and Dr. Henry Gerhard Feldmann, a chiropractor (whose office was in an old house on Spring Street) were married in 1937, a year after the tornado. She was organist for many years at Grace Episcopal Church where she was also a member (and where I was baptized). The tornado destroyed the small wooden frame church (I remember her saying that the church custodian passed when the church structure fell on him) and after that she played a very small Kilgen pipe organ that was installed in the next church building until the early 1970's when it was replaced by a Schantz pipe organ designed by Dr. Richard Giltner who taught organ at Brenau. Around the time of the tornado or shortly thereafter she lived at 335 North Pryor Street (they later moved around 1955 to 514 Washington Street across from the main Brenau campus where she lived when this picture was taken -- that house is now the Brenau bookstore at 510 Washington Street, SE). They mentioned the tornado a few times in my presence but didn't dwell on it as it was clearly a painful subject. Their remains are buried in the Alta Vista Cemetery adjacent the Holmes marker. Gainesville was an amazing town to have survived two world wars, the great depression, and the tornado of 1936. I spent many happy hours there while growing up and studying piano with Aunt Eliza. My mother (Sarah Holmes Guerrant) also graduated from Brenau in 1932 (Bachelor of Oratory).
Wow! Thank you so much for sharing this with us! If you would be interested in sharing more of your family's history and experiences in Gainesville, we would be interested in interviewing you for our oral history project. If you would like to participate, please email Libba Beaucham at libba@negahc.org.
@@NortheastGeorgiaHistoryCenter I could be, though I live in Laurel, Maryland and won't likely be coming south in the near future . . .
Thanks for this history. Unless we share it, it becomes lost over time. "When a person dies, a library burns."
They took my story off because I am Black
I grew up in Gainesville/Hall County,
my parent. Grandparents, great grand parent's, and great great great grand parent's. I am Black, so you can't fool me
I live off of Green Street in Gainesville GA
The music from around 7:15 sounds like Hurt by Nine Inch Nails
Idk how old Johnny cash is but I think he has a song called hurt too.