IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE - CHAPTER 3

  My grandparents lived at 1300 McKennie Avenue in East Nashville. Granddaddy, mama, Aunt Arda, Didi and her two children Roy and Alton also lived there. Aunt Arda was granddaddy's invalid sister who besides being old, was suffering from a severe case of rheumatoid arthritis. We pronounced her name as Aunt Oddy. Now there were four more people living there. Daddy, mother, Mark and myself. Didi was primarily responsible for watching us when mother wasn't there and mama took care of us until Didi got off of work. The house was built probably in the late 1800's or early 1900's and had twelve foot ceilings. Mother, daddy, and Mark were sleeping in the living room. Didi, Roy and Alton were in the front bedroom. Granddaddy and mama slept in a bed in the corner of the dining room and I had a twin bed in the opposite corner. Aunt Arda slept in the only other bedroom on the side of the house that fronted 12th Street.

 Our life was chaotic during this phase of our life. Mother would wake us up very early so we could get ready for school. Mother, Mark, and myself would hop into our white 1962 Ford Falcon station wagon and she would drive all the way across town to Charlotte Park elementary school in west Nashville where Mark attended 1st grade. I waited in the car while mother walked Mark to class and then she would drop me off at Hillwood jr. High School. That afternoon she would pick us up after school and then drive us back to McKennie Avenue in East Nashville. From there she would return to the store and stay until closing. This was hard on all of us but I enjoyed the fact that I actually got to spend some time with my mother on the long drive to and from school. 

 Sometime in December 1962 she decided that this routine was just too hard. She enrolled us at Bailey on Greenwood Avenue. The school was just a few blocks away from my grandparents house. Bailey was an old school that had grades one through nine. The school was nearly destroyed by the East Nashville tornado of 1933. The tornado was one of those events that the older people would tell me about when I was growing up. Much like the Blizzard of 51, the East Nashville Fire of 1916. and the Nashville train wreck of 1918. Just at the bottom of our back porch was a storm cellar as we always called it. It was useless to us in the event of a tornado because the previous owner, for reasons I will never understand, filled it in with dirt. I would love to have one today as sturdy as this one was. The entrance was covered by two wooden doors set at an angle. After digging out the dirt we found brick steps that led down into a brick lined room that was probably 10 ft x 12 ft. We dug it out because we wanted a clubhouse and decided that the storm cellar would make a good one. The four of us, along with the neighborhood kids did the work. We placed a table and chairs down there and it made a great clubhouse. It never occurred to me why we had a tornado shelter until I learned years later that many people in East Nashville had built them as a result of the deadly East Nashville Tornado of March 14, 1933. The tornado followed about the same path as the East Nashville tornado of April 1998 and more recently the March 3, 2020 tornado. The 2020 tornado was even more deadly than the 1933 tornado, however. Both the 1933 and 2020 tornadoes occurred at night which led to a higher fatality rate.

Far fewer people lived in East Nashville in 1933 but eleven people died in that storm. Twenty-five died in the 2020 storm as opposed to two in 1998. There was no advanced warning in 1933 like there was in 1998 and 2020. March,14, 1933 was a mild day in Nashville. A warm moist air mass covered most of the southeast. A powerful cold front lay to the northwest. On March 13th the high was 73 degrees. By the morning of the 14th it was 61 degrees. Although it was cloudy the temperature rose to 80 by 3:00 pm. The cold front was fast moving and dumped 0.81 inches of rain in a short time. The tornado touched down near 51st Ave. and Charlotte in West Nashville. The storm was weak in intensity until it hit downtown but it blew out windows in the Capital building and intensified as it hit the north side of the square. It crossed the Cumberland River above the Woodland St. Bridge and widened from about 400 feet feet to 800 feet. For three miles it tore through homes, churches, schools, and stores. There were 1400 homes destroyed, 16 churches, 36 stores, five factories, four schools, one library and a lodge hall. Eleven deaths occurred along with 2,000,000 million in property damage. The storm weakened as it went through Donelson but strengthened as it hit Lebanon. It traveled a distance of 45 miles.

 

  The socioeconomic level of the kids at Bailey was a little lower than I had been used to at Hillwood but I was much happier there. I began to develop long lasting friendships and I even worked up the courage to dress out for gym class. Going to the same school as Mark and my cousins Roy and Alton was helpful to my adjustment there. I was still very unhappy with the status of our family and living with the uncertainty of it all. Daddy was working some during this time. As I stated earlier Donna married James Larry Sircy on November 26,1962. We called him Larry. Mother and daddy were not happy about their marriage. They eloped to Sparta Tennessee. Larry was twenty and Donna was sixteen. After they were married Larry asked the Justice of the Peace if he owed him anything. The man said "just pay me what you think she is worth". Larry walked away without paying him anything. Since we weren't living at home mother told Donna they could stay at our house on Henry Ford Drive. Mother and daddy liked Larry at first but Larry was a charlatan. It wasn't long before they realized this and by the time Donna married Larry their eyes were opened to him.