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This post is brought to you by Pumpthedodge. I thank you for popping into my twitter stream just as I was scrolling for ideas to write about.
The image above reminded me of something I came across months ago when I was trying to find out more about my fathers parents. They died when he was still quite young leaving him to be cared for by one of his brothers.
His mother Sebyna (one of many spellings if you know anything about genealogy) met my grandfather Frank in McDowell County West Virginia (the red section). They got married in 1914 before moving to Kanawha County (the blue section). What year that might have been I am not entirely sure of.
I came across a site for historical newspaper of the time and discovered there was a really bad flood In july of 1916. To be precise, on the 15th and 16th of that month. The newspapers archives of the LOC are dated August. I was trying to figure out why it would take so long to get something from reported to printed, even though they had communication. The reason being was that it took time to edit, typeset, and finally print.
Kanawha County is on the west side of the mountains and so when the storm hit it rained for two days causing devastation in the form of flooding which lead to landslides. Lots of people lost their lives and many more were left homeless after their homes were washed away.
There was a man, David Weintraub, who made a documentary about this tragedy. West Virginia was just part of the area hit. Parts of North Carolina were also hit but got way more rain.
In any case I found all the articles I came across to be quite interesting in showing what life was like back then. If you enjoyed reading this I look forward to engaging with you in the comments. If you are coming from outside of hive and you enjoyed my content, please consider supporting me.