A flood of memories « CETconnect.org

A flood of memories

December 15, 2006 at 8:41 am | In 1937 Flood, CETconnect.org, On the Air, Uncategorized |

The Ohio River’s Flood of 1937 was before my time, but I have heard stories. I’ll bet you have, too.

I hail from Western Kentucky, and though my hometown of Murray suffered from creek and tributary flooding, it wasn’t directly affected by the Ohio River’s floodwaters - but our neighbor Paducah certainly was. All my life I’ve heard about “Speedy” and his wild ride in the Great Flood. Apparently a funeral home in Paducah had been working with an experimental embalming method, and when Mr. Charles “Speedy” Atkins drowned in 1928 and there were no funds to pay for a funeral and burial, the funeral home embalmed him with its new method and displayed him in a case to show its work. Then came the flood in 1937, and poor Speedy was washed away in the deluge. Later, his body was recovered and returned to the same funeral home as a “flood victim.” He was not buried until 1994, but before then he was featured on Ripley’s Believe it Or Not and other television programs. Speedy’s headstone in Maplelawn Cemetery, Paducah, Ky., notes that he lived and died as a pauper, but was buried a celebrity.

I know there must be local stories that are touching, frightening, amazing … even ones that rival Speedy. Click on Comments above this blog entry, then scroll down and type in your own memories or stories that have been handed down in your family. You can also contribute photos and videos to coincide with CET’s January programming and online observance of the 70th anniversary of the flood. See our ’37 Flood Web page for more information. –Patsy

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My father was an 18-year-old Explorer Scout at the time of the flood. He talked about evacuating people in Cleves by boat, picking up some from their rooftops.

Comment by Sr. Miriam Kaeser — December 15, 2006 #
I was 6 years of age in Feburary and March of 1937. My outstanding memories of the flood are, my family was late that winter in getting the tobacco, which was the main money crop, to the Burley market in Riply,Ohio. My father recieved a call from the market manager to come and get the tobacco before it was lost to the water. By the time they arrived in Riply and loaded crop on the truck the water was up to the running boards.The tobacco sat in the farm barn untill late spring, when they were finaly able to sell again it had deterioated to the point that they recieved very little for it. Another recollection of that time, my mother’s brother passed away in south western Indiana. Mother and Father studied the road maps and there was no way to get there from where we lived. In a small child’s eyes it seemed that all of southern Ohio and Indiana was under water.This was during the Depression and although things were getting better in the cities things were still bad in the country for most of us. The two main sources of income were the tobacco, which was pretty much a write off, and eggs. The family raised Barred Rock chickens and sold gaurented fertility eggs to a local hatchery. Due to the damp and cold weather the chickans developed Tuberculosis and had to be destroyed. 1937 was not a good year for us and most of the southern Ohio farmers.

Comment by Bill Dean Sr — December 15, 2006 #
My grandparents, Marian and Mike Eibel, lived in Covington and were dating in 1937. The floodwaters barely reached my grandmother’s house, so they were very lucky. However, the flood put a damper on their courtship. So, my grandfather would borrow a rowboat and row up to my grandmother’s to pick her up for a “date.” He would row her through the streets of Covington, helping out others.

Comment by Maureen Gregory — December 15, 2006 #