Rose Valley, Saskatchewan is recalling the events of August 27, 1963.
That fateful day, 60-years ago saw five-minutes of tornado power lead a whirlwind trek from the southwest to the northeast of the population 600 town, just east of Humboldt.
Trevor Angell was a toddler at the time and is organizing a two-week Facebook meet up. He is collating pictures and stories for an online gathering.
The picture used with this story shows a trailer that was pushed some 75-feet, only stopped by the CP Rail building. Inside the trailer was a mother and baby girl. The mother and baby survived with scratches. Angell says when you look at pictures of the damage, “it’s truly a miracle that anybody could have lived.”
Angell has been able to locate that infant, who now is all grown up, and lives in B.C.
“It was a long and complex search process, but I’m happy to say that Kim Sheedy has surfaced – and good on her, she has contributed a story and a number of pictures, pertinent to her family, that faced as much hazard and danger as anybody did in the tornado,” says Angell who adds, “it was heartwarming and reassuring that she has gone on to have a lovely life.”
The passage of the tornado was bookended by two fires. The first took out a garage-business early on the morning of August 27, 1963, and then one week later, the grocery store that was next to the garage was also consumed by flames.
Angell who now lives in Saskatoon describes himself as a researcher seeking to piece together historical vignettes. In the process of connecting the dots, he is also creating a social network for people to remember an event that thankfully did not have any fatalities.
The survivor tells the story of Ruby Malkovitch who was walking home from work, when she saw the tornado. Now deceased, she wrote in her personal biography that she secured herself to the fence of the local school.
“She said that she could see the tornado bearing down upon her, and she looked for the closest stable item that she could find, which was a fence. And she hung on to that, while a tree limb crashed down, very close to her,” says Angell, who credits Malkovitch’s granddaughter for sharing the biographic account.
The tornado struck at supper time, so most people were indoors. Angell says it led to a swath of damage of houses, garages and various buildings, including the “wooden outhouses of the day” being scattered around the town.
The online event will run from August 21- September 3 on the Rose Valley Tornado 60th Anniversary Facebook page.
Environment Canada cites the research of Dr. Keith Hage from the University of Alberta who writes that eyewitnesses “first saw … five little whirlwinds southwest of the town. They combined as they drew nearer and whirled their way through the town. Path width in town – one block, path length estimated 10 km.”
The federal agency in an email to MyLloydminsterNow indicated they would continue to look for an F scale on which to grade the tornado.
