Why the deaths of 1,000+ people and wholesale destruction of parts of 15 states—beginning Easter Sunday 1913? Pastors grappled for meaning
Easter Sunday was supposed to be Christians’ highest religious
festival: celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and His
promise to mankind of forgiveness of sins and eternal life. And
in 1913, Easter, March 23
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| Editorial
cartoon “Lilies and Crepe” appeared on the front page of the March 25, 1913 St. Joseph Gazette (Missouri) just two
days following fateful Easter Sunday 1913. The cartoon is heavy with symbolism.
Crepe
(used for the bow) may indicate the Victorian custom of veiling mirrors to
prevent the spirit of the deceased from being trapped in the reflection. Lilies symbolized
many things, chiefly the Resurrection of Christ celebrated as Easter—the day
the tornadoes killed hundreds (the skeletal hand of death is writing in the
Bible) and the torrential rains began, bringing the record flood.
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was greeted with the front pages of Sunday
newspapers across the land proclaiming the good news, and churches adorned with
lilies opening their doors and inviting all to join in singing hymns of praise.
But hours
later, just as families were sitting down to Easter dinner, a dozen tornadoes
struck one after another. Within four hours, 250 people had been slaughtered by
violent twisters roaring across Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and Indiana (see “‘My Conception of Hell’,” “To Build a Tornado,” and “Terror in Terre Haute”). That same evening, torrential rains
began to fall relentlessly across the Midwest, especially intense over Indiana
and Ohio (see “Be Very Afraid”). Within days, Noachian floods
swelled without warning and swept away houses and businesses. By the time the
waters were receding at the week’s end, at least 1,000 people were dead, and
the angry waters were continuing their destruction down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers (see “‘Death Rode Ruthless’” and “Like a War Zone”).
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| Editorial
cartoon “Thy Will Be Done,” published on the front page of the Omaha Daily Bee on Sunday, March 30, 1913, depicts a grief-stricken congregation struggling to understand the Easter tragedy. (Distracting horizontal lines are scratches on the microfilm newspaper record.) |
Over that
first week, grief-stricken ministers and congregations alike wrestled with
finding meaning in apparently senseless forces that killed a thousand, injured
tens of thousands, and rendered homeless hundreds of thousands more. So in
1913, the Sunday after Easter (sometimes called “low Sunday” because attendance often was lowest then after the build-up of Lent through
Easter), sanctuaries were filled with bewildered parishioners seeking comfort—and
comprehension of how, why such devastating calamities could befall a world governed by a good, merciful, and loving God.
Many
newspapers—not just in the Midwest or Great Plains, but all the way to
California—published on Monday, March 31, 1913 summarized sermons given by pastors
the day before. The accuracy of the summary depended, of course, on the skill
and understanding of the reporter. But details aside, the summaries give an
idea of the range of lessons ministers drew.
Interpreting disaster
A few
ministers in 1913 alluded to the notion that God sent the devastating tornadoes
and floods to chastise or punish humans—an interpretation that would have been
nearly standard fare 150 or 200 years earlier and apparently still had some
currency in the popular mind. At least one minister might have ventured close:
“Without disaster the world forgets God,” warned the Rev. Johnstone Myers to the
congregation of the Immanuel Baptist Church in Chicago.
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| Piersel. Illinois State Journal, 3/31/1913 p 2 |
Rev. Alba C.
Piersel of the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Springfield, Illinois,
reinforced that message. In a sermon titled “Deity and Disaster, or Christ and
Calamity” (the inspiration for the title of this post), Piersel declared: “Man
is prone to overestimate…himself. …Striding
the streams with cities and towns, establishing squatter sovereignty on their
banks, denuding the plains of forests, making dams to stand the strain—all of
this brings disaster in its train” because in overestimating himself, man
underestimates God.
“God is still supreme,” Piersel reminded his listeners, and
“God speaks from His pulpit in the great disaster or calamity,” reminding
humanity “in flame, or flood, or tornado—‘Be still and know that I am God’.”
The lesson, he asserted, is “[n]ever to be presumptive toward God.” “Suffering
and sorrow are for punishment, or for perfecting” although, he hastened to add,
“It is not to be presumed that those who suffer so in our recent widespread
disasters are wicked.”
Other
pastors disagreed. “God never hurt anybody in the whole history of the world
just to show that he is great,” objected the Rev. Frederick E. Hopkins, Park
Manor Congregational Church in Chicago. “The doctrine that God hated Nebraska,
Ohio, and Indiana with such hatred that he could find no way to satisfy it
except by such a calamity would make more infidels…in one week…since man began
to believe…”
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| Hayes, Hopkins, and Myers. Chicago Tribune 3/31/1913 p 3 |
The Rev. F.
L. Hayes of the California Avenue Congregational Church in Chicago ventured to
place some blame: “It was not God who brought the destruction of the floods but
the carelessness of men. The lack of the proper building of bridges, the
insufficiency of protection in the making of reservoirs, the indifferent
inspection are the responsible causes. The law of the flood must be met by the
law of the high ground. …It is the love of God that gives us the fire and the
water to be our servants, but as masters they become tyrants.”
“The Ohio flood was not sent by Providence as
a punishment,” declared the Rev. R. J. MacAlpine from the pulpit of Boulevard
Presbyterian Church in Cleveland. Instead, “[t]he Creator seems to permit his
works in nature to take their complex course, without respect of persons or
circumstances. We should, therefore, learn the ominous lesson that, so far as
is humanly possible, we must…impregnably defend ourselves against [nature’s]
most sudden violence,” such as locating cities well back from lowlands or
erecting other protections “by all the power of human genius.”
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| MacAlpine. Cleveland Plain Dealer 3/31/1913 p 14 |
“Many say
the tornado is the wrath of God upon his people. I cannot see it that way,”
stated the Rev. Nathaniel McGriffin at the Lowe Avenue Presbyterian Church in
devastated Omaha, Nebraska. “God…permits the forces of nature to be in motion.”
But he drew the line at putting faith in the works of man as an adequate
defense. “The tornado shows us the futility of man’s power, ingenuity and
invention. Man builds mighty works, but nature’s slightest demonstration may
overwhelm them.”
In
McGriffin’s view, “No more important
lesson is taught in this terrible crisis than that…Man in the flesh is crushed,
but his spirit is inconquerable. See it rise out of the ruins and set about the
task of rehabilitation. …But let us get the full force of this lesson and
recognize that this inconquerable spirit…has come down from above, the spirit
of God, eternal and unchangeable, which vanquisheth not and is not bowed down.
It comes to still the tempest and repair the wreck.”
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| McGriffin. Omaha Bee 3/31/1913, p. 10 |
Speaking to
a congregation of 1,000 at the First Methodist Church in Omaha, some of whom
were dressed in mourning black crepe, the Rev. M. B. Williams urged that “God
can do wonders with those who will but trust in Him.” His sermon, “A Voice in
the Storm,” was based on Mark 4:39–40, from the account of the disciples in a
boat with Jesus on the Sea of Galilee being terrified when a storm blew up with
high winds and surging waves. “And He [Jesus] arose, and rebuked the wind, and
said unto the sea, ‘Peace, be still.’ And the wind ceased and there was a great
calm. And He said unto them, ‘Why are ye so fearful? How is it that ye have no
faith?’”
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| Williams. Omaha Bee 3/31/1913, p. 10 |
Meantime in
Omaha, the Omaha World-Herald reported
a tragic drama among the rubble left marking the path of the tornado: “From out
of a brick pile that once had been a building, but was torn away on one side
and boarded up like a rough shed, came the sound of a pipe organ and anthems of
praise, devotion and thanksgiving.” That was the congregation inside what remained
of Trinity Methodist Church. From nearby piles of debris came the “rat-tat-tat” of the carpenter’s
hammer and the rasping noise of the saw.
Yes,
thanksgiving. For despite the death and destruction, so many were thankful that
they and their loved ones were still alive. Despite the fact that the parish of
St. Cecilia’s Church suffered the heaviest losses than any other Catholic congregation in the city of
Omaha—15 houses demolished and another 50 seriously damaged—Father Daniel Harrington
offered a mass of “thanksgiving that so many were spared from the destruction
of the tornado.”
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| St. Cecilia’s. Omaha Bee 3/31/1913, p. 10 |
Amen.
©2018 Trudy
E. Bell
Next time: Desperate Medicine
Bell, Trudy E., The Great Dayton Flood of 1913, Arcadia Publishing, 2008. Picture book of nearly 200 images of the flood in Dayton, rescue efforts, recovery, and the construction of the Miami Conservancy District dry dams for flood control, including several pictures of Cox. (Author’s shameless marketing plug: Copies are available directly from me for the cover price of $21.99 plus $4.00 shipping, complete with inscription of your choice; for details, e-mail me), or order from the publisher.
