The first report of a tornado in the Americas is thought to be an account of the funnel cloud which struck Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1680. The storm felled several trees, tore the roof off one barn, and killed a servant.
A century later Sgt. John Park Finley of the U. S. Signal Service had barely finished his training in telegraphy, electricity and meteorology, when he was ordered to survey a debris field in Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa left by the tornado outbreak of May 29 and 30, 1879, which killed more than 600 people.
One of the Kansas towns ravaged by the storm was Irving, which held the distinction of being hit by two tornadoes, arriving one hour apart. The twisters followed separate but intersecting paths, and thus struck some of the unluckiest neighborhoods twice. Sgt. Finley’s misspelling of the name of the first family in the storm’s crosshairs, may have given rise to a persistent rumor connecting the Irving tornado with a beloved children’s classic.
No. I, or that owned by Mr. John Gale, situated 20 rods northeast of Mr. Ship’s, and about the same distance southeast of the storm’s center, was unroofed and the walls torn down to the first story. The debris was carried to the northeast and north. It was a very old building and considerably out of repair.
Mrs. Gale’s baby was carried out of the house into a wheat field to the northeast, a distance of 30 rods, and a little girl carried east into a small ravine, distant 28 rods. Four other members of the family, including the father and mother, were carried to the east at distances varying from 10 to 15 rods, and their clothing torn into shreds and partially stripped from their bodies.
The Gail or “Gale” home was located directly under the word “Marshal" at the top of Finley’s map
(Color has been added to Finley's sketch of the tornado paths to clarify the overlap)
Six-month-old Nellie Gail had the ride of her life, accompanied for some distance by her sister Alta. A rod being equal to 5.5 yards, the storm swept both girls the length of a football field plus both end zones and then some, before depositing them in the turf relatively unharmed.
Occasionally I’ve traced bits and pieces of Nellie Gail Moulton’s life, searching for some mention of that wild adventure from her early childhood. I finally found what I was looking for last year in a video called “Pioneer Spirit” on the Moulton Museum website. Apparently Nellie jokingly credited her first airborne adventure with the Irving Tornado for a wanderlust that was never satisfied.
After making one trip to the West Coast by horse and buggy and another by train, Nellie was hired as a teacher in Seattle, operated a ranch with her husband Lewis Moulton at Laguna Hills, California, studied art, painted evocative landscapes, became a patron of the arts and an insatiable world traveler. Her memoir Living Memories was finally published last fall.
Born in 1878, Nellie Gail Moulton lived long enough to watch other adventurous spirits venture beyond their home planet, although Nellie could never decide whether it was more remarkable that men were walking on the surface of the Moon, or that she could see them do it live from her living room.