1921 Tornado in Marshall County
The Lewisburg Tribune
Friday, April 1, 1921.
Headline: “Heavy Toll From Thursday’s Storm.”
Another death-dealing Tornado has visited Marshall County and left a heavy pall upon us. On Thursday afternoon of last week, just after last week’s paper had come from the press, the news reached The Tribune office that both lives and property had just been destroyed. …
The residence of Mr. Clarence Reynolds was the worst torn of any. In this building were four people, Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds and daughter and Mr. Will Lane. Mr. Lane was at the Harris shop at the time of the approach of the storm, and went across the street to the Reynolds home as a better place, hitching his horse in front.
Those who stood at the store of Mr. Ike Green and others nearby places saw the work of the storm, and said that the house arose from the ground, chimney and all to a height of about forty feet and while in mid-air whirled around and broke into thousands of pieces, scarcely no two pieces of the building being found together.
The bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds and Mr. Lane and the little girl were all found about 175 yards from the seat of the house in close proximity to each other. The two men were dead when found and Mrs. Reynolds and her little girl were alive but unconscious. All the bodies were bloody
and bruised. The little girl died at 1 o’clock that night. Mrs.
Reynolds survived, but it was many hours before she was conscious, and she is now seriously disfigured and crippled.
Mrs. Reynolds for a long time did not know the fate of her
husband…When asked about her experience when the house went up, Mrs. Reynolds said that they all got into a small hall in the house close together. They felt the house rise up and whirl, but she could not remember no more.
The entire county feels for Mrs. Lane and family and Mesdames Reynolds and Hopper and their families for their great loss, but all of this is ineffective, they know.
The victims were all buried at their respective burying grounds Saturday afternoon.
contributed by Eston Lane (Butch) Garrett with this note: William Jones Lane was born December 27, 1874, and died in a tornado that came through Chapel Hill, Tennessee, in March 1921. He was my grandfather.