Floyd County GaArchives History .....Unlucky 13 In Rosedale Twister March 13, 1913
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Bonnie (Phillips) Womack FlaminStorm@yahoo.com February 2, 2006, 2:39 pm

Book Title: 

UNLUCKY 13 in ROSEDALE TWISTER
       
        Twisters hit area while many were preparing for bedtime

Floyd County's Turkey Mountain was directly in the path of the 1913 tornado 
that hit the Northwest Georgia area. Thirteen people were killed in the 
Rosedale community in northeastern Floyd County by this March 13 tornado. The 
twister also went through the town of Curryville, just over the Floyd County 
line in Gordan County. Several people in that area were injured, but no lives 
were lost in Curryville.

"As night fell there was an eerie stillness."
          -Bobby Pierce, 1913-

As residents of northern Floyd County prepared for bed on the night of March 
13, 1913, they never imagined they would experience the worst tornado system to 
hit the area during this century.
   The twister killed 13 in the Rosedale community, near Turkey Mountain in the 
northeastern part of the county, and injured at least 50 people.
   The Rome Tribune-Herald reported daily of heavy rains and unseasonably cold 
temperatures, but no one expected what was to come that spring evening.
   "As night fell, there was an eerie stillness," said Bobby Pierce, as 
reported by the North Georgia Journal. "Then the wind picked up and the thunder 
and lightning were awful.  My father knew something bad was coming, and he 
moved us all into the front room of the house."
   About 9 p.m., the tornado formed in the Texas Valley area, "leaving a track 
a mile wide and 20 miles long as clean as a hound's tooth," according to 
newspapwer reports on saturday, March 15, 1913.
   Damage to the Pierce farm was minor, but the tornado did not reach its most 
destructive capacity until it crossed Turkey Mountain. According to the Rome 
Tribune-Herald, the worst damage occurred in Rosedale and Curryville - a 
community located just over the Floyd County line in Gordon County. All of the 
storm-related fatalities happened in Rosedale.
   Property damage from the twister was estimated as high as $100,000, which 
was enormous sum at the time, according to reports by the North Georgia History 
Journal.
   In Rosedale, the family of L. M. Bolt, which had no warning of the tornado, 
had just tucked their five children into bed. The house was shattered - leaving 
remmants only fit for kindling wood.
   A neighbor recalled only a few items remaining on the floor - a few jars of 
fruit preserves and the children's shoes, which had been placed under their 
beds.
   The uninjured L. M. Bolt found his wife hanging unconscious by her arm from 
a tree. Two of his children died when angry winds tossed them into a nearby 
well. About a week after the storm, the bodies of the other three Bolt children 
were found. 
   "(They were) pinned underneath debris which was covered by backwater, their 
bodies swollen and decayed almost beyong recognition," according to Rome 
Tribune-Herald's reports.
   A few miles away in Curryville, the wife of Bobby Walraven had locked her 
children in a large trunk to protect them from the approaching storm.
   The tornado shattered the family's house and seriously injured Mr. and Mrs. 
Walraven, but the trunk survived the storm and kept the children from injury.
   The twister knocked out telephone and telegraph wires, so news of the 
disaster did not reach the outside world until late March 14.  Armuchee Creek 
flooded, and John's Creek swept away the bridge at Barnett's Creek, isolating 
the tornada-ravaged areas from Rome and Calhoun.  Automobil parties assembled 
from Dalton and Summerville to offer medical assistance, but only a few doctors 
were able to make their way across the swollen creeks.
   Curryville's schoolhouse served as the area's emergency hospital even though 
the storm moved the building off its pillars and swept it 10 feet from its 
base.  It was the only building still standing in the community.  

-Chris Fincher, staff writer
Source: "The 1913 Rosedale Twister" by Daniel M. Roper in the
North Georgia Journal, Legacy Communications.
   

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