The remnants of the Talma School gym are shown following the April 3, 1974, tornado which went through Fulton County. Don Craig recalls he was originally set to play basketball there that night with friends before the storm stopped him. Photo provided by the Fulton County Historical Society.

By Leah Sander
InkFreeNews

ROCHESTER — Connie Walley was cooking dinner the evening of Wednesday, April 3, 1974, despite an oncoming storm.

“I remember the electricity kept going on and off,” she said.

Walley, who lived then along Ninth Street in Rochester, said she didn’t consider a tornado might be coming her way.

Walley, who still resides in Rochester, was one of several people who shared their memories of the tornado in connection with its 50th anniversary.

Six people were killed in Fulton County in the storm, part of the so-called “Super Outbreak,” which occurred on April 3 and 4 of 1974.

According to the National Weather Service’s website, the tornado which hit Rochester and later Talma actually began southwest of Monticello and traveled 109 miles to southeast of LaGrange. It was “up to one half mile” wide and was rated as an F4 on the former Fujita Scale.

Walley said it was her husband who advised the family to get to safety.

“’I’m hearing a constant roar,’” she said of what her husband said, telling her and the couple’s children to get to the basement.

Across town in their home near the Fulton County Fairgrounds, Kris (Pedigo) Carr said her mother, Gay Pedigo, had also been making dinner.

Carr, still of Rochester, and then a teenager, had been on the phone trying to find out who was going to a local dance.

She said the tornado seemed to have “come out of nowhere.”

It was her brother Bobby Pedigo who helped get the family to the basement.

“It sounded like a train whistle, extremely loud,” said Carr.

Over at his home on the Talma-Athens Road near Talma, Don Craig had planned to play basketball at the Talma School gym before the storm stopped him.

Craig, who lives now just outside Mentone, said he was home with his wife, three children and a neighbor kid.

“My wife was looking out the kitchen window and said, ‘Do you think a tornado is coming?’” recalled Craig.

As the family didn’t have a basement, Craig said they “laid on the kitchen floor next to the wall.”

He said the tornado “took the top story off” the home.

Their neighbors across the road whose son had been at the Craig home fared worse, said Craig.

“We looked out and their place was totally gone,” he said.

The tornado had also devastated some mobile homes just down the road from the Craig residence.

In one of them, Marjorie Nichols, who was pregnant, had been holding onto her two-year-old daughter, Beth Ann Nichols. Craig said the tornado ripped Beth Ann from her mother’s hold.

Beth Ann became the youngest fatality in Fulton County and one of the youngest in the Super Outbreak in Indiana.

The tornado also took the top story of the Pedigo home, which Carr said her father Bob Pedigo had just built.

However, the family escaped uninjured. Carr remembered her mother brought out the beef and noodles she had made for dinner.

The lid had been left off the pot when the tornado hit, and insulation and glass got into it.

Carr recalled the family’s clothes and dressers and her mother’s charm bracelet ended up in a nearby field.

As the tornado was going through, Walley said her son noted it looked like the roof had come off the Herman home across the street.

Walley said she reassured him that objects look different during storms.

As they emerged from their basement, Walley’s son looked across the street again.

“’Mom, the Hermans not only don’t have a roof, they don’t have a house,’” said Walley of what her son said.

She said her family had minimal damage to their home, but she soon discovered how bad the storm had been.

Walley tried to travel across town to check on friends.

That family, who lived on Monticello Road, ended up with severe injuries.

The father had a hole in his back from an object, and his eighth-month-old child had a broken arm.

Walley said her family also traveled near where Country Lanes is on Old US 31 where they saw horrible things like “two-by-fours through cows.”

Walley said a man whom her husband worked with told her about the devastation on the north side of Rochester.

“’The north side of town looks like a bomb hit it,’” recalled Walley of what he said.

She said her friends John and Gracie Figlio worked to clean up the devastated IOOF Cemetery on Third Street where the storm opened at least one casket.

Craig said a group of people traveled from Nappanee to help with cleanup near his home.

“Neighbors came together. That’s one good thing,” said Craig of the cleanup after the storm.