(Dowagiac Daily News, June 1, 1943)

Remember our tornado? I was home from Dowagiac High (yes, we used to walk home for lunch back then).

I stood at our side door looking out of the screen door when it hit.

Though a lot of Orchard was hit pretty bad, we only lost one of our chimneys.

I remember Berenice Vanderburg said there were 66 trees down.

A lot were in the Oak Street School yard, and the rest were what she counted on her walk down Oak Street on her way to work the next day.

Dowagiac was lucky nobody was killed or hurt badly, like so many it seems in today’s tornadoes.

1943: An ad from the Round Oak Co. Men wanted for war work.

1943: Sheriff Duane Remus has reported 16 men were held in the Cass County Jail in May. Seven were for drunk and disorderly, three for armed robbery, one for rape, three for chicken stealing and two for runaways.

1972: March, Dowagiac’s basketball team beat Kalamazoo Hackett 73-71 and became regional champions. Edgar Wilson had 32 points and Otis Hill scored the game’s winning basket in the closing eight seconds. It was Dowagiac’s first regional title in 39 years.

Here is a sure bet, that there ain’t a Dowagiac house with a basement “coal bin” full of coal.

1932: An average of 1,500 bushels of wheat were being ground daily at the Colby mill.

In some months, 3,000 bushels were ground in a 24-hour period (The Colby Milling Co. is now known as Dowagiac Milling Co). It is the area’s oldest continuous business. The grist mill was established in 1833.

March 1912: John Gebhard, Nels and Morton Nelson left for Liberty Saskatchewan, where they were planning to spend the summer on their (gold?) claims.

1928: Prosecuting Attorney Jack Pollock insisted he intended to pay the election bet he lost to Sheriff Jesse Austin, and he would push the sheriff about the courthouse square in a squeaky wheelbarrow.

February 1884: Smith Howard has a black Spanish hen on which he is relying to make a fortune. She does not lay golden eggs, but she has within a year raised 60 chickens which sold for $15.

Boy, they sure have changed the style of the Volkswagen Beetle, haven’t they? For so many years, year after year, Bugs always looked the same didn’t they?

“Cardinal Charlie” Gill writes a nostalgic weekly column about growing up in the Grand Old City.

Email him at cardinalcharlie@hotmail.com.