DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON

Article written by Charles Edwin Price

Reprinted with permission

There was no warning. One minute the trees near Rye Cove Consolidated School swayed violently--the next moment, the one-story wooden school house disappeared in a cloud of swirling debris. After the devastation, wails of the wounded rose from the shattered wreckage. For a time it appeared the injured would join the dead as fire from red hot stove coals caught tinder-like wreckage afire.  It was a day, and a tragedy, that the little town of Rye Cove would never forget! In one terrible, violent moment, a dozen young lives were snuffed out--the hope of the community. One teacher died in the catastrophe. Dozens of other children and adults were maimed--some for life.  The community of Rye Cove was, and still is, an isolated community. Located a valley in Scott County, Virginia, residents of Rye Cove, because of their isolation, were forced to be self-reliant. The Rye Cove, itself, has had a long and checkered history and was no stranger to human tragedy. It was near the Cove, for instance, that James Boone, son of Daniel, as well as several others in Boone's party, were attacked and massacred by Indians, in 1773.  In 1776 Isaac Crisman built a fort at Rye Cove. A short time later, Crisman and two of  his family were attacked and murdered by Indians.  Indian wars that broke out all over the frontier during the Revolutionary War, and in the years after. Raiding parties tried the pry the white intruders loose from their farmsteads but settlers hung on, no matter what the price in blood.  A troubled beginning then, eventually, peace settled over the Cove.  The years saw the town of Rye Cove grow slowly, as was the fate of most farming communities. The town's relative isolation further retarded ex pansion. The nearest town was Clinchport, eight miles away, connected to Rye Cove by an   impossible dirt road that was not much wider than a wagon track. The nearest town of any size was Gate City, the county seat of Scott County, 16 miles away. The nearest large city was Bristol, at 40 miles, was connected to Clinchport by the main line of the Southern Railway.  Farming the Cove was a hard life to be sure. The land was either strewn with outcroppings of stubborn limestone rock that resisted a plow, or it lay on steep hillsides fit only for grazing.  Cove residents were a fatalistic people. They put their faith in God and their own abilities as farmers, and very little else. Generations of people were born, toiled their lives away, then died and were buried, within the boundaries of the Rye Cove. Each family, however, harbored a secret desire that their children might have an easier life than they had.  As the twentieth century dawned, improvements were slowly made to the town. For instance, a fine new school house was built. Now it was possible that children could attend school most of the year instead of the sporadic education available to their parents. Maybe their lot in life would improve, after all.  Then tragedy struck the heart of  the community like a knife. 

May 2, 1929, dawned cold and damp. The light rain that fell outside the school only   added to the sodden misery of students trying to study in their classrooms. In the Rye Cove, citizens went about their ordinary business as best they could on such a rainy day. Of course nothing much could be done outside in the fields, so most farmers were inside their barns and shops performing routine maintenance and repair work.  Such was also the destiny of the road crew trying to improve the dirt road that ran through the center of town. It seemed like the citizens of Rye Cove had been trying to get the county to do something about the road for ages. When it rained--like today--the road mud was so deep that vehicles would sink up to their axles. Scott County had hedged on the project, then had given in and provided funds. Now the road workers were being given their own taste of the muddy inconvenience that had plagued the town for so many years. They were forced to quit work and had parked their two tractors nearby to wait for a dryer day in which to work. Rain! Rain! ...And more rain! So far, May second had added up to a very slow, wet, and dull day.

Throughout the morning in Rye Cove Consolidated School, students shivered at their desks. There was no central heating in the building so individual coal-fired, pot-bellied stoves were fired up early to help chase away the unseasonable chill. At 12 noon, classes broke for lunch. There was no cafeteria so most students and teachers went home to eat. Others brought food with them and ate at school, blissfully unaware of the terrible storm building up a short distance away.

The first indication that something was wrong was when Principal A.S. Noblin's landlady, Mrs. Annis Stone, interrupted his lunch by saying that a bad storm was coming up the valley. She suggested that he hustle back to the school before he got caught. A moment later Noblin left his boarding house. He glanced over his shoulder. Through the misty rain he saw a terrible blackness coming up the valley. Mrs. Stone had been right. There was a bad storm on the way. He'd better get moving.

What Noblin couldn't see through the heavy mist was the tornado funnel that now snaked down from the black cloud. On a nearby mountainside, J.M. Johnson was grubbing brush. He stopped to gaze at a wonder of nature that he had never seen before--a real tornado. At first he watched the approaching storm with fascination. Then, when he realized that the rain-shrouded funnel was whirling directly for the school, Johnson started running down the mountainside and toward town. Jim Morrison's Model-A truck was just rattling around the sharp curve entering Rye Cove when he saw J.B. Stone's store roof churn into the air. The roar was terrible--louder than anything he had ever heard before. The air was thick with debris. At first he didn't recognize the storm as a tornado. Such things were almost unheard of in the Southwest Virginia mountains. Then the house owned by J.D. Hill uprooted right before his eyes and he caught sight of a hazy funnel cloud crossing the road just in front of him. Morrison's car shuttered as a torrent of wind-lashed hail clattered against its windshield, blinding the driver's vision. When the hail suddenly cleared, Morrison saw a large lumber pile near the school be picked up in its entirety and sucked into the funnel. To his horror, he suddenly realized the funnel cloud was headed directly for the school house. Three of the Morrison children were in that school!  Teacher Elizabeth Richmond was ready to begin class. A few moments before, she glanced out the window and had noticed the sky growing dark. Richmond remembered a howling wind. Then the building shook.  Principal A.S. Noblin had just reached the front door when he turned and saw one of the two automobiles parked just outside the school be lifted into the air. Then the funnel had hit the building broadside.  The schoolhouse was suddenly a pandemonium of roaring wind, smashing lumber, breaking windows, and terrified screams of students and teachers. The air was thick with shrapnel--broken glass, splintered wood, desks, pens and pencils, books, shards of slate backboards, hot glowing coals, and heavy cast iron stoves--all whirling around and a
around in a terrible maelstrom. Twelfth-grader Loy Osborne jumped up from his desk and dove for the doorway. From the corner of his eye he saw Principal Noblin disappear in a avalanche of wooden beams. Then Osborne felt himself being lifted up. The next thing he knew, he was outside the building. Classmate Garrett Davidson never made it outside the classroom. A heavy object smashed the base of his skull, crushing it. Then the floor collapsed under him. Eleven-year-old Mabel McDavid tried to make it to her classroom door when a shard of plate glass sliced into her leg, nearly severing it from her body.   Some students with presence of mind, crawled under their desks to escape the lethal missiles swirling around them. Suddenly the whole side wall of the school blew inward bringing with it razor sharp wood splinters and shards of glass. Another part of the building collapsed in a cascade of shattered wood, glass, heavy desks, books, paper, red-hot stoves, teachers and children. The back wall of the school was caught in the vortex, seemed to pause a moment in mid air, then crumbled as if it was made of nothing!   The sound of the storm faded as a heavy rain fell in its wake. A stunned silence settled over the wreckage. Then students and teachers, trapped under the wreckage, began to cry for help. Some tried to claw their way out. Then a new a new danger arose. Fires from overturned stoves flared in the wooden wreckage of Rye Cove School.

Lying flat on his back next to the pond, Loy Osborne, who had been forcibly ejected from the building by the wind, heard the muffled screams of trapped children and teachers. He scrambled to his  feet. Severe pain shot up his left arm and nearly took his breath away. Blood soaked his shirt sleeve. A gaping wound had laid open his left shoulder and cut deeply into the muscle. But he quickly forgot his injury when he saw the chaos around him. Osborne saw piles of wood catching fire, in spite of the heavy rain that was now falling. Those underneath would be burned to a crisp in no time unless someone acted quickly. In spite of his pain Osborne rushed to the pond, an empty bucket in his good hand, just as Jim Morrison's truck chugged across the rain-soaked field and slid to a stop in front of him. "The building's on fire!"  Osborne shouted as he dipped his bucket into the muddy water.  Morrison bounded from the vehicle. Huge raindrops slapped his face, nearly blinding
him. "Form a bucket brigade" he ordered. "I'll get one of those tractors parked over there and pull wreckage away from the fire."

Parents from nearby houses rushed to the shattered schoolhouse. Desperately they called   out the names of their children while picking through the wreckage. Some joined in the bucket brigade.

Fortunately, the heavy rain that fell in the wake of the tornado helped keep the fires from spreading. Morrison and another man used the two tractors, left by road workers, to pull debris away from the flames. Between the rain and the bucket brigade, the fires were extinguished in short order.

Now came another problem. One dirt road connected Rye Cove to the nearest town. The downpour had turned it into a gummy bog. The storm had also knocked out the few telephones in town. For all intents and purposes, Rye Cove was completely cut off from the rest of the world. Two men volunteered to go to Clinchport, eight miles away, for help. One jumped on a horse. The other climbed into his automobile and began to slush over the muddy roads. The man on the horse made it to Clinchport first. Upon arriving, the horseman told a local physician, Dr. Fugate, about the tragedy at Rye Cove. The doctor ran to his phone and called King's Mountain Memorial Hospital and the sheriff's office in Gate City. Both assured him that help was on the way.  By the time Dr. Fugate finished talking on the phone, the man with the car had arrived. Dr. Fugate commandeered the vehicle and driver, and piled the car high with all the medical supplies he could gather. He knew, from the description of the injuries already given him, that there would be those who could not wait for help from the outside. He had to get to Rye Cove as quickly as possible. Just before he left for Rye Cove, Dr. Fugate's telephone rang. When he picked it up, he was told that the Southern Railway was dispatching a special train to Clinchport to transport the wounded to Bristol. Could he make arrangements to have the injured carried to Clinchport. Dr. Fugate replied that he would do his level best to make such arrangements. Then he hung up the phone and ran out of his house to the waiting automobile.

Meanwhile, back in the town of Rye Cove, the injured, the dead, and the dying, were carried to surrounding houses and barns. A preliminary tally was made of those already dead:

17-year-old Polly Carter, ten-year-old Callie Bishop, and about seven others. Residents did what they could for the injured, but without medical help the task was overwhelming. Simple cuts and fractures were one thing, but some of the injuries were dreadful.   One young man had broken his back. Little Mabel McDavid's leg had been nearly lobbed off by flying glass. Garrett Davidson was alive, but barely, the base of his skull crushed by flying debris. A few of the men began discussing how they could get the injured--more than 50 at last count--to a hospital. By now the rain had stopped, but the road was a muddy mess. It seemed as if all nature had conspired against Rye Cove that day and that as soon as one problem was solved, another would crop up. Just when things looked darkest, Dr. Fugate arrived with expertise and medical supplies. He told the weary rescuers about the special train being sent to Clinchport and that they should make immediate arrangements to transport the injured there.

One of the rescuers was a tall man with a long sad face. He was no stranger to anyone in Rye Cove because nearly everyone had heard him, his wife, Sara, and sister-in-law Maybelle, sing at church socials and other occasions. The group had even recorded some records for the Victor Talking Machine Company. That made them celebrities.The man was Alvin Pleasant Delaney Carter of nearby Maces Springs. Everyone either called him "A.P." or Doc, and, at the time, he and his family were poised on the brink of musical immortality. Two years before, the Carter Family had journeyed to Bristol to cut some test records for Ralph Peer of Victor Records. The session had been a success and more sides were recorded in Camden, New Jersey, then released on record to the public.  A.P. Carter had been at a nearby school arranging for a concert when he heard that the Rye Cove School had been destroyed by a tornado. He instantly jumped into his car and raced to the scene.

Dr. Fugate was functioning on instinct. There we so many injured.  Six year old Charlie Morrison, for instance, was said to have been picked up by the  storm, carried over a nearby storehouse, and then deposited in the middle of the road. His survival had been a miracle. He was apparently none the worse for wear except that a large splinter had been driven completely though his foot. Dr. Fugate quickly removed the splinter.

Little Mabel McDavid's injuries were more life threatening. Her leg had been almost severed by flying glass and was now hanging on by only a piece of bloody flesh. Dr. Fugate completed the amputation that the storm had begun, using the counter of the wrecked Stone store as an operating table. According to legend, the severed leg was carelessly tossed under the counter and forgotten until it was discovered the next day and afforded a decent burial.

As Dr. Fugate worked feverously, farmers hitched up wagons and carefully loaded the injured aboard&emdash;dozens of them. Then the first wagons in the pitiful, waterlogged caravan slogged its way to Clinchport. By the time it arrived, the rescue train was already there--doctors and nurses from Bristol aboard. So the rescue effort went all afternoon and, by 5:30 p.m., the last of the injured had been loaded aboard the train, which, then, pulled out for Bristol.

King's Mountain Memorial Hospital's corridors were jammed with anxious parents looking after their injured young. The newspapers, on the other hand, were looking after a story. In the process rumor piled on rumor.

Frenzied journalists often reported anything they heard without first checking the facts. On May 4, two days after the disaster, the Kingsport Times reported that 19 were confirmed dead. It had even released the names of two children who were still alive! Some newspaper accounts, Knoxville's for instance, reported  the number the dead as 50.

Scott County Sheriff H.S. Culbertson finally sorted out the numbers. There was a total of 13 deaths (twelve students and one teacher) and 54 injuries. Ten had died at the scene, one died in a wagon on the way to Clinchport, one died on the rescue train between Clinchport and Bristol, and one died the next day in the hospital in Bristol. 

When word of the catastrophe at Rye Cove reached the rest of the world, donations poured in. The American Red Cross even built a permanent log cabin near the ruined school to render aid to families touched by the storm. That cabin still stands today, the hand-painted red cross still visible on the front door.

There was no school term in Rye Cove during 1929-1930. The new Rye Cove Memorial High
School opened in the fall of 1930 with A.S. Noblin, who had been pulled from the wreckage
of the old school, as principal. A bronze plaque, naming the thirteen victims, was placed
on the new building.

Their names are:

Callie Bishop, age 10, Rye Cove.
Monnie Bishop, age 8, Rye Cove.
Teacher Ava Carter, age 24, Rye Cove.
James Carter, 12, Rye Cove.
Polly Carter, age 18 , Rye Cove.
Lillie Lee Carter, age 12, Clinchport.
Bruce Cox, age 16, Gate City.
Bertha Mae Darnell, age 15, Rye Cove.
Guy Davidson, age 18, Rye Cove.
Bernice Fletcher, age 8, Rye Cove.
Monnie Fletcher, age 14, Rye Cove.
Emma Lane, age 6, Rye Cove.
Mille Stone, age 12, Rye Cove.

Twelve students and one teacher died at Rye Cove. The old bell from Rye Cove Consolidated School and the original bronze table, now stand just outside Rye Cove Intermediate School in a new memorial as a reminder of those terrible events almost 70 years ago.  And there is another reminder of that terrible day, this one preserved in shellac. A.P. Carter, patriarch of the Carter Family, the man so shocked at the carnage, went sadly home that night to Maces Springs. There he wrote a song about what he had seen. A few months later, he, Sara and Maybelle recorded their new disc for Victor Records --The Cyclone of Rye Cove--that vividly described the tragedy to an entire nation.

The tornado at Rye Cove belongs to area legend. According to one story on each May 2, the anniversary of the disaster, the roar of a ghostly wind, and the terrified screams and phantom children, still echo from nearby mountainsides and up the valley. It's as if they are saying;Never forget me. Don't forget.  The spirits have no need to worry. No one in Rye Cove has ever forgotten, nor are they likely to forget. Today, approaching storms are a signal to parents to hop in the car and remove their children from the two present Rye Cove schools.

Once nature had wiped out a large part of the future hope of the community. The residents of Rye Cove are determined that nature would never get the chance again.