Photo has its happily ever after
Hope Tomkins lost almost everything in a tornado that destroyed her Iowa home in 2008.
“When we got to our house, there were three walls left standing,” said Tomkins, who was about 48 kilometres away in Iowa Falls when the tornado tore through her community in Parkersburg. “It was indescribable.”
The deadly tornado, which packed 330 km/h winds, left dozens injured and killed nine people, including five of Tomkins’s neighbours.
She lost most of her possessions. One that particularly stung was a photo of Tomkins’ grandparents on their wedding day in 1942, which Tomkins had proudly displayed in her living room.
“It was one of my most prized possessions,” she said. “I lived with my grandma and grandpa for a long time growing up. I have a lot of great memories.”
But nearly 16 years after the photo vanished with the wind, she got it back in what felt like an enormous stroke of luck.
Tomkins was scrolling through Facebook on Jan. 22, when she stumbled upon a post from the City of Parkersburg.
“Does anyone recognize this couple? One of the many unclaimed tornado items from over the years,” the post, which included a time-worn photo of a young couple, said. “Cleaning out the closet at city hall and we found this! Let’s see if we can locate the family of the couple in this photo!”
Tomkins paused in disbelief.
“I was like, ‘Wait a minute, I know them!’ ” she said.
“I was in so much shock when the picture popped up,” she said, adding that she immediately called Parkersburg City Hall to let them know the photo was hers. She also phoned her mother, Marcia Mull, whose parents are pictured. Mull was equally stunned.
Chris Luhring, Parkersburg city administrator, is the one who posted about the long-lost photo. He found it in a box of old items from the tornado that had
been unclaimed.
“I just could not get rid of it,” said Luhring, whose aunt died in the tornado.
“Not only do you lose people, but you lose priceless artifacts,” he said. “I felt like I possessed a treasure.”
After the tornado, the city set up a lost-and-found centre, he said, and people brought in items they found in the wreckage.
“We had thousands and thousands of things that had been recovered, and people turned things in from hundreds of miles away,” Luhring said.
That’s how the wedding photo landed in the city’s possession. Although Tomkins visited the lost and found on several occasions, she said, she never spotted the image of her grandparents, Maxine and Raymond Randall — both of whom grew up in Quarry.
“They met, fell in love and got married,” said Mull, who is the eldest of three siblings.
Her parents had a no-frills wedding, she said, adding that her mother wore a black dress because it was the only one she had. Their ceremony was at a local church, and there were just two people in attendance.
Luhring was glad to be able to get the photo back where it belongs.
“I’ve got a million stories from the tornado that are not good,” he said. “It’s nice to have this one.”