Cyclone season hits Silver Spring

Eighty-five years ago, this block of Bonifant St. was named Oak Ave. (and even before that, Laura Rd.). Present-day Dixon and Ramsey avenues that intersect Bonifant St. were named Maple and Cedar avenues respectively. Situated on these bucolically named streets were once dozens of brick and wood-frame bungalows constructed during the 1920s and 1930s in what is still known as the E. Brooke Lee Addition to Silver Spring.

The occupants of these humble abodes were attracted to many of the same amenities (proximity to jobs, shopping, entertainment, and public transportation) enjoyed by those of us who live in or near downtown Silver Spring eight-plus decades later. Yet, on Thursday, April 5, 1923, many in this small neighborhood probably wished they had lived somewhere else. At approximately 3:00 that afternoon, an unprecedented tornado tore through the neighborhood, injuring four people, destroying five houses, and partially wrecking a dozen others, but miraculously killing no one.  

The twister approached Silver Spring from the southwest, arcing across the north end of Rock Creek Park in the District of Columbia. Approaching the Falkland mansion, constructed in 1854 by Montgomery Blair, the tornado only slightly damaged the roof. Damage to the grounds, however, was extreme, with more than 50 shade trees that surrounded the hilltop mansion being uprooted. Thirty-five years later, the property suffered far more destruction than any tornado could cause when all were literally leveled between 1958 and 1959 for construction of the then- named Blair Plaza Shopping Center. (See Silver Spring: Then & Again, September, 2003).

Upon leaving Falkland, the tornado reached its greatest velocity, obtaining an estimated wind speed of 100 to 200 miles per hour. Jumping the tracks of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (today's CSX/Metro), the tornado slammed into 1108 Oak Ave., owned by meat cutter Joseph Stecklein and his wife Catherine. The destructive force of the winds completely tore off the roof as well as the home's brick facade.

Sixteen year-old Florence Davis was as that moment walking to her home at 1106 Oak Ave., next door to the Steckleins, with her friend Delma Stanley.  Both girls were lifted from their feet and thrown against a fence more than fifty feet away. Neither was injured.

The tornado next hit Stecklein's neighbor's house across the street. Occupied by William M. Cowell, a carpenter, and John C. Cowell, a bricklayer, the roof of 1109 Oak Ave. was blown away, as was the home's west façade facing the railroad tracks.  

Far more dramatic was what happened to nurse maid Leena Warren. Warren was preparing to give two-and-a-half year old Margie Dudley, daughter of Dr. & Mrs. Frederick E. Dudley Jr., a bath when the wood frame home at 8404 Maple Ave. seemed to rise and pitch forward as though it was going to sink into the ground.  Warren was thrown through a doorway leading into another room with Margie flung in the opposite direction.

Margie was found moments later toddling on Maple Ave. in front of the house. It was thought that the youngster was pitched to the floor when the house shook and then slid through the front door to the ground when the house tilted forward. The child was picked up by a passing neighbor and carried to safety. The April 6, 1923 Evening Star reported that Margie was "apparently unalarmed" by the incident while Warren was "scratched and shocked."

The Dudley's home, as well as most of the others in the neighborhood, was less then one year old when the tornado hit.  Having just moved in three weeks earlier, Dr. Dudley was quoted in the Evening Star, "We had watched it eagerly and hourly during the course of its construction and we were just getting comfortably settled." Dr. Dudley didn't remain in the home long, for by 1927 he is listed in the Polk's Washington Suburban Directory as residing at 618 Sligo Ave.

Seventy-nine year later, memories of the tornado were still vivid to Nellie Hewitt Stinchcomb when I conducted an oral history with her in 2002. Nellie, daughter of Captain Frank L. Hewitt, lived in a large home known as "The Elms" that was located on the west side of the Brookville & Washington Turnpike (today's Georgia Ave.). Gist Blair, son of Montgomery Blair, originally constructed the home in the late 1890s. The home was demolished circa 1932 for construction of the Silver Spring Post Office at 8412 Georgia Ave.  

I'll let Mrs. Stinchcomb (more familiarly known as "Sis") tell her story:

"I remember it well. I was out in the breakfast room. All of a sudden, the wind started blowing. The maid, or the nurse it was I guess, was with [my brothers] Jimmy, Billy, Dick, and me. We had a back stairway right there off the breakfast room.  She dragged us into the stairway and closed the door, but the glass in the window up above broke and all came down on our heads. It just seemed as if it was over in no time...

"The yardman was out in the yard and he ran in the garage. The garage had been a barn and it had the top on it and it was made into a garage. And it had the seven-passenger Buick in there because daddy had gone to Rockville [in another car]. He was coming down the road and he got as far as Sligo, which was the intersection of Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road, and he couldn't come down any further. So, he had to walk on down.  I guess he ran down then to see how everybody was and we were all right. The man in the garage said that the back end of that Buick went right straight up in the air and it came back down and didn't damage the car at all."

The tornado indeed was "over in no time." The Evening Star reported that in spite of lasting less than a minute, the tornado left a path of destruction of an estimated 600 feet wide and a quarter of a mile long.  Damages totaled over $100,000 -- $1.5 million today.  

All of the homes were eventually rebuilt but none could withstand that other tornado known as redevelopment. By the 1950s this neighborhood of bungalows with front porch swings, neighbors talking over back yard fences, and kids playing out on the sidewalks quickly succumbed to commercial development. The Cowell home is today occupied by the law offices of Greenberg & Bederman, constructed in 1963 with an address of 1111 Bonifant St.  The Stecklein, Davis, and Dudley homes, along with eight others, were torn down in the late 1970s to erect the two parking garages.  

Only three homes remain from this old neighborhood, yet you would never know if you looked at them. Buried inside today's 8403, 8405, and 8407 Ramsey Ave., across from the Silver Spring Metro parking lot, are three brick bungalows. The original facades have been replaced and the spaces in between filled in, but if you look at the side of 8407, you will see the original chimney of the house. Walk around to the back, and the rears of the three bungalows are readily apparent. Bricked-up windows stare out into what had been the deep back yard of 1107 Oak Ave., now replaced by the multiple decking of Public Parking Garage #5.