The ‘50’ Hurricane

This is how this hurricane has always been referred to in Cedar Key, and still is even though it was named ‘Easy’. There are quite a few folks still living that survived this horrific storm, and they remember it well.

Rose Campbell, daughter-in-law, Ilene Campbell, Wesley Campbell her son
 and Sarah Campbell granddaughter

My sister-in-law, Ilene Campbell lived here at this time. She and her family were one of the families that lost everything. My father-in-law, H. B. Haven heard on the news that Cedar Key was getting a direct hit from the storm.

He packed as many tools, and supplies as he thought he might need and filled jugs with water and packed up food that didn't have to be cooked. He loaded as much as he could possibly get into the car and a small trailer headed out, it was quite a long trip in those days.

He was a welcome sight when he arrived at their place; they had already begun to salvage whatever they could, which was not much. He unloaded the food and water, and while everyone was eating; plans were made as to how the re-building would proceed.

Left to right
tennant, Faye and Papa Haven

It was decided that Mr. Haven would take Ilene and the children back to his home in Lake Wales for awhile, whatever the length of time this was I do not remember. Varnell, Ilene’s husband was a boat builder and a very good carpenter as well as being a local fisherman.

They began to re-build I also do not remember how long it took before they had the home rebuilt enough that the family could move back in and start over, but eventually this was accomplished.

In 1950 I was eleven years old and I lived in Holmes County, in the Florida Panhandle, but I do remember this storm, and even though we didn't get anywhere near the full brunt of it; we were effected by high winds of the outer bands.

At what point and where the hurricane was located at the time I don't know, we had very little communication from the outside world. We'd had electric lines strung through our part of the country in 1948 and we had electric lights, but had no electrical appliances.

Our only way of receiving communication was from a battery powered radio that sometimes picked up and sometimes it didn’t.

I do know that by water it is 90 miles from Cedar Key to the Saint Marks light, and from there to where I lived it is approximately 100 miles depending on the route you take by highway, however as the crow flies I have no idea, but it would likely be somewhat less.

Map of Florida

My daddy was a logger and a farmer, and he was in the woods working when the storm clouds began to appear. My mother was a very strong woman in many ways, but she was terrified of lightning and storms.

Kerosene Lamp

We hurried to bring in firewood and several buckets of water, shut the chickens in the hen house, and the animals in the barn. Make sure the lamps were filled with kerosene and the globes were clean. Mother still cooked on an old wood stove, and it is difficult to cook a meal with wet wood.

The sky began to turn a weird tin foil color with a faint yellowish tinge; Mother’s fear began to rise because she knew it was going to be a bad one. Her greatest fear was the possibility of a tornado, but she didn't tell us kids this, at least at that time.

She continued to hurry us along to get everything done that we possibly could in preparation. By the time we got it done to her satisfaction the winds were howling and the bolts of lightning were fierce and sizzling with great peals of rumbling thunder following. 

LIGHTNING

She gathered us four children into the center of the house which was just inside the door of the front bedroom.

She sat us down in a small huddle and piled mattresses on top of us. The mattresses were not heavy, she had made them with cotton from our fields, but it was dark and it got pretty hot under there, but she would not let us come out.

She walked the floor and cried out to God for our safety. I had heard my mother pray many times, but never like this! She would cry out, oh God, spare my children’s lives, if you have to take a life take mine, but please Lord, spare my children. It was a frantic and desperate prayer!

My brother Neal, four years younger than me and I have laughed and talked about this many times since, and have often wondered what in the world we would have done if we had lost our mother during that fierce storm.

Thankfully we all survived, and our home survived for many years afterwards. I think we lost some tin off the roof and we had some leaks till daddy got it repaired. I learned many years later how difficult it was for the other folks in Florida and especially Cedar Key; because later in life I lived here for thirty five years.