25/12/2021
If you're interested in Hickman County History, here's a story of the 1917 cyclone, told to me this morning by my son Matt, who was told the story by Emma Johnson. More on Emma later, but she started the story by saying she had to clean the house (Emma House, we call it), which was undamaged but full of soot from the chimneys. The ladies' hats (remember it's 1917) were all on a table,the brims were full of soot, and Emma demonstrated flapping the hats to remove the soot. Why was Emma (a totally deaf, somewhat privileged young woman) left to clean the house? Her stepmother, Marion Perry Johnson (Marion Eblen was named for her) was working with the Red Cross and "Papa," Robert L. Johnson, was dealing with the bodies of those Hickman Countians killed by the cyclone. He had a furniture store (caskets), funeral business, and livery stable on the back side of the EHouse facing Crume Lane. (pictures to follow, maybe) Oh, one last thing: this is when the court house cupola was destroyed.