The Longwell Family Tragedy

  • Above: Devastation at the Bay – National Weather Service photo
    Above: Devastation at the Bay – National Weather Service photo
  • Above: Art Longwell, detail from a photo of the Table Rock Band, circa 1910
    Above: Art Longwell, detail from a photo of the Table Rock Band, circa 1910
  • It’s the Story Don’t you just love a good story? Better yet, one set in Pawnee County. Sharla Sitzman of Table Rock collects stories from yesteryear and yesterday.
    It’s the Story Don’t you just love a good story? Better yet, one set in Pawnee County. Sharla Sitzman of Table Rock collects stories from yesteryear and yesterday.

    Part 1 of 2 

    Let me start in the middle of the story.

    A Category 3 hurricane – equal to Katrina -- headed for Corpus Christi, Texas on Sunday, September 14, 1919. A Table Rock family had moved to a sea side neighborhood in Corpus Christi a few years before. The head of the household was Arthur M. Longwell, Table Rock Class of 1897, and he had a little family with a wife and two little girls. Ar…