Banners honor victims of 1935 flood

Nancy Knuth of Oxford grew up listening to stories of the Republican River Flood of 1935.

Nancy's father helped build sandbag walls against advancing flood waters. "He went into the water that night to help a family," Nancy said.

"Living in a small community of Oxford, we all heard the stories," Nancy said. Some stories -- even 75 years later -- take her breath away. A mother and father, and their four little daughters. Another mother and father, their youngest child just a baby, the mother's sister. A father and a son ... their widows who never remarried.

To pay tribute to the people whose lives were swept away with the Republican's violent flood waters on that May 31 in 1935, Nancy has spearheaded an effort she calls "Republican Valley Flood Remembered" to easily identify the graves of the 113 people who died when too much rain fell too fast and the Republican raged out of its banks.

Nancy has created white vinyl banners to be placed over the graves on Monday, Memorial Day, the 75th anniversary of the devastating Republican River Valley flood. Nancy said she'll give the banners to family members or to cemetery caretakers, those who may want to reuse them each year.

Nancy started her banner project in January, with a list of flood victims provided by a classmate, Bob Mitchell of Edison. "It was a record of the deceased from each town," Nancy said. "It wasn't a perfect list," so she went looking for the names of more victims.

The first step involved the Oxford Cemetery Board contacting town and village officials up and down the river, requesting the names of flood victims buried in their cemeteries. The search started in Seibert, Colo., and St. Francis, Kan., and ended up near Republican City and Bloomington, Nebraska, just before the Republican enters Kansas.

Nancy said she was especially impressed with the help she got from Elza Doak, a City of McCook employee who researched flood victims in McCook's cemeteries, and with Bill Hardwick, who researched Benkelman-area cemeteries.

Nancy has identified 68 grave markers all along the river, several of which mark the resting place of more than one victim, such as the Wallace family marker in Riverview Cemetery in McCook. The single stone reads: "Bernard J. Wallace, wife Delores and four daughters, died May 31, 1935 in flood."

Another stone, in Memorial Park Cemetery in McCook, marks the single grave of Edwin Colver and his 6 1/2-year-old son, George.

On Monday, May 31, the 75th anniversary of the Republican River flood -- and, this year, Memorial Day as well -- each of the graves that Nancy has located will be marked with a vinyl banner identifying its occupant(s) as a victim(s) of the Republican River flood of 1935.

Travis Bieker of Acme Printing in McCook assisted with the design of the banner; McCook National Bank paid for the banners.

It's appropriate that the victims of the Republican River flood be identified, honored and remembered, on the anniversary of the flood and on Memorial Day. As time goes by, those who lost their lives in the flood become no more than a list of names.

"This is not just a list of dead people," Nancy said. They were real people who lived, whose families loved them and missed them when they were gone. Nancy said, "They were people whose lives were changed forever by the flood."

Towns/cemeteries and people involved in Nancy's project include:

Haigler, Marilyn Banister; Benkelman, Bill Hardwick; McCook, Kyle Potthoff and Elza Doak; Stratton, Brett Johnson; Cambridge, Shirley Houlden; Arapahoe, Dallas Garey; Beaver City, Jim Wenburg.

Elwood, Kathy Leggott; Edison, Rod Best; Highland-Union Cemetery, Jeannie Jordan.

Carter, Gary Peterson; Orleans, Merle Arntz; Franklin, Tom Paulsen; Holdrege, Mona Cohagan; and Upland, Barbara Casper; and Kearney.