Perils and Rescues on the Rivers of Warren County
Warren County
On June 14th and 15th of 1930, a flood raised the waters of South River in Warren County. A group of folks totaling five “walked down to the river to watch the rising floodwaters. On their way back to the Frank Nicholl farm home they were caught by a swift and tricky current that suddenly rushed across low places in the fields.” Three of them died. One got away safely and the fifth had to be rescued: “Mrs. Nicholl courageously held on to a fence post until she was rescued by her husband who rode into the water on horseback and threw a rope to his wife.”
In the same flood, two boys climbed a tree for safety from the rising floodwaters. While perched in the limbs of their refuge, the boys saw their dog float by beneath them. They were able to rescue the dog and all three companions then waited for the flood to subside from the safety of the tree.
Another rescue on one of the rivers of Warren county was not caused by treacherous floodwaters but rather by thin ice. Part of the Underground Railroad required people fleeing slavery to cross the Des Moines River at night. One chilly winter evening, a group of nineteen people crossed the frozen river on foot. One woman was crossing a plank over open water in a gap in the ice, when she lost her balance and fell in. While she must have been chilled to the bone, the book in which her story is told—John Brown and the Jim Lane Trail—simply says of her recovery: “Rescued, she continued the journey.”
During the June 4th flood of 1947, yet another rescue occurred. The Liester and Escher families found themselves in a predicament when they were “marooned with water a foot deep in their home.” A boat came to their rescue and all was going as planned “until the mooring chain slipped unnoticed out of the boat and caught on a wire fence. The power of the motor and the sudden stop capsized the boat, dumping the seven occupants of the boat into eight feet of water.”
Thankfully, one of the rescuers Rev. Mr. Cook grabbed two of the children and held them above the water. Mrs. Liester and the Escher children all had life preservers on, and “bobbed around” until Rev. Cook’s rescue partner, Charles Spurgin “secured the boat and then everyone was settled on top of the overturned boat.” Rev. Cook went to find back-up and all were eventually brought to safety.
Today, flood waters in Iowa continue to cause peril. And walking on thin ice still leads to danger. Just how dangerous these hazards are depends, in part, on how much access anyone has to search and rescue operations and the good will of neighbors and passers-by.
Sources: SHSI: Gerard Schultz and Don L. Berry, History of Warren County Iowa, Indianola, Iowa, 1953; Glenn Noble, John Brown and the Jim Lane Trail, Broken Bow, Nebraska, 1977.