LENAWEE COUNTY, MI – It’s been nearly 58 years since tornadoes swept through parts of Branch, Hillsdale and Lenawee counties on Palm Sunday, destroying homes and businesses and killing 53 Michigan residents.
But the stories and photos of the F4 tornadoes that struck on Sunday, April 11, 1965 are still being shared today. Dan Cherry, a Lenawee County historian and author, has heard — and continues to hear — many of those stories, which he has published in books on the fateful storm.
In 2004, Cherry published “Night of the Wind,” a recounting of the stories told to him by more than 130 survivors of the storms in Lenawee and Hillsdale counties. Now, he’s updated and republished that book, adding more stories and photos.
Cherry is gearing up for his first signing of the new book from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, March 11, at the Hudson Carnegie District Library, 205 S. Market St. in Hudson. Others will take place in the near future, he said.
The project to update the book began in 2017 after the electronic files of the original book were lost.
“I saw that as an opportunity to take all the materials I had collected over the years,” Cherry said. “Because every time you do a book project, someone says, ‘If I knew you were doing a book, I would have given you this, or told you this.’”
The number of people who came to him to share their memories, or who dug out old photos, made it worth creating a more definitive book, he said.
“I recreated the book from scratch,” Cherry said.
“Night of the Wind” has been expanded from 263 to 432 pages. The original focused mostly on Lenawee County, but new interviews and photographs have been added to expand information about the effects of the tornadoes in Branch and Hillsdale counties, he said.
Read more: Peek Through Time: Killer Palm Sunday tornadoes strike Lenawee, Hillsdale, Branch counties in 1965
Several new interviews can be found in the book, including a story from a Tecumseh man who was a high school student then and remembers almost every detail of the storm.
“He and his boss worked at an airport and they had to secure it and hope the tornado did not do too much damage or destroy the airport,” Cherry said. “As it turned out, the tornado went just past the airport.”
While Cherry said many residents who survived the tornadoes find it painful to share, many others want the memories to live on.
“The interest has continued at the same level as it did back then (in 2004),” Cherry said. “I could not have imagined, I would still be talking about ‘Night of the Wind’ as an active project.”
New photos, many of which are in color, can be found in the updated book. He said he hopes these images bring a new viewpoint to the damage the tornadoes caused.
“Color printing has become more mainstream and therefore more affordable, which is something that we could not do with the original book back in 2004,” Cherry said. “A lot of the pictures from 1965, surprisingly, were in color, and a lot of people had taken pictures and packed them away. They were all just as colorful as the day they were taken.”
Cherry was also able to include National Weather Service diagrams of the storm’s path in the new book.
People who read the book can also learn what the response would be from weather forecasters, emergency management coordinators, police and other first responders if the 1965 tornados happened today, he said.
Those interested in purchasing a copy of “Night of the Wind” can reach him at bookguy91@gmail.com or through the 1965 Palm Sunday Tornado Michigan Facebook page.
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