Hallam residents rely on relationships to rebuild
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BY ERIN ANDERSEN / Lincoln Journal Star
We gather in Laura and Derek Dragoo’s kitchen. The table is new. As is the refrigerator, the window coverings, the stove, the table and chairs and the dishes. The walls are new-paint white. The white counter sparkles.
The homes of their neighbors and friends — Tim and Laura Edmonds, Paul Frerichs and Dawn Morris, Scott and Robin Likens, Joe and Vicky Polak — look much the same. Brand spanking new.
New is nice, they say. But they would much rather have their old homes, their old mortgages, their old stuff, their old lives — before May 22, 2004.
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Still, they feel lucky. Lucky to be alive. Lucky to be home again, surrounded by most of the same neighbors they had two years ago — before the F4 tornado ripped through Hallam leaving little but splinters of their lives and possessions.
For these families their Story of Home is not about the roof over their heads, the people living under that roof, the knickknacks on their shelves or the photos in their albums.
Home is their community — and the 153 people who still call Hallam home.
Our town feels like a family, says Laura Edmonds.
“We have our dysfunctional issues just like a family. But just like a family we know we are there for one another. We need one another. They are our strength,” she says.
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Hallam residents talk about their lives in two timelines: before the tornado, and after.
Founded 114 years ago, Hallam is a small town, where few bother to learn street names. Instead locations are identified by landmarks: the United Methodist Church, the United Congregational Church, the post office, the auditorium and so-and-so’s house. These days descriptions often contain a postscript: where the church used to be, where a family used to live.
Located smack-dab in the middle of the Lincoln-Crete-Beatrice triangle, Hallam was mostly just a place where some people live. Where they happened to have a house and slept at night — or so they thought.
“Prior to the tornado I went to work and came home. I didn’t talk to anybody,” recalls Dawn Morris. “Now I’m more likely to stop and talk with anyone I see.”
Hallam was that place along Hallam Road, where once you crested the hill you saw the tall trees protecting the community beneath its leafy green canopy.
Now the trees are gone.
“It’s the hardest thing topping the hill,” says Dawn.
“I still cry when I do,” adds Laura Dragoo.
Life as Hallam residents knew it, and expected it, all changed shortly before 9 p.m. May 22, 2004, when a storm blew in from the southwest.
Hallam residents, like much of southeast Nebraska, had kept an eye to the sky. But here, where tornadoes and bad weather usually veered around the town, people were confident that this, too, would pass them by.
Instead the storm socked Hallam full force and stayed awhile to finish the job, says Scott Likens, former Hallam mayor.
As warnings went out, Likens, a storm spotter, left his wife, Robin, and their then 14-month-old son Dillon at home to drive to rural points to watch the skies.
“I saw storm chasers from Oklahoma and knew something was up,” Scott recalls.
He called Robin: “Don’t argue with me; take Dillon and go to the basement.”
There was something in the tone of his voice that made her obey. She grabbed Dillon, who was wearing only a diaper. She was in shorts and a tank top — no shoes.
From below she heard the roar and breaking glass.
“I remember water and boards. … Brian Stimple came yelling for us. … I didn’t want to leave. Scott would come looking for us.
“They had to drag me out,” she says.
Dawn Morris and Paul Frerichs were having dinner at the Hitchin’ Post II when the storm hit.
They, along with restaurant employees and other customers, took shelter in a walk-in cooler.
Dawn remembers emerging from the restaurant cooler.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, where are we?’” she says, referring to the endless destruction.
Jessie Polak, then 16, who was waitressing at Hitchin’ Post II, decided to run the two blocks to her house and wait out the storm with her family.
She got as far as the auditorium when the air pressure changed.
“My instincts told me to find cover,” Jessie recalls. She crouched by the auditorium and curled her arms over her head. A falling brick hit her head leaving a gash that would require 10 staples to close.
By the time she reached home the door was blocked by debris. She jumped through a window.
Unaware of what was happening to his family, his home and his town, Scott continued to keep his post watching the storm. He joked to his fellow storm spotter that when it had all passed — as it always did — they would go downtown to the bar, “have a couple of drinks and hear stories.”
It took two hours to drive the two miles back into town.
Hallam was unrecognizable.
Still, they are grateful. Any other time of the night or any other night of the week it would have been much worse,” Paul says. “We would have lost a lot of people.”
Despite the destruction, many vowed to rebuild. Return.
“All I wanted to do was go home,” Laura Edmonds says.
In the days and months that followed, they picked through the ruins, deciding what to toss and what to salvage. They filled out mountains of paper work, battled with insurance companies and government agencies.
“It would have been easy to leave,” Paul says.
“But we like it here,” Dawn adds.
Hallam is a part of them.
There were times Laura Dragoo was ready to quit.
She recalls standing in the middle of her rental home sobbing because she didn’t have a can opener.
“I used a hammer and a screwdriver to open a can of green beans,” she remembers. She can laugh now, sort of.
What often kept them going were the volunteers and strangers who came from faraway places to give a teddy bear, write a check and pick up the pieces.
“There were so, so many people,” Laura Dragoo says. Especially that group from McCook, who saw her reach the breaking point and sit down and quit.
“I told the guys, ‘I’m done. I can’t do this,’” she recalls.
She expected those volunteers to do the same, or leave. But they kept on working.
“Those people were stinkin’ determined,” she says with a grateful laugh.
It’s that pioneer spirit. That pioneer tenacity that kept them going, and brought them back, Laura Edmonds says.
It’s good to be home, but it’s not the same. Not yet.
Ask what they miss and the list is long. Topping it is the trees.
“We had such a wonderful canopy,” laments Laura Edmonds.
If you look at old pictures of Hallam, the town looks like the Garden of Eden, adds Tim, her husband.
It was a plush town.
The trees did more than offer shade and beauty.
“The trees absorbed the noise,” Tim says.
They buffered the wind.
Now when it rains,the sound is deafening as it splashes on roofs and windows.
“Before the storm you heard the trees talking. Nowadays you hear cars starting across town,” Tim says.
“I miss the older people,” says Laura Dragoo.
Before the storm Hallam was a mix of old, middle-aged and young. After the storm, many of the older folks decided it was too hard to rebuild and start over.
Only three individuals over 80 are left in town.
But life goes on. Renews. Returns.
“We’ve got finches finally,” says Paul. And Tim has seen a few hummingbirds.
Laura Dragoo is even excited to see a green weed grow in the dirt.
Laura Edmonds pauses and says, “It’s happening a little at a time. Those little green leaves will someday protect us again.”
But it will take time — a long time.
“Some days it’s OK, and some days it is so darn painful,” Paul says.
“It hasn’t been until these last few months that it is beginning to feel like home,” Laura Dragoo says.
“Home is more than a house,” she offers as explanation. “It’s the people.”
And, eventually, Laura Dragoo says: “We will have a brand-new town that is closer than it ever was before.”
Reach Erin Andersen at 473-7217 or eandersen@journalstar.com.Meet the families
The focus: Community of Hallam
Participating families:
Tim and Laura Edmonds
Derek and Laura Dragoo
Scott and Robin Likens
Paul Frerichs and Dawn Morris
Joe and Vicky Polak and their children Jessie and Zach.
The artist: Larry Roots
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