Survivor of 1958 Kansas tornado considers donating artifacts from incident
BUTLER TWP — Although she doesn’t remember what happened the evening of June 10, 1958, Isabelle Stephens wants to make sure other people know what happened in El Dorado, Kansas, when a tornado touched down near the town at around 5:45 p.m.
The 140-mile-per-hour winds swept up the vehicle of the visitor from Johnstown, throwing its occupants, Stephens and Al, her husband at the time, more than 500 feet from where they had been on the ground. They never made it to Stephens’ Aunt Bertha’s home in Winfield, Kan., the couple’s initial destination.
The tornado was one of the most deadly to hit the area at the time. It claimed the lives of 13 people and injured more than 80 as it tore a 350-yard swath through the Graham Addition in southwest El Dorado, according to Kansas Tourism.
Now nearing the 68-year anniversary of the tornado, Stephens, who has lived in Butler Township since 1982, said she is considering donating some of the remnants of the incident to El Dorado, Kan. The only artifacts she still has from the incident are the shoes and the watch she was wearing at the time, the latter of which is broken, its arms still pointing toward 5:45, when she would have been thrown from her car.
She already returned to the Midwest city several times, including for the 50-year anniversary in 2008, when a monument to the 1958 tornado was dedicated in the city’s Graham Park. Stephens also published a book about the event in 2009, “A Life That Almost Wasn’t,” which documents the tornado and its effect on her life.
Stephens turned 92 years old May 21. She said she hopes to get back to El Dorado soon, although the fact that she made it out of there alive is already an accomplishment.
“Now would be a good time to get back to Kansas, either for my birthday or for the (anniversary) celebration,” Stephens said. “I've been out to Kansas many times, not scared, but I wanted to show them I could walk.”
Over the years, Stephens has pieced together the events of June 10, 1958, through talking to people who interacted with her after the tornado and through her ensuing recovery. She has met the doctor and several nurses who treated her at the El Dorado hospital, and other people who witnessed the tornado or were affected by it.
The one person she has still never been able to identify is the man who found her unconscious body and put her in the back of his pickup truck to get her from the muddy ground to Allen Memorial Hospital.
“There was a gentleman going home from work, and he couldn’t get home because his house was struck and traffic and police was where his house was,” Stephens said. “There I was, lying, no clothes, just my shoes. They were full of mud. I didn’t remember any of this.”
Stephens’ then-recent groom was found in another location, but he apparently moaned when first responders located him. He was taken to a hospital in Wichita, Kan., Stephens said.
The couple’s honeymoon trip turned into a different kind of journey — one that almost ended for Stephens on the hospital table. She explained that the doctors thought she was deceased on arrival, but a nurse suggested they place a mirror under her nose before making a call.
Steam formed on the glass, prompting doctors and nurses to treat Stephens.
“They took me to intensive care and started tests and everything, but they couldn’t get no blood pressure, they couldn’t get nothing. They still didn’t know who it was,” Stephens said. “The husband was trying to say he was from Johnstown. He had a broken shoulder and a concussion.”
Stephens was finally identified when first responders found the license plate from her car, although she doesn’t know what became of the vehicle. “It was rolled up like a cigarette,” she said, and the identification prompted her husband at the time to be transferred to her hospital, so they would be in the same place.
The injuries Stephens suffered left her right side severely damaged. She said doctors thought she would never walk again.
It took about a year for Stephens to reach a point of recovery from the tornado. Even when she returned to her home in Johnstown in September, she still couldn’t walk. But Stephens eventually walked again, and would meet her doctor back in El Dorado, Dr. Johnson, who would give her a proper tour of the city and the places her unconscious body had already been through.
“He got into the car, drove me to the hospital, drove me in and said, ‘There’s where you were,’ and showed me some of the doctors, showed me some of the nurses, and they all had something to do with it,” she said.
At 5:30 p.m. June 10, 2008, members of the El Dorado Rotary Club dedicated a memorial to the 13 victims who lost their lives in the 1958 tornado. The memorial was built with funds raised by the club. It features 13 pillars and a wind harp that captures the wind’s soft melody, according to Kansas Tourism.
When she spoke at the 50-year anniversary dedication, Stephens was a figure people still remembered.
“In ’08, They announced my name as the speaker, and afterward, a line of people came up and said, ‘I remember you,’” Stephens said.
Several news publications and weather research organizations have written about the tornado of 1958. Sources note that the tornado brought with it hail that was the size of “small oranges.” The weather destroyed more than 200 homes in its wake.
Stephens said the tornado was the biggest life-changing event she experienced, and her life would have been totally different if she wasn’t swept up in its winds. But as she writes in her 2009 book, the surprises have not kept her from having an enjoyable life.
“My life has been filled with surprises,” Stephens wrote in her book. “But these surprises have been embroidered into an enjoyable routine that I have settled into over the years.”
