The weather was strange on May 9, 1927, as Grace Garner and her small son left the train depot in downtown Poplar Bluff after saying good-bye to a cousin from St. Louis.
The sky had a peculiar brassy look, Garner remembered later when she recorded the story for her family, including daughter, Martha Albers of Poplar Bluff. It was cold, with a strong wind and a black cloud sitting over the western horizon.
Sitting in the family Oldsmobile on Main Street, the 26-year-old made a split-second decision to turn toward her husband's General Motors dealership on Broadway instead of heading home with her son, Allen.
The pair ran through the doors of the business with her father-in-law shouting, "It's a tornado," as customers and employees fled to the interior of the building.
"It happened so fast and it was so dark, you couldn't see your hand in front of your face," Garner recalled at age 89.
The young mother knelt next to a sturdy brick south wall and tried to use her own body to shield her 2-year-old son.
"I remember hearing the glass windows shatter and blow in, and the cars in the showroom just whirling around, and of course, there was glass everywhere," Garner said.
The three minutes it took the twister to destroy much of a 40-block section of downtown Poplar Bluff felt like an eternity for mother and son.
"I remember just praying, 'Oh dear Lord, don't let me crush my little boy.' I didn't pray to live. I didn't dream I would live. I just didn't want to kill my child," Garner said.
Just as Garner felt debris strike her head and feared the worst, the sky began to lighten.
She thought the trouble had passed, before she stepped outside.
The Garners' dealership sat on Broadway, near Poplar Street, right at the center of the worst of the devastation.
There were 98 deaths and approximately 300 injuries recorded 91 years ago today.
The event occurred before modern methods of gauging the size of tornado, but an F5 twister can throw cars around and level a strong home. It carries winds of up to 318 mph.
"We escaped injury, and I'll never know how," Garner later told her family. "I didn't have a scratch and little Allen wasn't hurt at all. I don't remember him making one sound."
Cars on the showroom floor near the mother and child had been moved, and all of the plate glass windows were blown in.
As Garner and her child tried to leave the building, she was shocked to see water running down Broadway "like a river" and rain pouring down.
A passing man warned Garner to stay inside because live electric wires were down everywhere. He also reported that her husband, Allen, was alive and at the intact Toellner's Bakery.
"People were leaning out of the windows of the hotel rooms above us, screaming and crying for help," Garner said of the sturdy, brick Gibbons Hotel.
The Oldsmobile she had fled minutes earlier sat outside, crushed under a pole.
People would flood the downtown with shovels and helping hands, trying to rescue the injured and recover the dead, other survivors would later recall.
Donations also came from around the country for the recovery effort.
By August of that year, some businesses were able to reopen and reconstruction of others was underway, according to historical accounts.
Damage was estimated at the time of between $2.5 million and $5 million. This would equal $34.8 million to $69.7 million today, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
For many years after, Garner said she was terrified of storms. As a devout Catholic, she would recite a verse of Scripture, "I will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for Thou Lord only makest me dwell in safety," until the fear passed.
Garner died at age 94, but her memories of that day have been handed down to her great-great-grandchildren.
The family repaired their downtown dealership and in 1929, daughter Martha would be born. Garner's husband continued to sell Chevrolets from that location until the 1940s.
"My mother was pretty faithful and she took this as God looking out for them," said Martha Albers, who continues to pass her mother's memories of that day down to new generations.
Garner's son Allen, passed away six months ago, serving as a minister in Lexington, Kentucky.