From July 4th to July 12th I’ve posted 12 entries written by Erwin A. Thompson giving a historical perspective on the Mississippi River floodstages through the years. I sure hope you’ll have a chance to look through these as a series. It’s been a pleasure posting them. Hats off to my father, Erwin A. Thompson…
The first time that a flood really affected my life was the flood of 1943. That was one of the big ones. INBETWEEN ARKANSAS & TEXAS TRAINING CAMPS IN WORLD WAR II Ruth and I were coming home from our tour of duty at Camp Robinson, Arkansas. Our unit was being moved from that location…
In 1937 they closed the Alton Lock and Dam. This dam had been loudly touted as the last thing needed for flood control. I remember asking: “What are you going to do with the extra water coming down stream? Pump it out over the top?” “No, it will never happen,” was the answer. In 1973…
EVERGREEN HEIGHTS LAYOUT: The Hilltop & Bottom Lands…and the Field Roads HILLTOP A lesson in the topography of our property would be helpful in understanding how these changes in river levels affected us and the community. The Riehl farm at that time consisted of a hundred and fifty four acres. The original farm house (the…
Riehlife’s FLOODSTAGE SERIES continues with Erwin A. Thompson’s explanation of sandbagging, pumps and dumps, and fixing up houses after the water goes down. –JGR ________________________________________ In 1993 we had what they called the “five hundred year flood.” SANDBAGGING We tried sand bagging, there in the East Bottom, and it worked for awhile. But there are…
This is a continuation of the RIEHLIFE FLOODSTAGE SERIES written by Erwin A. Thompson. Read on! —JGR How We Got a New Garbageman, Because He Did the Right Thing in Hard Times by Erwin A. Thompson Garbage in any flood is a major problem and in the 1993 flood it was a problem for the…
DOG MIKE by Erwin and Ruth Thompson
River Bluffs I have lived on the bluffs that overlook the Mississippi River for all but the first nine months of my life. The family owned a good pair of field glasses, and they were one of my great experiences, to look through them and watch things like the building of the rafts when they…
Click here to read about how “Gems of Yesterday: The Poetry and Philosophy of Bee Lewis,” our latest book release, is being used as a community project. Yvonne Perry’s Writers in the Sky explains it pretty well. POD = Print on Demand
For those of you who know your geography and follow the news, you know that for the past month we’ve had flooding here in Missouri and Southwestern Illinois. Some of you have emailed me asking for updates since I haven’t posted about the flooding on Riehlife. My feeling was that I wanted to wait until…