1967 Tornado Remembered With Tears, Toasts and Tributes

OAK LAWN-HOMETOWN, IL -- Oak Lawn and Hometown residents took a moment to remember where they were 50 years ago when a devastating tornado hit the area at approximately 5:30 p.m. on April 21, 1967.

Lee Mulchrone gathered in front of his childhood home with about 100 neighbors in the 9000 block of Corcoran Road, where 50 years ago the tornado sliced off a corner of Hometown. His smart aleck older brother Ed painted “For Sale, Real Cheap” across the duplex that had been decimated by the twister. The photo became famous when it landed on the front page of the Suburbanite Economist, and was widely distributed across the region and nation as statement of Southsiders’ resilience in the face of nature’s wrath.

Neighbors and childhood friends bowed their heads for a moment of silence as the bells of Our Lady of Loretto Church tolled at the precise moment the tornado struck. Hoisting beer bottles and plastic glasses filled with champagne, Mulchrone led his old neighbors and childhood friends in a sentimental toast.

“A toast to the tornadoes, a toast to friends and family who’ve passed, to the friends and family that are here, and the friends and family that are yet to come,” Mulchrone said. “We’ll see you here in the next 50 years.”

Tributes also poured in at the Oak Lawn Public Library for the opening of the year-long “Voices in the Wind” multi-media exhibit commemorating the the tornado’s 50th anniversary. Library director Jim Deiters asked the more than 500 in attendance to observe “33 seconds of silence” for the 33 people who died in the 1967 tornado.

Therese O’Hara, who was 9 years old, remembered the volunteers who pulled her sisters and mother out of the rubble of their home in the 9000 block of Corcoran Road in Hometown.

“They ran through broken glass and around downed power lines to get us,” O’Hara said.

O’Hara said her mother, Rose, shielded her young daughters in the family room of their 1950’s era Hometown duplex. Like many homes in the area that did not have basement, residents rode the tornado out in hallways, bathrooms and closets. Her sister, Jan, who was eight at the time, was so frightened she wouldn’t get down on the floor. Their mother kept Jan from getting sucked into the air by hanging to Jan’s pants.

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