Jo Ann Lux

Written Memory

June 26, 2012

My mother-in-law was in her seventies and taking care of my husbands mentally handicapped daughter, because we were out of town. Her home was on Rapid Creek, directly across the creek from what is now the Meadowbrook Golf Course Clubhouse. She was alone with Vickie, who was asleep in a back bedroom on a foam rubber mattress. As the water began to rise in her house she went to the bedroom and saw that the mattress was floating. Vickie was a big girl and my mother-in-law couldn't lift her so she grabbed hold of the mattress, pushed it in a corner and hung on the rest of the night. By then, the neighbors son in law had assessed the situation, climbed on the roof of that house and stayed there the rest of the night talking to her through an open window, encouraging her to hang on. The water began to recede when it reached her chin. They all were okay. This story appeared in a 1972 Readers Digest and is written today by Jo Ann Lux from the best of my memory.

And here is a funny story---my husband kept his extra dollars in a sock in his dresser drawer . My mother knew this and when they could get to our house, which was flooded, she waded through the mud inside, got the sock, took it home and hung the dollars on her clothes line to dry. We returned that day from our vacation to utter devastation but some dry extra money!