JOPLIN, Mo. —
Thursday morning, Natalie Mauller-Smith got an unexpected piece of her childhood back.
Having grown up in a home just off South Connecticut Avenue in the 1900 block of East 17th Street, she graduated in 1998 from Joplin High School, and went on to attend and graduate from Pittsburg (Kan.) State University.
It was there that she was acknowledged by the Modern Languages and Literatures Department as the “Meritorious Achievement in Spanish of 2006,” and given a small award fashioned from marble and brass.
It, along with most everything she and her mother, Cindy Mauller, owned, was presumed lost in the May 22 Joplin tornado.
“I had moved back in with my mom three years ago,” she said. “I was just divorced, my dad had just died, and I was expecting my daughter, Claire.”
The tornado leveled their home and one in the 2500 block of South Kansas Avenue that Mauller-Smith had inherited from her dad and she maintained as a rental. The family escaped without physical injury.
BLOWN AWAY
With the home went much of her childhood, scattered near and far, or lost among piles of debris.
Then one recent day Dave Stanton, a safety officer with the Corps of Engineers who hails from Portland, Ore., was working in the area and noticed something shiny on the ground.
It was Mauller-Smith’s award.
He contacted public affairs officials with the Corps of Engineers, who in turn contacted officials at PSU to see if they could track her down.
“We come down here, we do great things and it’s our pleasure, but this is the most important event I’ve had on this trip,” he said.
PSU was happy to assist, and Thursday, Stanton and a few U.S. Army Corps of Engineer colleagues gathered in the now bare foundation of the home on East 17th Street to return the award to Mauller-Smith, accompanied by her daughter and mother.
Mauller-Smith, who is getting married on Saturday and will begin a new job teaching Spanish and English at Chetopa, Kan., in August, said, “This is the perfect wedding gift. It’s like getting part of my history back that helps me remember why I do what I do.”
The PSU Spanish program is the “whole reason I became a teacher,” she said. “I am overwhelmed and very, very thankful. I can’t ever replicate this. There are no words to describe. It just — it reminds me of why I do what I do.”
LESSONS
When asked if there are any lessons from the tornado that she will pass on to her students this fall, Mauller-Smith said, “Yes. I’ll tell them that a house can be rebuilt, you can buy a new car, but it’s the lives that matter.”
“I’m starting a new life, I’ll have a new husband and a new job, a new beginning. It’s the tough things that make you stronger. And when you think there’s nothing left that’s good in humanity, look around.”
Her mother, meanwhile, already has blueprints ready to rebuild the home and is happy that one thing on the site still remains: Knock-out rose bushes the mother and daughter planted in memory of their husband and father.
After presenting the award to Mauller-Smith, Stanton said he was touched because he realized it might be the only memory she has from her time in that home.
“We have compassion, and we are very meticulous,” he said. “If we find something of value, that may be all they have left. As human beings we understand that because we can imagine how it might feel if we were in that position. It’s a personal connection.”
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