Family counts blessings, friends in wake of loss

May 14, 2008 10:43 pm

— By Derek Spellman
dspellman@joplinglobe.com
RACINE, Mo. — They have found solace in numbers, even though the Peterson family members could just as easily have found despair in the numbers, if they chose to count only what they lost over the weekend.
They lost one loved one: Rockie Peterson, 64, the family patriarch and one of 14 lives claimed by Saturday’s tornado in Newton County.
They lost two barns and maybe a house. They lost two of the Boer goats that they raise for a living. They lost several small goat shelters. They have lost time spent cleaning up property that still resembles a war zone in some ways.
But Lori Peterson, Rockie Peterson’s daughter-in-law and business partner, said you can also find strength in the numbers — if you count what you still have.
The family members still have one another, she said. The tornado that killed Rockie Peterson could have easily killed the other three people who were with him at the time.
The Petersons still have the rest of their nearly 200 Boer goats. They still have a grain bin. They have 26 days until the American Boer Goat Association’s National Show in Tulsa, Okla., which the family has vowed to attend.
And they have lots of friends — who have shown up in force to help them rebuild this week.
“You definitely have to count your blessings,” Lori Peterson said Wednesday as she walked among the remnants of the family farmstead. “If you focus on what you have lost, you’ll get swallowed up.”
Cleanup and recovery
The land is scarred but slowly healing.
As a portable generator hums outside Lori Peterson’s home, coils of smoke twist upward from a pile of debris the family is burning. Wess Peterson and his brother are busy gathering downed limbs and brush, and feeding them to the flames.
Three operations are contained in the Peterson farmsteads near Falcon and Iris roads, northeast of Racine. Two of the three operations deal in the breeding and sale of goats. The third deals in equipment, such as pens, for goats and small stock.
The needs of the herd have been one source of help to the family, said Jan Smith, a family friend who drove down from Elkland to help.
“This is still a working farm,” she said, pointing out that the daily rhythms of work have helped the family keep going.
The road that climbs to the Peterson farmsteads is now passable, with downed trees and branches having been piled at the roadside. The remains of the barn where Rockie Peterson died have been largely cleared away. The Boer goats are safely corralled in rebuilt pens.
There were some solemn moments on Wednesday. There also were moments of robust laughter, such as when family members and friends joked about turning the hole in the roof of Lori and Wess Peterson’s house into a skylight, if it turns out the house is salvageable.
Seeking shelter
Rockie Peterson and his wife, and two of the couple’s three children lived in three dwellings around the farm properties. Lori and Wess Peterson live in one of the three. Carine Davis, the daughter of Rockie and Treva Peterson, lives in the third with her husband, Lael.
Of the three houses, the one inhabited by Rockie and Treva Peterson is the sturdiest.
So when Lori Peterson heard the severe weather approaching Saturday, she and her husband headed for his parents’ house, just a stone’s throw away. Rockie and Treva Peterson had been out doing chores by the barn between the two houses. Carine Davis and her husband were not at home when the storm hit.
The tornado hit before the four could reach the house, Lori Peterson recalled, and the couples fled into the barn amid roaring winds and whirling debris.
“The movie ‘Twister’ is fairly accurate,” Lori Peterson said when describing the conditions.
Just after they were inside, the wind tore the metal door from its hinges and hurled it against Wess Peterson, striking him in the head. Lori and Treva Peterson fell to the ground.
A huge tree then came crashing through the barn and crushed Rockie Peterson, killing him instantly.
The loss has been “devastating,” Lori Peterson said, but the family has tried to push on. She said the tornado easily could have killed all four of them.
“It humbles you,” she said of the experience. “It’s like, ‘Well, God still has a plan for me.’”
‘Special people’
Just after he heard what had happened to the Peterson family, Bill Ryals and his wife left their own Boer goat farm in Tylertown, Miss., and began the nearly 620-mile journey to Southwest Missouri.
Ryals got to know the Peterson family through the Boer goat industry and national shows. When the Ryals’ farm took a battering from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the Petersons were among those who helped them clean up, he said.
“I love them,” he said of the family. “They are good people, and they needed help. They still need help.”
Ryals said that while the damage wrought by Katrina was wider in scope than that of Saturday’s tornado, the individual pockets of devastation in Southwest Missouri were worse.
“It was, I think, a lot worse,” he said.
Ryals said he and his wife are among “a bunch of people” from several states, including Texas and Oklahoma, who came to help the Petersons rebuild. One friend brought a tractor to help push away debris, while others brought supplies that included food, portable generators and chain saws.
“They are special people,” Ryals said of the Peterson family.
Ryals described Rockie Peterson, the head of the family, as an affable man who was always willing to help someone else.
“He always had a smile on his face,” Ryals said. “He was just a good person.”
The help of friends is part of coping, Lori Peterson said.
There is something helpful about being humbled and allowing others to help at a vulnerable time.
“We couldn’t have gotten through it without our friends,” she said.


Rockie Peterson

Rockie Peterson was a veteran of the Army, a Green Beret during the Vietnam War. He spent 30 years as a systems engineer for IBM before he retired in 2006. He also operated Petersons’ Farms full time.
Graveside services for Rockie Peterson will be at 2 p.m. today at Veterans Cemetery in Springfield.

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