Church found a future in 1982 tornado’s ruins

Rev. Jerry Ward looks at a brick from the church sanctuary destroyed by the Merna tornado. (Pantagraph, Bob Holiday)

Friday, August 24, 2007 10:59 PM CDT

By Bob Holliday
bholliday@pantagraph.com

MERNA — Judd Stover was sitting in the Merna Tap, a small-town watering hole, with friends one early afternoon when he noticed the weather turning bad.

It was so bad outside that he feared the large windows on the front of the tavern would shatter, flinging glass inside.

“We got around a pool table and were ready to get under it,” Stover said as he sat in the same tavern earlier this week, reminiscing about Aug. 24, 1982, the day a tornado struck Merna, a small cluster of houses and a couple of businesses just east of Bloomington.

Among the things Stover recalled was a back door of the tavern blowing open.

“Maybe that depressurized the building,” Stover said.

As quickly as the bad weather arrived, it left.

“Before we could even head out to look, a guy came to the door and said, ‘You’ve got to come out and see this,’” Stover said.

Stover was saddened by what he saw: The nearby St. Patrick Church of Merna was destroyed.

Though nobody was killed, twisters that day in Central Illinois cut a path of destruction through McLean, Ford and Macon counties, hitting Merna hard. Within McLean County, extensive storm damage also was reported in Colfax, Anchor, Ellsworth, Arrowsmith and Heyworth.

The damage estimate for McLean County alone was at least $2 million, not including crop damage.

Pantagraph archives indicate tornadoes were confirmed near Merna and just north of Illinois 9 on the LeRoy-Lexington Blacktop.

Angela Bergin is another Merna-area resident who has vivid memories of that day.

She was working in Bloomington when she heard about the tornado destroying her church.

She lived within a stone’s throw of the church and frantically called home but couldn’t get through.

When she and her husband, Jim Bergin, arrived home they saw their minister at their door.

“He immediately told us the children were OK,” she said.

The church was rebuilt about five miles to the west of Merna, on donated land at Illinois 9 and Towanda Barnes Road on Bloomington’s east edge. The original site remains an open field today.

Were tornadoes sign from God?

The Rev. Jerry Ward, current pastor of St. Patrick, said the church’s membership has grown tremendously over the past 25 years.

Ward was an assistant at another church when the tornado struck, but he remembers driving out to look at the damage.

“I felt sad,” he said.

He knows that what most people remember about the tornado is that it leveled the church while leaving the nearby tavern untouched.

“Maybe it was a sign from God that the church had to move,” he said.

Louis Saunier remembers that long-ago afternoon like it was yesterday.

At the time, Saunier was Cooksville’s Emergency Services and Disaster Agency director.

Though the tornado caused some property damage in Cooksville, Saunier is thankful nobody was killed.

Stover, who still lives just north of Merna, is thankful as well.

“I don’t dwell on it, but it scared all of us,” he said.