One Weekend in Flint

It had been eleven weeks since the great tornado ripped through the suburbs of Flint, Mich., killing 113, injuring 547, and destroying $12 million worth of property (TIME, June 22). The residents of Beecher Township, hardest hit by the storm, had been struggling to rebuild their homes. But only foundations and a few frames stood among the ugly scars of destruction. Then, in less than 48 hours last weekend, Beecher Township rose from the ruins.

The idea was supplied by the Rev. Henry W. Berkemeier, pastor of the township's St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church. Most of the residents had insurance or could get loans to cover the cost of building materials, the priest reasoned, but would the citizens of Flint volunteer a weekend of their labor to do the rebuilding? The people of Flint responded with a spirit that seemed to match the force of the tornado.

Up from Foundations. Residents who wanted rebuilding aid (196 in all) registered with a civic committee and volunteer workers signed up with the Junior Chamber of Commerce. The owners finished the foundations, had building materials brought to the site. Building contractors supplied trucks, tools and supervisors. Restaurants prepared thousands of free box lunches. The Flint C.I.O. Council donated $1,500 to insure all the workers.

Not long after sunrise on Saturday, following a prayer by Father Berkemeier ("We ask You to bless our time and our talent that we may always use them as well, as unselfishly, as at this moment"), the volunteers went to work. They had come by bus, car, bicycle and on foot, not only from Flint but from Detroit, Dearborn and other cities. One high-school boy hitchhiked from Cleveland. Lawyers and bankers toiled next to laborers and tellers. C.I.O. worked with A.F.L, and both worked alongside non-unionists. Flint's old (78) Charles Stewart Mott, a multimillionaire director of (and once the largest single stockholder in) General Motors, came wearing a carpenter's apron and carrying his own hammer and nails. He was furious when a foreman refused to let him climb a ladder to nail roofing. "They think I'm too old," he stormed. "That's all nonsense. I can outwork half these guys, and I'm as handy with a hammer as the next one."

Into the Gym. When the weekend's work was done, 80 houses had been built from the foundation almost to completion, and at least 100 others had been advanced through several stages of construction. More than 4,000 volunteers had pitched in to donate 80,000 man-hours of labor that would have cost the tornado victims $160,000.

Sunday night the volunteers brought in an orchestra and danced in the Beecher school gymnasium, roofless since the tornado. The night was furnace-hot. Everyone had worked for two days in near-100DEG temperatures, and tomorrow was Monday. But no one seemed to mind. The rebuilders of Beecher Township felt just fine dancing under the stars.

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