100 Years Ago: Alton Couple Stuck on Front Porch During Summer Storm

Midwesterners out on their porch during a storm isn’t normally front-page news, but it was at least once in Alton. William and Sally Loudon had recently moved into 618 Union Street when they got stuck on their porch during a bout of awful weather. A June 19, 1926 page one article in the Alton Evening Telegraph described their June 16 ordeal.

Wednesday night, during heavy rain, after the Loudons had gone to bed, they decided that a rug on the porch should be moved since it was definitely going to get wet if it stayed where it was. Mr. Loudon went out to the porch in his pajamas. The wind was so strong that it blew the chairs around the porch, and one chair slammed into a window and cracked it. The noise scared Mrs. Loudon, so she went onto the porch to check on her husband. The wind closed the door behind her, and the night latch locked it. (A night latch is an external door lock that is operated from the exterior side of the door by a key and from the interior side of the door by a knob. It automatically locks behind you when you close it.)

Mrs. Loudon, before going to the porch, had put a coat on over her pajamas, but Mr. Loudon had not. The rain was heavy and cold, and the wind was high. Mr. Loudon tried all of the windows, but they had screens. In order to get back in, they broke the window that the chair had already cracked and reentered their home.

The Loudons had only lived in their house a few months and were apparently still getting used to it. A March 31, 1926 article in the Alton Evening Telegraph announced that “Mr. and Mrs. W.T. Louden have occupied the home on Union street they have purchased from E.E. Campbell.” The end of the June 19 article mentioned the recent move, and also declared, “That is why Mr. Loudon sought Mr. Campbell and said, ‘Say, how do you get in that house in a storm?’ But the former owner of the house knew no better way than breaking a window.”

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The Loudens lived in the house until their deaths, William Loudon in 1940 and Sally Metcalf Loudon in 1951. They are buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Palmyra, Missouri.

Special thanks to Eric Shultis for research help with this week’s article (answering my historic architecture questions about typical 1920s porches)!

Sources

“Door Locked By Wind, Couple on Porch During Storm.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), June 19, 1926.

1927 Hubers Alton City Directory. Alton, Ill., Huber Directory Co.

“Moving into Newly Purchased Homes.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), March 31, 1926.

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