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Above: August 14, 1913, headline from the Gratiot County Herald; in 1915, A.M. Derry & Son of Ashley sold lightning rods to interested farmers.

Some say lightning never strikes twice in the same place. Others do not worry about being hit at all. Unfortunately for many in Gratiot County’s past, death and destruction by lightning strikes were common and something to be feared.

In 1913, Gratiot historian Willard Tucker cited over a dozen instances of lightning disasters in a book of the county’s history up until World War I. However, his short collection of lightning stories is only a small sample of the many stories that can be found later in twentieth-century Gratiot County.

Tucker started his coverage with a terrible incident that took place in Elba Township in 1896, which claimed more than one victim. A young boy, Charles Hubbard, age 9, was working with his father in the family’s granary when a bolt of lightning hit Charles, killing him instantly. His father, Stephen Hubbard, was also hit by the same strike but eventually survived, in what was the first story of those who shared lightning strikes. It happened again five years later when Walter Price and John Cumberworth both died on the Roy Cumberworth farm near Ithaca on July 5, 1901. In that case, Roy Cumberworth, who was standing near the other two men, somehow avoided being hit by the same bolt of lightning.

Records show that houses in towns and villages were sometimes hit. Sol Eicher’s house on St. John Street in Ithaca was struck by a tremendous lightning bolt, which Eicher and his wife barely escaped in August 1912. That night, Eicher awoke thinking he had heard a loud noise outside his window, got up, looked outside, saw nothing, and then returned to bed. Another loud crash soon occurred, and this time he awoke to find his bed covered in plaster, a result of the entire ceiling and side walls of the bedroom falling on him and his wife. Upon going outside, Eicher saw that a lightning strike had stripped the siding twelve feet down the side of the house. Upon more inspection upstairs, Eicher found that two big holes could be seen above his bed as well as in the neighboring bedroom. As the family started cleaning up the mess, they ended up removing three bushels of plaster just from their daughter’s bedroom alone. Down below the upstairs windows, the Eichers saw that the porch floor had been split in two.

There are stories of other homes that were also hit by lightning. William Carroll in northeast Seville Township had the top of his chimney and shingles torn off his roof in March 1904. Carroll had just stepped onto his porch after returning from the barn with a lantern after returning from the barn when the force of a strike nearly threw him to the ground. Still, Carroll survived. In November 1924, the DeArmond home, located at 136 Allen Street in Alma, was struck by a bolt of lightning that entered through an open window and then started a fire. Luckily, the entire family was on the ground floor when the incident happened, and DeArmond activated the fire alarm. On the way to the house, the fire truck en route stopped at South Woodworth Avenue for a train when a Chevrolet Coupe driven by Earl Clapp hit the back end of the fire truck. No one was seriously injured, and firefighters safely arrived and extinguished the fire.

Across Gratiot County, there might be no limit to the number of barns struck during a lightning storm. A terrible storm lasting nearly twenty-four hours in August 1913 struck over a dozen barns across the county. During the ordeal, E.A. Stowe of Forrest Hill lost his barn and ninety tons of hay worth $1500. Almost all of the barns or homes hit in this storm were total losses, and the Gratiot County Herald estimated that lightning caused at least $50,000 worth of damage. A year later, in late August 1914, lightning storms covering two successive nights destroyed another six barns in the county.

In most cases, Gratiot farmers lacked sufficient insurance to cover the full damage to their property, while many farmers often had no insurance at all. In one instance, William Holliday and his wife from Alma wintered in Kalkaska in April 1905. They prepared to return to their summer home near Alma just before it was hit by lightning. A neighbor who witnessed the strike attempted to salvage some of the things inside. Still, the fire was too intense and resulted in a total loss as it had no insurance coverage. James Greenlee, near North Star in 1925, lost $4,700 in a fire caused by lightning from his 40×70 barn, which contained farm tools, wagons, straw, shovels, hoes, and cultivators. Luckily, Greenlee had let all of the livestock out of the barn earlier that night, or he might have lost them as well. His insurance covered $3,000 for losses, more than most farmers had at that time.

The result of a lightning strike often left tremendous physical damage, especially for livestock. A.K. Overmeyer of Emerson (Beebe) was able to get his two horses and buggy out of his barn after a strike in June 1913. Still, he lost all of his harnesses and 65 chickens. He received $362 in insurance claims, but it would not cover all of his losses. In July 1923, several county farmers experienced significant personal losses from lightning strikes. A 6:00 a.m. storm caused a fire on the Kinney farm near Ithaca, which quickly went up in flames. The family watched as their barn and a shed burned, which housed a cow and calf, as well as several farm implements, and four tons of hay. All of it quickly went up in flames. Sadly, insurance only covered half their damages. Clarence Shields of Emerson noticed that his horses and cows were acting strangely after the same storm. He then figured out that two of the horses were now deaf. It was not uncommon for other Gratiot lightning strikes to leave farm animals severely burned, blind, or deaf if they had been standing near a lightning strike.

Encounters with lightning sometimes created almost unbelievable stories in the newspapers. William Gephart of Breckenridge was struck and killed in July 1913 when he returned home from a day on the Pine River. While one and a half miles north of Wheeler, he headed to the Chase residence to take cover from the approaching storm. Gephart hitched the horse in the barn, stepped to the buggy to get a rubber blanket to cover the lunch basket, and then was hit by lightning. Strangely, Gephart had no visible marks on his body, just a torn hat and shirt. A Mexican migrant worker, Ysac Rojo, was killed by lightning, and another worker was seriously injured in Fulton Township in July 1926. Rojo and his brother made the mistake of taking shelter under a tree during a storm on the R. C. Blank farm when lightning struck the tree. The strike then burned a hole through Ysac Rojo’s cap, shattered his shoes, but left the rest of his body unmarked. Joe Rojo, who survived, was taken to St. John’s Hospital after suffering severe burns.

Some places in Gratiot County were hit twice by lightning. Ellsworth Wright’s barn near Breckendridge was destroyed in July 1924 for the second time in five years. In both cases, Wright’s barn burned to the ground, and the second time, he lost all of his barn’s contents. Another Breckenridge farmer, Frank Oberst, suffered $7,000 in damages from an August 1925 lightning strike. During the storm, a tenant on the Oberst farm was able to rescue Oberst’s Durham cattle and horses out of the barn. This second barn, measuring 40 feet by 84 feet, had a cement floor with a basement. Unfortunately for Oberst, insurance only covered part of the second loss. In a strange twist, Oberst lost his first barn on the same spot two years earlier.

A Gratiot farmer’s defense against lightning strikes was to buy lightning rods and insurance from county agents, such as W.H. Tenney of St. Louis. Just before World War I, Tenney sold lightning rods made of 98 percent pure copper, which came with patent curved brackets. H.J. Zubler of Breckenridge also sold U.S. Government Lightning Rods, claiming, “If these rods were good enough for government buildings, they ought to be able to fill the bill for you. (The) Same make of rods are used on Gratiot County Farm Buildings.” In March 1915, A.M. Derry and Son of Ashley sold lightning rods and advertised that “Now is a good time to come in and get an estimate, before spring work commences. We sell them—and guarantee the best price.” In the 1920s, businesses like Boothe and Binger of North Star also advertised the sale of lightning rods. They handled 18-gauge, 32-strand cable rods.

About twenty years ago, I visited my paternal grandmother’s last surviving sibling, who still lived on the old Bliss family farm west of Ithaca in Newark Township. As I spoke with my great-uncle about family history, he pointed out the lightning rods and insulators that sat overhead above his porch, then the trio of lightning rods that appeared on the top of the old barn. Aaron Bliss smiled about how some local antique collector with an eye for old lightning rods and insulators had stopped more than once to encourage him to sell off the rods. My uncle only smiled, suggesting that he was happy to keep and trust the devices that had probably spared the Bliss family’s home and barn from hard Gratiot County lightning storms for many decades.

Above: Carol Ann Risk, the young St. Louis girl who was murdered in early December 1958; the Risk home as it looked at the time of the murder on North Clinton Street in St. Louis; Michigan State Police divers quickly found the murder weapon in the Pine River on the day after the killing; the only existing picture of Paul Rondeau as he appeared as a sophomore in the 1958-1959 school yearbook. Of all of the St. Louis sophomores photographed, Rondeau was the only one to appear in a tie and jacket.

On December 1, 1958, a young girl in St. Louis was killed in what was then considered the most horrific murder since the town’s lumbering era. Twelve-year-old Carol Ann Risk was suddenly and unexpectedly shot by a neighbor boy named Paul Leroy Rondeau. The Risks lived in a small house at 322 North Clinton Street, two doors north of the Rondeaus. Christian Risk, the father, served as a St. Louis fireman and worked at the chemical plant. The mother, Lova Risk, lost five children to miscarriages and deaths at early ages. Their family consisted of a son, Michael, and a daughter, Carol Ann, who would soon be thirteen. She had naturally curly brown hair and brown eyes and was in the seventh grade. Quiet and studious, Carol Ann also liked roller skating and going to the movies.

The Willet Rondeau family moved to St. Louis from Alpena, Michigan, in 1952. Willet Rondeau was a traveling salesman who sold school supplies and was often only home one night a week. Their mother, Betty, was active in the community. There were two children: their son, Paul, who was fifteen, and a daughter, Beverly, who was younger. Paul struggled with a speech impediment but participated on the school debate team. He was an above-average student with few friends, a “lone wolf.”

On the weekend of November 29, 1958, Paul asked to borrow Christian Risk’s .25 caliber handgun, took it, and kept it inside his high-top boots and under his pillow at night. On the evening of Monday, December 1, 1958, Christian and Lova Risk took their son by car to help him with his paper route.

Two hours later, Rondeau went to the Risk’s home. Carol Ann answered the door, and Rondeau asked if he could borrow Michael’s bike. After letting him in, she resumed watching “The Huckleberry Hound Show.” Rondeau stepped toward a heater behind her chair, pulled out the pistol, and shot Carol Ann through the forehead. Getting up from the chair, she screamed, and Rondeau shot her again, this time through the temple. Surprisingly, no one in the neighborhood heard the shot or knew what had happened. Paul then headed downtown to finish running errands for his mother. Crossing the bridge southwest of Wheeler Field, he tossed the gun into the Pine River.

Entering the living room upon returning home, Christian Risk was first to see his daughter slumped over in her chair. Dr. William Knowles was called and arrived quickly, followed by the St. Louis police. The State Police were also called to assist with the investigation. The police created a list of three possible suspects from the neighborhood. Clearing two left Paul Rondeau. He was picked up and questioned. Rondeau was questioned for only an hour when he confessed. Rondeau’s written confession simply read, “I had an urge to kill someone. I don’t know the exact reason I did it, but I knew after pulling the trigger that I did wrong.” After obtaining the gun two days earlier, he had planned to kill someone. While held at the Ithaca County jail he talked to a reporter from the Detroit Free Press. “Maybe someone can find out what’s wrong with my mind.” Rondeau stated he wanted “what’s coming to me” and described Carol Ann Risk as “an old buddy, a pal, and Michael Risk is my best friend.” He concluded that killing Carol Ann the way he did “was a good setup.”

Upon learning that Rondeau had thrown the murder weapon in the river, Michigan State Police divers found it within an hour. Probate Judge Mildred E. Taft ordered him to undergo testing at the Lafayette Clinic in Detroit. Dr. Norman Westlund certified that Paul Rondeau had a mental illness. In February 1960, fourteen months after the murder, Rondeau was transferred from Detroit to the Traverse City State Hospital for the mentally ill. Doctors believed Rondeau needed long-term care, and he still had not shown remorse for killing Carol Ann Risk. Judge Taft ruled that Rondeau would not be released from Traverse City without consent from her court. When the Gratiot County Prosecuting Attorney Fred Passenger petitioned the court to try Rondeau in a criminal court, Judge Taft would not grant the request until Rondeau turned seventeen.

Times were hard for the Risk family. Carol Ann was buried at Oak Grove Cemetery in a new red dress a neighbor made for her upcoming birthday and the new saddle shoes her mother had gotten for her. Lova Risk died in December 1959 from a heart condition, and her father, Christian, died a year later. Michael Risk moved from Gratiot County, entered the Air Force, and sold insurance. He died in 2010 in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Paul Leroy Rondeau, however, disappeared from Gratiot County’s history. The Lafayette Clinic of Detroit closed in 1982. The Traverse City Hospital, later known as the Northern Michigan Asylum and Traverse City Regional Psychiatric Hospital, closed in 1989. As a result, those records disappeared, and Rondeau’s juvenile court records were sealed; only he could open them. A search shows a man named Paul L. Rondeau of similar age who once lived in Wayne County, Michigan. From there, this Rondeau married, moved outside Las Vegas, Nevada, and died in 2017. Was this Carol Ann Risk’s murderer?

Sadly, all that remains today from this St. Louis murder are three graves located on Oak Grove Cemetery’s east side. Under a shade tree, a young girl buried in a new red dress and black and white saddle shoes rests. She tragically died on an early winter’s day in 1958, the victim of an urge to kill.

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