Girl, 13, took charge amid 1925 storm chaos on Minneapolis lake

Skies blackened 99 years ago over Lake Harriet, where 13-year-old Marjorie Gray came to picnic with her mother, aunt, younger brother and 3-year-old cousin.

Soon, winds roared from both north and south, reaching 44 mph and splintering 1,000 trees as the storm tore through south Minneapolis just after 6 p.m. The shrill blast from the storm siren screamed from the Lake Harriet boathouse — warning foolhardy canoeists to paddle ashore as 3 inches of rain fell July 8, 1925.

Marjorie and her family hurried to join more than 250 people, flocking to the Lake Harriet Municipal Pavilion and its soda fountain and cafeteria — seeking shelter "in an exposed position on the shore," a local newspaper reported the next morning.

The roof they huddled beneath had been considered unsafe for years. Park Board Superintendent Theodore Wirth had been lobbying for a new pavilion but officials insisted funds were unavailable.

"The lights flared," a witness in the cafeteria said, "then there was a fearful moaning." Newspaper accounts described how part of the roof covering the soda fountain "rose in the wind, hovering for a second above the frightened gathering in the building, and then crashed down upon them."

"Beams and timbers rained down upon the 50 in the [soda fountain] room," the newspaper reported. "The pavilion was converted in a second into a scene of terror."

A firefighter found the bodies of Emma Miller, 35, cradling her 3-year-old daughter, May — both crushed beneath a wooden pillar. They were Majorie's aunt and cousin.

"They were all together and my mother told me they died instantly," Majorie's daughter, Mary Vogel, 84, told me recently. "So she must have known."

Rather than letting the trauma paralyze her, Marjorie put her Girl Scout first-aid training to action.

"With bobbed hair matted to her head but with no evidence of fear this lass of 13 crawled about in the wreckage ministering to the needs of youngsters pinned beneath fallen timbers," the Minneapolis Daily Star reported.

At one point, Majorie yanked off her silk stockings and used them as a tourniquet, stanching the blood flowing from a little girl's jagged cut.

"With exceeding calm" the teenager took charge in the chaos, the paper reported, directing rescues and barking first-aid instructions to adults on the scene.

"She is a wonder," that cafeteria witness, F.A. Anderson, told the Star, which reported his surprise "to learn later that she was but a child as her calmness and entire command of the situation seemed to be anything but that of just a fine looking, lithe little girl with bobbed hair and blue eyes."

Marjorie's mother, 36-year-old Marie Gray, suffered head and internal injuries during the roof collapse that killed her sister and niece — but it could have been worse.

"Mother used to talk about using her thumb to stop the bleeding in her mother's head until first responders arrived," Mary Vogel said. "Her mother was bleeding profusely, and she saved her life."

All told, the 1925 storm killed four, injured 34 and wrecked 40 homes and buildings in a five-mile swath of south Minneapolis.

The 21-year-old pavilion, which had replaced two earlier versions destroyed by fire, was a total loss. Wirth shut it immediately, paving the way for a temporary bandstand that stood for 60 years before the current bandshell went up in 1986.

So what happened to our 13-year-old hero, Marjorie Gray, who the newspaper said "quietly drifted away from the soaked and shocked crowd," limping home on a bruised knee?

Well, she joined the first graduating class at Washburn High School, her daughter said. She studied art and English at the University of Minnesota, where she met soon-to-be attorney Arthur Vogel at a sorority party. Her teaching career ended, by custom, when she married Vogel in 1936 and they moved to Red Wing.

She continued to give art lessons as she raised four children, serving for years on Red Wing's Planning Commission and fighting to preserve the river town's historic buildings. She founded the Red Wing Arts Association and served on the nonprofit's board for nearly 60 years. Her name is on one of the organization's galleries and the port along the Mississippi in Red Wing is called Vogel Harbor.

Marjorie Gray Vogel died in 2015 two months shy of 104. Her mother, whose life she saved, died in 1989 at 100.

"My mother was energetic and creative," said Mary Vogel, who lives in Marine on St. Croix. "She endured a traumatic experience, but didn't let it wound her. She responded effectively and performed sensationally — some would say heroically."

Today, Mary joked, mothers don't let 13-year-old daughters cross the street. But 99 years ago, one was twisting tourniquets.

"For some people, traumatic events mark them," Mary said. "My mother didn't dwell on it and just went on and did well for the community. … She was always a doer who took on and responded to challenges."

Marjorie's brother, Richard S. Gray, who was 7 during the storm, was treated for cuts and bruises, escaping otherwise unharmed. He went on to study geology at Dartmouth College and served as a World War II naval officer, president of IDS's investment company and co-founder of the Freshwater Society research lab at Lake Minnetonka. He died at 95 in 2014.