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Three Sisters Garden Had a Very Close Brush with Kankakee Tornado
- Bob Benenson
- 28 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Farmer Tracey Vowell Says Main Path of Destruction Missed by Half Mile
There were forecasts of possible severe weather in the Chicago region on Tuesday (March 10), as unusually warm late winter weather gave way to a clash with a cold front. And I paid especially close attention when the National Weather Service issued a warning of a powerful tornado in or near Kankakee, about 60 miles south of downtown Chicago.
This is a very familiar area to me. My wife was born and raised on a farm in nearby Peotone; she graduated high school and spent the early part of her adult life in Kankakee.
But more urgently, my friend Tracey Vowell and her Three Sisters Garden farm are located just south of that city — and news reports said the tornado was on the ground in that area.
Tracey does home delivery to parts of the Chicago area and I had put in an order for some winter spinach for dropoff this morning. So I headed downstairs with some trepidation... and was relieved to see the bag with my name on it sitting on the delivery table.
I sent Tracey an email saying, only half-jokingly, that I had never been so grateful to see a bag of spinach. She replied that this had made her laugh out loud, a welcome respite from what had been a terrifying experience. She said that the tornado had missed her farm and house by only about a half mile, and that she could see heavy machinery moving debris between trees on her 10-acre property.
She did not escape totally unscathed. Giant hailstones of baseball size or larger damaged her home and hoophouses. Jesus, her farming partner, has to replace all the windshields on four vehicles.
As a young man in 1898, Winston Churchill reflected on his experience in the Boer War by saying, "Nothing is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result." I don't know if exhilaration is the right word, but Tracey was surely relieved that the whims of weather patterns had taken a devastating tornado just far enough for her to avoid a true catastrophe.
It is something with which she has had past acquaintance. In February 2022, a nearby farm where she stored vital machinery and products was destroyed by fire. Local Food Forum was among those who publicized a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to allay her financial losses. This was followed by a successful fundraising dinner hosted by Chef Rick Bayless, for whom Tracey worked as executive chef before she went all in on farming two decades ago.
I love to tell the good news stories of our local food community. But for those of us who mainly experience the happy face of local food at farmers markets, it's also important to remember that farming is very challenging and risky.
To learn more about Three Sisters Garden and to place an order if you are in her delivery zone, click the button below.
Our thoughts go out to those less fortunate people who were in the path of that terrible storm.