Lightning Strikes – Brooks Family
In February 1889, a severe
thunderstorm blew in over Brookside, near Eudunda. Mrs Brooks decided to send her son to Dutton with two horses to retrieve his sister from school. The
teenager (17) saddled the horses and rode towards Dutton immediately. He
reached his destination safely and helped his 12-year-old sister onto her
horse, and together they began the ride home.
Another daughter of Mrs Brooks was
sitting inside the house out of the storm. Thunder cracked overhead and
lightning flashed outside. She sat looking out the window wondering how here
sister and brother were faring in the weather. Lightning lit the fields nearby
again, and this time, she noticed lying in a field two horses and what seemed
like to people. She alerted her parents; Mrs Brooks ran to find her two
children and their horses dead.
A very powerful bolt of lightning hit
the pair as they neared their home. The young male was severely charred from
the lightning strike and a hole was burned through his horse's saddle, as fired by
a gun. He took the severity of the lightning bolt with his sister's only visible
injury being a black mark on her breast.
The horses were found a few yards distance from the teenagers, lying
upon each other. The bodies of the teenagers were disfigured in the fall of the
horses, the girl still holding the reigns of her horse.[1]
William and Charity Brooks buried their
teenagers, William Junior and Ellen at the Truro Cemetery.[2]
Researched
and written by Allen Tiller © 2025
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