Loans for Victims of Wendell's Tornado, April 7, 1923

Wendell’s Plan for Relief of Tornado Victims in Wake County Put Into Effect. . . Money to be Loaned. . . Idea of the Plan Is to Help the Victims of the Tornado Help Themselves--$3,000 Has Been Raised

What may come to be termed the Wendell plan for the relief of folks visited by famine, pestilence, cyclone and other devastating disturbances has been adopted by the Wendell folks for dealing with the victims of the cyclone of Wednesday evening.

First the relief committee composed of R.B. Whitley, Mayor W.A. Brame and M.A. Griffin got busy furnishing shelter, food and clothes to those in immediate want. They then decided to establish a loan fund of not less than $30,000 to be furnished these farmers and tenants, some of them among the most industrious citizens of the county, for the purpose of enabling them to rehabilitate themselves sufficiently to make a crop and to live in tolerable conditions while doing it.

The initial collection resulted in a total subscription of $3,000. An appeal is issued through the relief committee for more subscriptions, the subscribers being assured of the repayment of their money, which, however, is to be loaned on the open notes of the cyclone victims maturing on or before January 1, 1925.

At the same time the Wendell chapter of the Red Cross appeals to other chapters of the state for money, food, clothing and any other supplies calculated to relieve want and suffering. Of actual suffering there will be none save on the part of those injured by the storm; but eastern Wake, responsive itself to the needs of others, is not attempting to do the whole thing single-handed.

The first subscriber to the relief fund was R.B. Whitley, who supplied $1,000.

The whole idea is to enable the victims of the wind to help themselves.

From the front page of the Durham Morning Herald, April 7, 1923