A tornado ravaged parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, on April 9, 1947. Gusting at speeds of up to forty-six miles-per-hour and spreading over two-hundred-twenty miles, it decimated portions of the three states. Before abating, the tornado is estimated to have caused approximately $10.5 million in damage.

Woodward, Oklahoma, on the eastern edge of the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, was among the towns decimated. Injured residents flocked to the town’s only hospital. Four-year-old Joan Croft was among those admitted, but she was released without authorization. In the midst of the chaos, no one noticed.

Taken by parties unknown, the fate of Joan Croft remains a mystery seventy-seven years later.

Joan Croft

 

The 5,500 hundred residents of Woodward had no warning of the oncoming disaster due to a National Federation of Telephone Workers strike leaving them virtually cut off from the outside world.

As a result, it was one of the areas most decimated by the storm, suffering one-hundred-seven deaths, over a thousand injuries, and the destruction of over one-hundred city blocks.

The Tornado Hitting Woodward

 

Mother Nature hindered recovery efforts as three inches of snow blanketed what remained of Woodward the following day.

A Wrecked Home in Woodward

 

The Croft home was among those destroyed by the tornado. It claimed the life of Joan’s twenty-six-year-old mother, Cleta, who worked, ironically, as a telephone operator. She was killed instantly when a wall from her home fell on her.

Joan’s father, Olin, was seriously injured. As the twenty-eight bed Woodward General Hospital was overrun with patients, he was taken for treatment to the state’s largest hospital in Oklahoma City, one-hundred-forty miles southeast of Woodward.

Cleta Croft

Joan’s Mother

 

The Croft’s neighbor, Mary Carter, had found Joan and her eight-year-old half-sister, Jerry Ralls, and taken them to Woodward General Hospital. Jerry was Cleta’s daughter from her first marriage.

Joan’s left leg had been pierced by a finger-size splinter of wood. She also had possibly suffered a minor concussion and had facial abrasions. Jerry had been bruised from the flying debris. The girls’ injuries were not considered life-threatening.

Cleta’s sister Ruth Bohn, uninjured in the tornado, went to Oklahoma City to help the overburdened staff. When she returned to Woodward the following morning, she found Jerry still at the hospital but was told two men had taken Joan.

Jerry had not recognized the men and protested as Joan was carried away, but in the turmoil, no one noticed. Jerry and Nurse Irwin thought it was close to midnight when Joan was taken.

Joan Is Taken . . . 

 

Nurse Bess Irwin remembered the men asking specifically for the Croft children and providing information about them and their family. The men, claiming to be rescue workers, were dressed in khaki work clothes which possibly had a logo printed on them. They said they needed to take Joan to an Oklahoma City hospital but that they would later bring her back.

Calls to that facility as well as calls to all other area hospitals turned up no sign of Joan nor any evidence she had been admitted to any of them. An FBI investigation also failed to find any trace of her or any hint of what may have happened to her.

. . . And Cannot Not Be Located

 

What became of Joan Gay Croft remains unknown after seventy-seven-years. It is possible the men who took her were legitimate rescue volunteers. Her injuries may have been more severe than originally thought and she may have died in the company of the men who then panicked and disposed of her body. Most investigators, however, dismiss that scenario, believing the two men abducted Joan and that they knew her or her family because of the information provided to the nurse.

Olin Croft was a successful sheep rancher and it has been speculated the men hoped to obtain money from the relatively wealthy family, but no ransom demand was ever made. It has also been suggested that Joan may have been taken by someone who had lost a child or that she was kidnapped by a child-stealing ring such as the ones run at the time by Georgia Tann in Memphis and Ethel Nation in San Antonio. Tann, in particular, was known to have taken children from hospitals often by bribing hospital workers.

No evidence, however, has been found supporting any of these theories.

Still No Joan

 

Three other girls, approximately four-years-old, who were killed in the storm have never been identified, but they have been confirmed not to be Joan Gay Croft.

Over the years, several women have come forward believing they are Joan or that someone they know is she, but all claims have been disproven.

Gone With The Whirlwind

 

Though seriously injured in the tornado, Joan father’s Olin recovered. He remarried after Cleta’s death and he and his new wife, Rena, moved to San Antonio and had two daughters.

Olin continued searching for Joan for the remainder of his life. He  died in in 1987 at age eighty-two.

Olin Croft

Joan’s Father

 

Joan’s aunt Ruth died in 2005 at age eighty-nine.

Ruth Bohn

Joan’s Aunt

 

Jerry Ralls Young, Joan’s half-sister, died in 2021 at age eighty-one. Some sources spell her name as “Geri,” “Gerri,” “Jerri” or “Jeri.”

Jeri Ralls Young

Joan’s Half-Sister

 

Ruth’s daughter and Joan’s cousin Marvella Parks resubmitted her DNA in hopes of finding a match to Joan in the CODIS (Combined DNA Index) system.

Marvella died in 2022 at age eighty-eight.

Marvella Parks

Joan’s Cousin

 

Joan Gay Croft disappeared during the aftermath of a tornado on April 9, 1947. At the time, she was four-years-old, three-feet-five-inches tall, and weighed forty-two pounds. Her hair was strawberry blonde and her eyes were blue. She had chicken pox scars on her forearms and small scars of her forehead.  No dental or fingerprint records of her are available.

Nothing has been found suggesting Joan Gay Croft met with foul play. She would today be eighty-one-years-old and would probably still have scars on her left calf from the tornado injury.

If you believe you have information relating to the disappearance of Joan Gay Croft, please contact the Woodward, Oklahoma, Police Department at 580-256-2280, or the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation at 580-256-1771.

Is Joan Still Alive?

 

The tornado that decimated Woodward, Oklahoma, was one of twelve-to-seventeen windstorms that swept across Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas from April 9-11, 1947. The series of storms registering an F5 (most severe) on the Fujita Scale are officially termed the 1947 Glacier-Higgins-Woodward tornado outbreak. They caused over $10 million in damages, equivalent to over $136,000,000 in today’s money. In terms of monetary damage, the tornadoes are the costliest in Oklahoma history.

Causing nine-hundred-ninety injuries and with an official one-hundred-eighty-five fatalities, the 1947 Glacier-Higgins-Woodward tornado outbreak is recognized by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as the sixth deadliest tornado in United States history.

One Of America’s Worst Tornados

 

SOURCES:

• Charley Project
• Daily Oklahoman
• Doe Network
• KFOP Channel 4 Oklahoma
• NamUs
• New OK
• Unsolved Mysteries