Last August, when I met Ernest Curry on his porch on Newstead Avenue, he had already survived the tornado that struck St. Louis on May 16, the destruction of his truck and the slow, daily drip of water leaking through the tarped ceiling above his head. What I didn’t know then was that he would not survive much longer.
This story was commissioned by the River City Journalism Fund, which seeks to advance local journalism in St. Louis. See rcjf.org for more info.
He told me, resolutely, that he was “still kicking around, trying to pull back up.” But the truth was harder: The storm did not end when the winds died down.
For Ernest Maurice Curry, July 30, 1944-Oct. 27, 2025, the six-month aftermath was its own kind of storm — quieter, lonelier and ultimately fatal.
When I first reached Kim Curry she was still waiting for the toxicology report concerning her father. She said it could take six weeks. It has now been longer, but she’s hoping “any day now.” Ernest’s body was discovered in his home several days after his death on Oct. 27. It had been there long enough that Kim was urged not to go inside when she arrived. She had to piece together what happened from what others could tell her.
Kim’s Story
Kim grew up with her parents, Ernest and Dora Mae, in Walnut Park. They married in 1965, and their family grew to five children.
By then many longtime white residents had moved to north St. Louis County. Those who remained were strong Black working-class families that took pride in their homes and neighborhoods. The Currys were among them.
Ernest never had formal schooling. He made a living as a handyman, supporting his family with odd jobs and repair work.
Ernest and Dora Mae separated in 1989, in part because Ernest began drinking excessively. Dora Mae moved to Texas. Ernest rallied, got better control of his life and maintained sobriety for 30 years.
A family-written obituary described Ernest as being “best known for being the life of the party. He loved nature, fishing and mainly keeping a smile on others’ faces.”
Kim cannot attribute her father’s death entirely to the tornado. Even before May 16, she noticed signs that Ernest had started drinking again. He had a great deal to contend with over the years.
Two of his daughters, Jacqueline Rhodes, 21, and Gwendolyn Rhodes, also 21, were murdered in separate incidents in 1985 and 1986. These were wounds that could never fully heal.
After the tornado, the damage to his home didn’t just weaken walls and ceilings. It disrupted routines. It shifted who came around and why.
“They were saying that he was smoking crack,” Kim said. “He didn’t smoke fentanyl, but what happened I think was somebody gave him some fentanyl, and I guess it was in the crack.”
“The streets are different now,” she said.
Kim took on the responsibilities that come to a family with no insurance and too few answers. She arranged the funeral. She visited him during those last weeks. She fielded questions that came from neighbors and silence from those who stopped asking.
“Everybody told me that I did well,” she said, though there was more fatigue than pride in her voice.
Kim, now 55, built a life that made both her parents proud. She left St. Louis for Texas, earned a degree in business administration, then later returned. She earned a bachelor of theological studies and now serves as a crisis counselor with Places for People through the Show Me Hope program.
There is a redemptive quality to her work. Kim is addressing mental health issues with clients in her father’s old neighborhood.
The Last Chapter
When Ernest and I met last spring, he had lost his roof, his porch rails, his truck and most of the rooms in his home. He’d lost fishing, the independence a vehicle provides and the privacy that allows a man to fix things on his own time. And yet, he invited a stranger up to sit with him on his front stoop.
I was in the neighborhood on behalf of the River City Journalism Fund, looking for people willing to share their post-tornado journeys. We aimed to follow people like Ernest for as long as two years as they attempted to rebuild their lives. Ernest was happy to participate.
“He knew no strangers,” Kim said. And that lines up with how I met him — by accident, on a sidewalk, on a hot August afternoon, when he called out to me thinking I might be someone he’d seen pass by on a motorcycle.
There are many ways a life becomes difficult to rebuild. Some are measured in dollars. Some are measured in damages. And some are measured in the distance between the help we hope to receive and the help that arrives too late, or never arrives at all.
The May tornado tore through blocks of north St. Louis in minutes. The rebuilding that follows is slower. More uneven. More complicated. Some families return. Some never do. Some, like Ernest, can’t, as he wanted, “pull back up.”
But for those several months after the storm, and for the few visits I was allowed to share with him, he held on to what mattered to him most: his home and his family.
Ernest Curry’s family has set up a Go Fund Me page to address funeral expenses.
Richard H. Weiss, a former editor and reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, is chair of the River City Journalism Fund.
RCJF produces stories that address marginalized communities in St. Louis. RCJF then shares those stories at no cost to media partners in St. Louis, including St. Louis Public Radio, to supplement their coverage.
