Rescuing Rose – ND Guard Good News
Guardsmen carefully help Rose Silbernagl down the stairs during her recent evacuation from flood waters.
“I’m a Legionnaire Auxiliary member for more than 50 years. The Soldiers don’t only save our country, they save the people, one by one. I never thought they’d save me,” said Rose Silbernagl, 87, of Linton.Rose lives on Schley Avenue, close to the courthouse.
“I’ve lived there since ’51, and this is the first time I had to get the heck out of there,” she said.
Rose is a widow, having lost her husband of 62 years two years ago. She also has a bad heart, and is on oxygen, but she’d shared her roof with four who were flooded out earlier: Larry Biedelspacher, Charlie and Lilian Abel and Lorraine Baumgartner. When her sewer backed up, she still didn’t want to leave, but her 15 children called her and insisted. One said, “Ma, we listened to you all those years, now you have to listen to us!”
Sgt. Andrew Rohrich was one of the Soldiers who helped Rose get out of the water and over to the county courthouse, which serves as a clearinghouse for evacuees. Rohrich is a Linton native who now lives in Bismarck, where he works full time for the Guard, coordinating military funeral honors.
Rose has known him since he was knee high, and she joked, “There’s a reason there was a flood – so I can see you guys!”
She meant Andrew and his brothers, Michael and Paul, who ran into her at the community food area in the courthouse basement.
“Their mom and I were such good friends,” she said. She also ran into Nathan Meidinger, and congratulated him on his recent win of the Class B Academic All-State award. Rose worried about her granddaughter, Della, who recently had surgery, but she didn’t worry about herself.
“Just have to make the best of it,” she said before leaving to stay with her sister-in-law, Angie Silbernagel.
North Dakota National Guard
by Sgt. Ann Knudson
Table of contents for North Dakota Flooding 2009
- North Dakota Guard in Flood Fight
- 800 Guardsmen to Fight Flood in E North Dakota
- North Dakota Guard Joins Flood Relief
- Coast Guard Aids in North Dakota Flooding
- ND Guard Uses Iraqi War Skills to Fight Flood
- Sandbagging to Save Fargo
- Guard Working in Midwest Floods
- Current North Dakota Flood News
- Rescuing Rose – ND Guard Good News
- Morning News for Fargo Flooding
- Coast Guard Rescues in North Dakota
- Military Assistance to North Dakota Flooding
- Civil Air Patrol in Skies Over ND Flooding
- North Dakota Flood Operations Continues
- National Guard Defends Pembina From Flood
- Sheyenne River Nearing Crest in North Dakota
- HESCO Barriers – a Photo Primer
- Video of Coast Guard Flood Rescue Near Kindred
- Reinforcing the Cottonwood Creek Dam at Lake LaMoure
- Fighting the Flood in Southeast North Dakota
- Guardsmen Returning to Hometowns for Duty
- North Dakota Guard in Action During Flooding
- North Dakota Flooding Update: Cottonwood Creek Dam at Lake LaMoure
- A View From a Soldier Serving in LaMoure
the attachments to this post:
Rose Silbernagl
This entry was posted on Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 8:13 pm and is filed under Disasters, Military. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
