[1]JARRELL, Texas (BP)–The Larry Igo family was a mainstay of the little First Baptist Church, Jarrell, Texas.
All of the family members were musically gifted, and Larry, 46, was volunteer minister of music.
His wife, Joan, and their daughter, Audrey, 17, were gifted pianists. Twin sons John and Paul, 15, sang with their father, mother and sister in the little church choir.
Max Johnson, bivocational pastor of the church which averages about 40 in attendance on Sunday mornings, jokingly referred to them as the “Von Igos” because of their musical talent and in reference to the Von Trapp family in the movie, “The Sound of Music.”
“They kept the church going,” a church member told Associated Press reporter Mike Cochran.
The Igos had moved to Jarrell 12 years ago where Igo operated Central Texas Classic Chevy Parts and rebuilt 1955-’56-’57 Chevrolets. He recently built a large metal building on the 7.3 acres at the family residence in the Double Creek Estates about a mile west and slightly south of Jarrell, which is on Interstate 35 about 40 miles north of Austin.
Joan Igo was a special education teacher in the small public school system in Jarrell. She was active in church and civic affairs as well.
Audrey, 17, would have been a senior in Jarrell High School and recently won a number of medals in the state high school choral competition. After high school, she planned to major in music at the University of North Texas.
Johnson said she was ready to take over as the pianist for the church services.
The twins, 15, would have been sophomores next year. They played football, basketball and ran track. One source said they worked part time in a grocery store in the town of about 400.
While details are sketchy, news accounts said Joan and Audrey left the school to check on the twins and Igo when they heard the storm was coming.
“They actually rushed home into danger,” Johnson told the AP, adding that if they had stayed where they were — at the school — they would have survived.
The storm — said to be one of the most powerful in Texas history — demolished their home, the barn and carried off many of the classic cars Igo had at the property. The slab was scoured like it had been swept, observers said.
The tornado’s power was so great — winds in excess of 260 miles an hour — anyone who was at the subdivision when the three-quarters- mile-wide twister touched down could not have survived, officials said.
Joint funeral services for the five were scheduled at 1 p.m. Saturday, May 31, in First Baptist Church, Georgetown, Texas, where Igo’s parents, Louis and Catherine Igo, are members.
In the irony of Texas storms, another volunteer minister of music and his family were spared by a tornado which demolished their home in Spicewood, a western suburb of Austin, about 40 miles southwest of Jarrell, as the tornadoes dance.
David Butler, a former youth minister and music minister, rushed home to his residence in Hazey Hills of western Travis County on the afternoon of May 28.
“He said it was raining hard, and he heard a sound like a freight train,” said Chris Liebrum, youth consultant with the Baptist General Convention of Texas Sunday school/discipleship training division, who has been friends with Butler since they served together as Texas Baptist Men summer staffers in the late 1960s.
The family got in the bathtub and within a minute, the storm struck. “It was all over in 30 seconds,” Liebrum quoted Butler as saying.
The house was completely blown away, except for two built in bookshelves which fell over the bathtub in which the family had sought refuge.