Mt Vernon, IL Tornado, Feb 1888 - Relief Effort

I discovered in reading that issue [of the Mt. Vernon Register] that practically every state and territory in the land, cities and villages, large and small, sent money to help stricken Mt. Vernon get on its feet. [Morris] Emmerson [owner of the Mt. Vernon Register and secretary of the Citizens' Committee] wrote that the committee [charged with handling the relief funds after the tornado] started out by rebuilding the wrecked homes of every poor family in town. Then they repaired the homes of poor families, in both cases restoring them according to the circumstances in which the family lived before the storm. In other words, when they built a new home they didn't give the man a more pretentious one than he owned before. Then they repaired and rebuilt the houses and business buildings of everyone else, regardless of circumstance. they still had money left over, and they divided that pro-rata according to damage sustained among all of the business men of the town who had losses in the cyclone.

History of Jefferson County, Illinois, 1810-1962, pages 12 & 13