no just first african-american resident who had married a white woman, a german immigrant named wilhelmina. and when ellis with drive-through norwich in his big car with his white wife beside him, he was construed by some as rubbing his good fortune in the towns face. perhaps he should've been more leery because a few years earlier a relative who lived on his property had been found drowned, and the court had ruled that death accidental, too. i was 12 in march 1963 when an earthen dam holding back a late at norwich's north and gateway on a rainy night unleashing millions of gallons of water and descending slabs of ice the size of refrigerators shooting downhill carrying trees, cars, family pets, and human beings. the raging floodwaters came perilously close to our own house, and to this day i can still hear the thunderous roar as well as the screams of third shift factory workers who were buried alive in the rubble of a collapsed yarnell. besides those factory workers, a young mother lost her life that night. she and her husband both in their mid '20s made the fateful decision to try out r