Lost and found for Greenfield tornado victims to close

GREENFIELD, Iowa — It's the end of an era for the Greenfield United Methodist Church’s lost and found, which aims to return items lost in the EF-4 tornado to their original owners. The town's only lost and found for tornado victims will be closing on Friday.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of unclaimed photographs that span centuries as well as knickknacks at the church.

“You have old, old, old, pictures probably as old as my great-great grandma up to ones from probably a year ago,” lost and found organizer Deb Blazek said.

For the past four months the church has been putting pictures back in the hands of those who lost them in the tornado.

“There's a name Hank on the back of one of the pictures,” Blazek said. “Who's Hank? Nobody knows. I put that photo on Facebook to see if somebody would recognize it.”

Greenfield resident Patsy Ahnen can attest to the service’s success. She found a precious photo of her two now-grown grandsons competing in a frog jumping contest as kids.

“That's your whole life,” Ahnen said. “That's your whole world. All you got left is your pictures.”
In the tornado Ahnen lost her home as well as all of her pictures. “Instantly you're really sad because of what happened, but you're really glad that you got the picture back,” Ahnen said.

At the end of the week the church will be closing the lost and found due to a declining number of visitors in September.

“We as a church are glad to have this here,” Blazek said. “It's just that we don't see it as being as effective as it was at first.”

That means the room will go back to being used for Sunday school and funerals, just as it was before the deadly tornado.

“We'd like to get our space back,” Blazek said. “We want the church to go back to normal again.”
The lost and found will be open from 4 to 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday. All of the photos that aren’t collected will go to the Greenfield Public Library for pick up.