FLOOD-PLAIN DWELLERS WON'T RETURN

Ersie and Howard Knapp aren't returning to the North Main Street house they occupied for 26 years. Neither is North Water Street neighbor Bill "Pop" Bettiegrue, a Pentecostal minister who now shares a mobile home with his dog Curly.

The Flood of '93 has forced all three elderly people to abandon their homes and neighborhoods permanently. Various helping agencies and especially family members have helped them try to get re-established elsewhere, but 79-year-old Ersie Knapp says, "We had our own house all those years, and to be put out of it ... was something hard to take."

The Knapps aren't strangers to disaster. A home they once lived in on Frederick Street burned many years ago. They rebuilt, but the house was destroyed by a tornado in 1949. Howard's head bears a scar left by flying debris.

All but one of the Knapps' children grew up in the house at 1121 N. Main St. In 1973's flood, responsible for the Mississippi's previous high-water mark, they were forced to leave their home for more than a month.

They moved out of the house for good last July 10 as the river water rose beyond their meager defenses. Lost were a stove, a table and several odds and ends put up on blocks that turned out not to be high enough.

The Knapps intended to renovate the six-room house until city inspectors told them it would have to be rebuilt completely from the cracked rock-and-concrete foundation up. That was too much for them.

"We've been through two floods," Ersie said. "That's enough."

"It was a pretty good home until the flood hit it," said 82-year-old Howard, a retired welder. "I was going to paint it this summer."

Since leaving their Water Street house, the Knapps have lived with their daughter, Elaine Shirrell, and son-in-law Clinton. They also have received assistance from their church, the First Church of God, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Red Cross.

They have gotten a loan to buy their new house at 1215 S. Ellis, and meanwhile are hoping to sell the Main Street property. So far, they said, only one resident has been able to move back on the block they called home.

Bettiegrue, who worked in shoe manufacturing for many years, already has sold his house at 1316 N. Water St. for less than the $8,500 he paid for it 15 years ago.

"That was home to me," he says resignedly. "But I knew I wouldn't be able to take care of the place."

His wife Pearlie died of cancer there. Bettiegrue, 81, hasn't been well lately himself, and has trouble with his eyesight.

"I can't go back there anymore," he says. "I'm not able ... I can't fix it like it ought to be. It would cost too much."

A contractor told him $2,000 just to make it livable again.

Bettiegrue was staying at his daughter Jo Anne's house in Old Appleton when the floodwaters poured into his house. "I never thought once I'd ever get water in that lot," he said.

The daughter has bought him a mobile home, and prefers that he stay there. But he misses living in a house.

"I've rather be in a house where I've got a yard with a fence around it," he says. "I love to do gardening, but I can't do it anymore."

He does his own cooking and laundry, and his daughter takes care of the cleaning.

Whether he will stay in the mobile home is uncertain. "I might and I might not," he said. "I'll have to leave that up to my daughter."

The flood convinced the Knapps that their old neighborhood belongs to the Mississippi River or others young enough to fight it.

"It's not home anymore," Ersie said. "It doesn't look like itself. My neighbors aren't there.

"But I still like to go once in awhile."