Jo Holt’s yard is guarded by a wooden Irish setter named Charley, sitting atop a tree stump. The carving isn’t just another yard ornament, but a memorial to Holt’s past.

Holt, 78, lives in her parents’ old home off U.S. 72 in Coxey. On April 28, the skies darkened and Holt, her two sons and about 15 other neighbors and the real Charley the Irish setter sought shelter in the storm cellar Holt’s father had built in 1939.

“It lasted just seconds,” she said. “It was not minutes, but seconds.”

After the wind from an EF3 tornado died down, her sons Scott and Grant Holt went out to check on things. All neighbors were fine, but the trees and outbuildings and the Holt’s automotive shops in the neighborhood were leveled.

“It was like total devastation … and it truly was,” she said.

Holt’s house sustained minor damage, but the red oak her father, Jack Richardson, and brother, Tom Richardson, used as a shade tree when fixing automobiles was snapped in half. All but two of the large trees Holt had grown up under were uprooted.

“I think we were in shock and we were just so grateful that we still had what we did,” she said. “It took a while for you to really realize what you had lost.”

While grateful for her house, Holt said the trees had been a constant in her life. Her father wouldn’t allow any of the trees to be cut down while he was alive.

“We grew up surrounded by big trees,” she said.

Holt said she didn’t know what it is about trees to make them special to her family, but she said she and her sons feel the same way.

“They’re not an overnight thing,” she said. “It takes years and years and years to grow.”

As cleanup began, many of the volunteers suggested cutting down what was left of the red oak, but Holt couldn’t bring herself to see it go, she said.

“It was special,” she said. “It was a special, special tree to us, so we just didn’t want to cut it.”

Scott Holt suggested his mother hire a chain saw artist to carve the stump. When deciding on a subject to immortalize in the carving, Grant Holt proposed Jo’s dog Charley because Jack Richardson and the Holts have a great love for the Irish setter.

The artist, Bo Hancock of Corinth, Mississippi, couldn’t use the existing stump for the piece, because the tree is decayed in the center, so a cypress log was used for the actual carving and set on top of the red oak stump and the two were carved to flush together, Holt said.

Despite the barren landscape surrounding her home, Holt has already begun planting her garden again and plans to bring more trees back to her property with Charley by her side and watching from her father’s red oak tree.

“Take a second look and you’re still blessed,” she said.