NORTHWOOD (AP) - Tornado losses are difficult to calculate. But clearly, Annie Mercer-Weisz lost more than anyone.

Her husband, Larry Weisz, died when their mobile home was catapulted into a large tree by 150 mph winds. Her ache remains.

"Some days, I'm a puddle, and some days, I'm as ornery as ever," she said. "Intellectually, I've accepted it. Emotionally? No."

A year after disaster, the town's familiar rhythms, cherished routines return.

Amid her loss, Annie Mercer-Weisz has a major gain. It's the appreciation that Northwood is truly home. She knew that before, and she knew that when she vehemently refused Sen. Byron Dorgan's offer to put her up in an apartment in Hillsboro. But she really understands it now.

Annie and Larry loved Northwood from the "minute we walked in," she said. That was in 1997, when their Grand Forks apartment building was destroyed by the flood.

"Everyone needs to know your business here, but that's OK," she said. "You can walk wherever you need to go. It's a neat, clean town. Right away, it seemed an easygoing, laid-back place where everyone is nice."

She just didn't know how nice.

Beth and A.J. Johnson took her into their home immediately after the tornado. With her possessions literally being only the clothes on her back, many helped with her personal needs. Jerome Kjorven allowed her to move into a vacant house long before the paperwork was completed for her to buy it. Troy Johnson, owner of The Hut bar where she used to work, stops by regularly to see what she needs.

Her list of neighborly good deeds is long. Merchants who didn't charge. A shingled roof. Help with her lawn, garden, flower beds, siding, broken screen window and van. An overflowing crowd at Larry's funeral.

"It's a big thing because they're gestures," she said. "That's Northwood."

Annie, 58, lives off her monthly disability check. She used to clean homes and businesses before suffering nerve damage in her arms. She lives with her four cats in a two-story, one-bedroom, 1918-built home with a front porch.

Hanging above the door in the porch is a sign that reads: "The most important things aren't things."

A chain-smoker of Sonoma cigarettes, Mercer-Weisz keeps her home meticulously tidy except for the full ash tray.

She points out what was given to her, what was bought at rummage sales and two salvaged items from the mobile home. One is a church pew. The other is a "Big Mouth Billy Bass" wall hanging that sings the "Don't Worry, Be Happy" song when it detects motion.

"We're walking through the rubble of the trailer when someone steps on Billy Bass," Annie remembers. "It started singing, 'Don't worry, be happy.' We weren't sure whether to laugh or cry."

Her crying is done privately. "I can't stand a pity pot," she said. "Sniveling is what you do by yourself at home."

In memory of her husband, Annie commissioned a chain saw artist to make a sculpture out of a tornado-damaged elm in her yard. The tree stump has been shaped into a black funnel above a mobile home and the date "8-26-07."

"This isn't about me," she said. "It's about the town."

The grace of Northwood residents hasn't subsided in a year, she said.

"Even people who don't like me - and there are quite a few because I'm very outspoken - are still nice to me and still wave," she said.