I Survived the Children's Blizzard, 1888

by Lauren Tarshis

  Miss Ruell stopped by a few times. Of course John had to tell her about those long poems she’d made them memorize, how they helped John and the guys stay awake in the haystack. Miss Ruell flashed a smile, big and bright.

  By then, John had heard the big news: Miss Ruell was getting married. She would be leaving Dakota this summer and moving to Montana. John would miss her. He knew the guys would, too. Even Peter.

  “I hear she’s invited the whole town to the wedding,” Rex said now. “It’s going to be at the schoolhouse.”

  “What should we get her for a present?” Sven asked.

  They were stumped.

  “I know!” Rex said, his eyes lighting up. “King Rattler’s rattle!”

  They all grinned.

  Rex was a genius! Who wouldn’t want a huge snake rattle as a wedding gift?

  They argued about what food would be best for the wedding: chokeberry pie or molasses cake. They swore they wouldn’t wear their itchy church clothes but thought they might have to. They hoped Miss Ruell’s man would wear his cowboy hat.

  And then there was a rustling sound in the bushes.

  “Shhhh!” Rex said.

  They all jumped up.

  John gripped Pa’s gun. Rex raised his ax. Sven held up his cane. Peter looked ready to pounce.

  It was time to finally kill King Rattler!

  The boys all waited. John’s heart pounded.

  And then it appeared from the bushes:

  An enormous …

  frog.

  It looked at them with its bulging eyes.

  “Croak!”

  They all cracked up and watched the frog hop away.

  And now it was getting late, and time to head home.

  “We’ll be back for you, King Rattler!” Peter shouted.

  They headed back to the pond, shoulders bumping, smiling and joking as they limped along. They said their good-byes and John made his way back toward his farm.

  He breathed in the smell of new grass and fresh dirt. Soon he and Pa would be planting their wheat field. If their crop was a good one, they’d have enough money to start building a real house, made of wood. With two rooms — practically a castle compared to the soddy.

  There would be more work than ever as they readied their field.

  John thought nervously about what the spring and summer could bring.

  Thunderstorms. Hail. Prairie fires. Funnel clouds. Grasshoppers.

  Dakota was a harsh land.

  But they were staying here, at least for now.

  Ma and Pa had talked about leaving, in those terrible weeks after the blizzard. John had heard them whispering softly at night, when they thought he was asleep. That storm had terrified his parents. They’d been so desperate to find John and Franny that Pa had gone out into the storm.

  He’d realized his mistake right away; within five steps Pa was completely lost in the white swirl. He stumbled blindly. And then he heard a bell clanging over the roaring wind. It was Ma, standing in the doorway, leading him home.

  Leave or stay, leave or stay. Ma and Pa weren’t sure what to do. They’d poured every cent — and their hearts — into this farm. And what would they do back in Chicago? Pa had left his job. How would they pay for an apartment? How would they buy food?

  They couldn’t plant a wheat field in Chicago. Their neighbors in the city had never visited with pies and eggs and jars of jelly. This would be their one and only chance to own a farm.

  And so finally, Ma and Pa decided to stay put.

  And John was glad. Because how could he leave the guys?

  There would be more storms ahead, John knew. But somehow they’d all made it through the blizzard. Whatever was coming, they would face it.

  Maybe that’s what it meant to be a pioneer.

  John was about halfway home when something caught his eye, maybe twenty feet to the side.

  It was a snake. A massive snake.

  John stopped breathing.

  Could it be?

  It was King Rattler!

  The giant snake was stretched out in the grass. His diamond skin gleamed. His tongue flickered in and out.

  Moving very slowly, John lifted Pa’s rifle. He took aim at the giant snake.

  Imagine what the guys would say when he brought them the rattle!

  John put his finger on the trigger.

  He steadied himself.

  King Rattler didn’t move. And lying there, he actually didn’t look that fierce. He looked like a very old snake trying to soak up some last rays of sun.

  John wondered: How long had that big snake been on this land?

  A very long time. Longer than any of them.

  Suddenly it seemed wrong to John, that this old snake would be gone.

  He lowered the gun and walked quickly away.

  They’d have to think of a different present for Miss Ruell.

  John walked a mile more, his feet aching.

  Finally he saw their soddy in the distance. He spotted Ma digging in her garden, getting it ready for spring planting. Franny was dancing around outside. Shadow and Princess grazed on tender green sprouts. Pa was on the roof of the barn, patching up the last of the winter holes. He saw John and waved.

  The afternoon sun had turned the brown grass bright gold.

  Whoosh.

  The warm breeze blew, pushing John along.

  Whoosh. It seemed to whisper gently into his ear.

  You’re home.

  Dear Readers,

  Close your eyes and imagine that you live in a tiny dirt house, crammed into one room with your family. You look out the window and all you can see is flat, empty land covered with tall grass. Your closest neighbor is an hour’s walk away, through land infested with rattlesnakes. You live in fear of the dark clouds that suddenly appear in the sky, bringing thunderstorms and blizzards and tornados … and even billions of grasshoppers.

  This was the real life of hundreds of thousands of people in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They were pioneers. They traveled west to build farms on America’s prairie — the vast stretch of flat, grassy land, mostly in North and South Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Kansas. Many had been living in cities or towns in the east. Others came from Europe.

  They came with dreams of building farms and making better lives.

  What they found was hardship. Most pioneers, also known as homesteaders, gave up on their farms after just a few years.

  The biggest challenge was the weather. Few areas of the world have more extreme weather than parts of the American Midwest, especially in the North. The summers are boiling hot and often bone-dry. Winter temperatures can plunge to minus 30 degrees. Spring brings thunderstorms, with pounding hail and tornadoes. There are also droughts, prairie fires, and dust storms. Grasshopper attacks really happened — for years and years. And of course there were blizzards.

  But some people did manage to stay, in spite of all the hardship. With grit and determination and plenty of luck, they built up their farms. They helped create some of the cities and towns that are still there today.

  One of those towns is Wessington Springs, South Dakota, in the middle of the state. In 1888, a few hundred families lived in Wessington Springs. When the blizzard struck, seven kids were stranded in their freezing schoolhouse with their young teacher, May Hunt. They all survived the night by hiding in a haystack.

  My husband and I wanted to visit the town’s small history museum. We had made an appointment to meet the museum’s volunteer director, Eileen Woodruff.

  Little did we know that some I Survived and Storyworks readers would be waiting for us. They had gathered in the town’s small library, with Tammy Mettler, the town librarian.

  We drank lemonade and ate Rice Krispies treats and talked about the town’s history. People shared their own family stories, about relatives who’d built farms, who’d died from rattlesnake bites and withstood grasshopper attacks. In the middle of all of this, a voice called out “Someone needs to call Lorraine.
”

  A call was made. Minutes later, in walked Lorraine Redmann, who has lived in Wessington Springs for most of her long life. She had more stories to share, like that of a man who survived the blizzard huddling in a barn with a pig. “After that,” Lorraine said, “you could not say a bad word about a pig when he was near.”

  Afterward, Eileen took us back to the museum, the Jerauld County Pioneer Museum. (You must visit!) The museum is in a plain brick building that used to be a bank. Inside is a treasure trove of history. There are thousands of objects from the area’s past — furniture, old rifles, hunting knives, dishes, and bottles of medicines such as Brown’s Bitters. There are also arrowheads, robes, and clothing that belonged to the Sioux and other native peoples who had been living on the land for thousands of years before the settlers arrived.

  As I left Wessington Springs, I started to imagine the characters and plot of my I Survived book about the blizzard. I could picture John and his family, his pals at the schoolhouse, and King Rattler.

  As my husband and I traveled down the highway, driving a straight line through the Dakota prairie, I felt a special kind of joy. I had made new friends. I felt lucky to have heard their stories. And I couldn’t wait to share those stories with you.

  Pioneers standing in front of their sod house, similar to the one that John and his family would have lived in.

  The blizzard was huge, powerful, and fast-moving. Some scientists have compared it to a hurricane because of its vicious, swirling winds.

  But what made this blizzard especially dangerous is that it struck on such a warm day, when most people were simply not expecting a storm. A few “old-timers” (like Rex’s dad) did sense something menacing in the sudden rise in temperature, in the unnaturally warm January day.

  But most people were just happy to have a break from the brutal cold that had gripped the prairie the week before. Kids flocked to school. Farmers rushed into their fields to fix fences and took their animals out to get exercise.

  People had no warning that the storm was on the way.

  Today, weather scientists have high-tech tools for tracking blizzards and other storms. They can predict when and where these dangerous storms will strike. We can check the weather on our computers. Weather alerts buzz on our phones.

  In 1888, however, the science of weather forecasting — known as meteorology — was still very new. Scientists didn’t really understand weather patterns. And there was no way for people to know what was coming — until that black cloud appeared.

  And then it was too late.

  Was the Children’s Blizzard the deadliest blizzard to strike America?

  About 235 people died in the Children’s Blizzard. Many were children, which is why the event was especially tragic, and why it is remembered more than any other prairie blizzard in history.

  I was surprised to learn that the deadliest blizzard in America struck just two months after the Children’s Blizzard, in March 1888. It hit the East Coast, burying cities and towns from Maine down to Washington, DC. New York City got hit especially hard. More than 200 people died in New York City alone.

  The Children’s Blizzard was likely a more powerful storm than the one that hit the East. But because there were so many more people living in eastern cities, the death toll was higher in the March storm.

  New York City after the blizzard of 1888

  What was life like in America at the time of the blizzard?

  Life was different depending on where in the country you lived, just as in America today. That was even more true back in 1888.

  In cities like New York and Chicago, life was becoming more and more modern. Electric lights blazed in the streets. Gleaming steel bridges crossed rivers. There were fancy department stores, baseball stadiums, concert halls, and theaters. Kids went to big schools with hundreds of students. People even had toilets — inside their homes. (That was modern!)

  But in America’s small towns, life hadn’t changed much in a hundred years. There were few roads. Most people were farmers. Kids worked alongside their parents, and went to one-room schools. Toilets were outside, pits dug in the ground.

  For people like John and his family, living in tiny towns in the West, life could be especially challenging.

  How big was America in 1888?

  In 1888, America was growing fast. New immigrants were pouring in from Europe. Between 1850 and 1890, the population grew from 23 million to 62 million. (Today our population is 325 million.)

  Back in 1888, there were only thirty-eight states, instead of the fifty we have today. Places like northern and southern Dakota, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah were called “territories.” These were areas controlled by the US government. The people there had to follow most US laws. But they didn’t have the same rights as people living in states. For example, they could not cast a vote for president.

  Originally known as “Dakota Territory,” North and South Dakota became states in 1889. It wasn’t until 1959 that America had fifty states. Alaska and Hawaii were the last to be admitted.

  Today, there are still American territories, including Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands in the Caribbean, and the Pacific islands of Guam, the Mariana Islands, and American Samoa.

  Did the grasshopper attacks really happen?

  Yes! Also known as locusts, these insects terrorized people and destroyed farms throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s. They were also known as “grasshopper plagues.” The insects came from the west, in the Rocky Mountains. They attacked farms on prairies from Dakota down to northern Texas and all the way west to California.

  The gigantic swarms could be miles wide. The largest, which attacked the prairie, was 1,800 miles long and 110 miles wide. Yes, miles. That is larger than all the New England states put together, plus New York, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. The swarms consisted of one particular species of insect: the Rocky Mountain locust. They were brown and grew to be about an inch long. Scientists believe they were attracted by the wheat and corn the farmers were growing. They devoured everything that grew. They’d also eat saddles, wooden fences, and laundry hanging out to dry.

  There was nothing that could be done to stop these attacks, which mostly happened in the summer. People tried everything. Farmers set fire to their fields. In 1877, the governor of Minnesota even ordered a statewide day of prayer to stop them. Farmers used “hopperdozers,” which were giant metal devices covered with tar, oil, and molasses that they dragged through the fields to capture the grasshoppers.

  Nothing worked.

  Then, in the early 1900s, the grasshopper attacks suddenly stopped. The Rocky Mountain locust became extinct. There are still giant locust swarms in America and around the world. But none are as gigantic and destructive as those that attacked across the prairie in the 1800s.

  If life was so hard on the prairie in the 1880s, why did so many people want to move there?

  After the Civil War ended, in 1865, the US government wanted more farmers to move west. And what better way to lure people than to give away land for free?

  In 1862, our government passed a new law: the Homestead Act. It said that any man or single woman over the age of twenty-one could have 160 acres of land (about one-quarter mile) for free. All a person had to do was pay ten dollars, fill out a form, and work the land for five years.

  Back then, owning a farm was a dream for millions of Americans, people like John’s parents. And the offer of free land out west was simply too good to pass up. Few could imagine just how hard life would be.

  What happened to the Native American people who had been living on the prairie?

  The story of what happened to America’s native peoples is one of the most shameful in our history.

  There are more than 550 different nations or tribes in America. Each has a unique culture and language.

  When Christopher Columbus first arrived in America, there were millions of native people already living here (nobody knows the exact number, but some experts say there were ten mil
lion people or more). Native peoples had been living throughout America for thousands of years.

  The people who were living on the prairie before the settlers arrived were members of the Sioux nation. There are seven different Sioux tribes.

  The Sioux way of life at that time depended mostly on hunting buffalo (also known as bison). Up until the 1800s, there were millions and millions of these big, shaggy animals living on the prairie. The Sioux hunted them in the fall, and used almost every part of the animals they killed. They ate the meat, turned the fur into warm blankets and robes, the hides into shoes and tents. They carved the bones to make tools and shovels. Nothing was wasted.

  When settlers started moving in and building farms, they began killing the buffalo. The big herds trampled crops and got in the way of the railroads being built. The United States Army helped kill the buffalo. By the 1880s, almost all of them were gone. This was a catastrophe for the Sioux; many people starved to death.

  But the loss of the buffalo was only one of many problems for the Sioux. Many died of diseases brought by the settlers. There were terrible battles with the US Army. Sioux warriors attacked settlers, and settlers attacked the Sioux. Fear and anger spread.

  By 1888, at the time of the blizzard, the American government had forced the Sioux to move to “reservations,” land set aside just for them. This land was generally not good for farming or for hunting. Many more people starved.

  What happened to the Sioux people happened to native peoples all over America. Their lands were taken. Their way of life was destroyed.

  Today, there are roughly 5.2 million Native American people in the United States. Some live on reservations, but most live and work and go to schools in cities and towns throughout America.

  To learn more about settlers like John and his family:

  Children of the Wild West, by Russell Freedman, Clarion Books, 1983