The Children's Blizzard

by David Laskin

  Quote about the morning of January 12, 1888, beginning “On the morning of Thursday…” is from N. J. Dunham, A History of Jerauld County, South Dakota (Wessington Springs, S. Dak.: 1910), pages 164–5.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Disturbance

  The description of the evolution and movement of the storm is based on interviews with Dr. Louis Uccellini, director of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, Dr. Nicholas A. Bond of the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean of the University of Washington and the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory of NOAA, Dr. Mark Seeley of the University of Minnesota, and Dr. Gregory J. Hakim of the University of Washington Department of Atmospheric Sciences. Greg Spodan and Peter Boulay of the Minnesota State Climatology Office provided useful background, statistics, and insight, as did Tom St. Martin. I also consulted Meteorology Today: An Introduction to Weather, Climate, and the Environment by C. Donald Ahrens (Minneapolis/St. Paul: West Publishing, 1994).

  I relied on my interview with Dr. Uccellini for the description of the role of the jet streak and short wave in amplifying the storm. Dr. Uccellini pointed out that not all meteorologists share his views of this feature. Some prefer to look at the jet streak and short wave as a coupled phenomenon: Operating in tandem, the jet deepens the valley or trough of the short wave while the short wave steers the jet.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Indications

  Storm Watchers: The Turbulent History of Weather Prediction from Franklin’s Kite to El Niño by John D. Cox (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2002), Isaac’s Storm by Erik Larson (New York: Crown, 1999), and Air Apparent by Mark Monmonier (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999) all provided a wealth of information on the history of weather forecasting and the ups and downs of the Signal Corps.

  The bulk of my information on the career of Thomas Mayhew Woodruff comes from NARA, Record Group 27. Tom St. Martin has assembled extremely useful unpublished materials on the Minnesota State Weather Service, the career of Professor William Payne, and his stormy relationship with Western Union and the Signal Corps. The NARA holdings also shed light on the career and character of Adolphus W. Greely, as do Ghosts of Cape Sabine by Leonard F. Guttridge (New York: Berkley Books, 2000) and A History of the United States Signal Corps by the editors of Army Times (New York: Putnam, 1961).

  Greely’s assertion of “The great advantages of knowing sixteen to twenty-four hours in advance…” is from Annual Report of the Chief Signal Officer, cited above, page 12.

  Chief Joseph’s speech, “I am tired of talk that comes to nothing…,” is quoted in compiler Virginia Irving Armstrong’s I Have Spoken: American History Through the Voices of the Indians (Chicago: Sage Books, 1971), page 116.

  Woodruff’s remarks about the Indian wars, “These wars are not welcome…,” are from his essay “Our Indian Question” in Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States 2, no. 7 (1881), page 301. The second quote, “Under the banners of civilization…” is from page 295.

  As background to Payne’s objection to Western Union, it’s helpful to know that by the terms of the Telegraph Act of 1866, private telegraph companies like Western Union charged the U.S. government a special rate fixed yearly by the postmaster general in exchange for the privilege of constructing and operating telegraph lines on public land.

  In the matter of Woodruff ’s refusal to expand the data-gathering network by opening additional stations, what’s especially puzzling is that Greely himself informed Woodruff on November 23, 1887, that he did “not coincide in the opinion expressed by you that the collecting of reports from the stations on the different railways free of expense to this service is contrary to the agreement with the WUTC [Western Union Telegraph Company] by the railway companies in question. Any business which is railroad business (and none other) can be transacted, and it is to be expected that you will avail yourself of such facilities as the railway companies offer in shape of free reports or information.” A bit of background culled from the book Old Wires and New Waves: The History of the Telegraph, Telephone, and Wireless by Alvin F. Harlow (New York: D. Appleton-Century Co., 1936), pages 213–14, clarifies some of this. After the Civil War, the railroads and the telegraph companies had worked out a reciprocal arrangement whereby they both strung lines along the railroads’ rights of way and used the same telegraph operator. The telegraph companies furnished the poles, wires, and instruments for both sets of lines. In exchange, the railroads agreed not to send any free messages except those pertaining to their own business. So, in effect, Greely was agreeing with Payne that it was permissible for Woodruff to receive weather data over the railroad lines for free so long as such data were used only in business pertaining to “the interests of the railways themselves” and not made available for public distribution. As a sop to civic responsibility, Greely added rather lamely that the public would stand to benefit “incidentally” from this arrangement by “the increased accuracy which such reports will give you in your work.” Yet despite Greely’s new instructions, Woodruff held firm in his refusal to avail himself of these data. Rather than run the risk of incurring a charge against the government, the lieutenant stuck by his original orders and limited himself to reports from the observing stations already in place.

  Elias Loomis’s observations that “[O]ne storm begets its successor…” is quoted in Storm Watchers by Cox, page 48.

  Greely’s remarks on the paths of cold waves are from his American Weather (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1888), page 215. His quote about “principles of philosophy” is from American Weather, page 1.

  Nicholas Bond explained to me that the spike in temperature at Helena during the first hours of January 12 was very likely the result of downslope winds blowing off the front range of the Rockies just west of the city, though Woodruff had no way of knowing this.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Cold Front

  The comparison of fronts to “seams in the atmosphere” and other details about the appearance and behavior of fronts come from John D. Cox’s Storm Watchers, pages 165–66.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Explosion

  In assigning blame for the lateness of the arrival of the cold wave warnings, it is critical to know exactly what time the messages went out and who caused the delay—but this is impossible to ascertain from the existing records. After comparing contradictory or obscure reports I have drawn conclusions that I believe are warranted, but in fairness I want to present all the evidence.

  It’s notable that in his report on the Minnesota State Weather Service printed in the Annual Report of the Chief Signal Officer of the Army to the Secretary of War for the Year 1888, Professor Payne wrote that after Western Union took over telegraphic work from the railroads on September 25, 1887, “The following circular was sent to all observers in Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Dakota…: ‘Messages will be ready for delivery at 7.30 a. m. daily (except Sunday) and should be called for before 8 o’clock a. m., which is the time for display of flags.’ Very unsatisfactory service from that day to the present time has been given by the Western Union Company” (page 108). Payne is referring to messages sent to the “flag stations” of the Minnesota State Weather Service, but presumably the Saint Paul Indications Office would have followed a similar schedule.

  As for the timing of the cold wave warnings sent out on January 12, the records that survive are contradictory. According to the monthly report that Woodruff sent to Greely for January 1888, the warnings to hoist cold wave flags on January 12 went out at 7 A.M. to Saint Vincent, Fort Totten, Fort Buford, Bismarck, Moorhead, Rapid City, Fort Sully, Huron, Valentine, Yankton, North Platte, Omaha, and Crete. And at 5 P.M. that day another round of cold wave orders was sent to Duluth, Saint Paul, LaCrosse, Dubuque-Des Moines, Davenport, Keokuk, Green Bay, and Milwaukee. Yet no observer in Nebraska or Dakota Territory received the reports before 12:20 P.M. Central time. By his own account, Woodruff did not arrive in his office until 9 A.M. and the records clearly in
dicate that he had not ordered the cold wave warning the night before. He was the only person in a position to authorize a cold wave warning, but he was not even in the office at the time that the first round of cold wave warnings were supposed to have been sent out. So how could the warnings have gone out at 7 A.M.?

  It’s notable that no other cold wave warnings that month went out before 11 A.M. In the tissue paper copies of Woodruff ’s indications, the first use of the term “cold wave” in connection with the storm was clearly dated and timed January 12, 10:30 A.M. (Central time)—which is consistent with an 11 A.M. transmission and a receipt shortly after noon. It’s also worth noting that the entry in the monthly report to Greely detailing the transmission of cold wave warnings for January 12 is not in Woodruff ’s handwriting.

  In sifting through and comparing the documents, I have concluded that the claim of the 7 A.M. transmission was incorrect—either a clerical error in the monthly report or, though this is farfetched, a deliberate attempt to fabricate an earlier time and thus exonerate the Saint Paul office from responsibility for the deaths caused by the blizzard. In any case, despite this claim in the monthly report, there is no evidence that the warnings went out that early. And even if they did, the entries in the daily journals of Signal Corps observers indicate that the warnings were received far too late to benefit the people of the region, particularly the children who had left for school hours before.

  Sergeant Samuel W. Glenn’s fascinating and detailed firsthand account of the storm is in the Huron Signal Corps station journal for 1888 held at NARA.

  “We were all out playing in our shirt sleeves…” O. W. Coursey, quoted in In All Its Fury, page 38.

  Walter Allen wrote an account of how he got lost in the storm that day. Allen’s daughter Barbara Wegner very kindly let me have a copy of the typescript. The Dacotah Prairie Museum also holds a transcript of an interview with Walter Allen about his experience in the blizzard, conducted on February 10, 1970, by Helen G. Strauss as part of the South Dakota Oral History Project.

  There are several accounts of how the five Schweizer boys got lost in the storm. I relied heavily on the account written by Peter Albrecht, the brother of one of the storm victims. Additional information comes from the histories of the Schweizers in Freeman, South Dakota, cited above, and from my interviews with Duane Schrag, Gladys Waltner, and Anna Kaufman. Duane Schrag drove and walked with me over the route between the schoolhouse and the place where the boys were finally found. He also showed me the grave where they were buried.

  I have used a bit of poetic license in imagining what was going through the mind of Johann Albrecht as he walked to school that morning and exactly how it came to pass that five of the boys split off from their teacher and two classmates—but in imagining these scenes I have been guided by suggestions in firsthand accounts of survivors and by my interviews with family and community members. Again, Duane Schrag was invaluable in verifying details about how these boys would have spoken, dressed, eaten, behaved, regarded their teacher, prayed, etc.

  The story of Etta Shattuck comes from contemporary newspapers and bits of family history archived at the Holt County Historical Society and the Seward County Genealogical Society. I also drew on the accounts in Homestead Fever by Marie Kramer (Henderson, Nebraska: Service Press, 1993) and Before Today: A History of Holt County Nebraska by Nellie Snyder Yost (O’Neill, Nebr.: Miles Publishing Co., 1976). John Gilg drove me through the Holt County countryside where Etta Shattuck’s school was located and supplied many useful details. Jane Graff showed me Etta Shattuck’s grave in Seward and answered questions about her family’s life in town.

  Heloise Bresley of Ord, Nebraska, supplied the various—and markedly different—accounts of Minnie Freeman’s rescue of her pupils during the storm. These accounts are held at the Ord Township Library. Depending on which source one consults—The Trail of the Loup; being a history of the Loup River region by H. W. Foght (Ord. Nebr: 1906), A View of the Valley compiled by the Centennial Committee in 1972, or Scratchtown: A History of Ord, Nebraska by Ronald J. Radil (Ord: Quiz Graphic Arts, 1982)—there were anywhere from nine to sixteen students present that day, and they either were or were not roped together by Minnie Freeman. Even the students present that day left contradictory accounts.

  The story of Lena Woebbecke on the day of the storm comes from contemporary newspapers, the Seward County Genealogical Society archives, and the recollections of Lawrence Woebbecke. A Nebraska student named Hervey S. Robinson wrote a prizewinning essay in 1940 about Lena titled “A School Child in the Blizzard of ’88,” held at the Nebraska State Archives.

  Arlein Fransen of the Jerauld County Pioneer Museum in Wessington Springs, South Dakota, provided newspaper accounts detailing the fate of May Hunt and her students in the Knieriem School during the storm. Duke Wenzel devoted much of the November 26, 2002, edition of the Wessington Springs True Dakotan to the storm and the Knieriem School, with photos of the site of the school and the surrounding countryside as they look today. I found this extremely useful. There is an extensive and detailed chapter about the storm in A History of Jerauld County by N. J. Dunham (Wessington Springs, S. Dak.: 1910).

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  God’s Burning Finger

  Professor John Hallett of the Desert Research Institute, Roger Reinking, and Ronald L. Holle explained the causes of the static discharges that so many people noticed at the height of the storm.

  The quote from Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick is from the Library of Literature edition (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1964), page 639.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Exposure

  In describing how hypothermia affects and finally kills the human body, I drew on the following sources: To Build a Fire and Other Stories by Jack London, especially the stories “The Law of Life” and “To Build a Fire” (New York: Bantam, 1986, reprinted from Novels and Stories by Jack London, Library of America, 1982). Hypothermia, Frostbite and Other Cold Injuries, by James A. Wilkerson, M.D., Cameron C. Bangs, M.D., John S. Hayward, Ph.D. (Seattle, Wash.: The Mountaineers, 1986); Last Breath: Cautionary Tales from the Limits of Human Endurance by Peter Stark (New York: Ballantine, 2001); Hypothermia: Death by Exposure by William W. Forgey (Merrillville, Ind.: ICS Books, 1985); Hypothermia and Cold Stress by Evan L. Lloyd (Rockville, Md.: Aspen Systems Corp., 1986); High Altitude Medicine and Physiology by Michael P. Ward, James S. Milledge, and John B. West, 3rd edition (London: Arnold, 2000).

  I gleaned many useful details and corrected many mistaken ideas in the course of interviews with Dr. Cameron C. Bangs, Dr. Bruce Paton, Dr. Murray Hamlet, Dr. William W. Forgey, and Dr. Leona Laskin. In addition, Dr. Paton read the chapter and caught and corrected errors that slipped in.

  Inevitably some of what I have written about the last hours of the Schweizer boys is based on speculation—but in all cases my speculations are based on firsthand accounts by hypothermia victims as well as the research and personal experiences of the doctors I interviewed. In several instances the doctors suggested the likely behaviors, conversation, and emotions of the boys during the various stages of their ordeal.

  The statistic on bodily heat loss increasing as the square of the wind’s velocity comes from Hypothermia, Frostbite and Other Cold Injuries, page 13.

  Dr. Bruce Paton pointed out that if the boys had been wearing good windproof clothing, windchill would have had much less effect on them.

  For the onset of deep hypothermia after the cessation of shivering, see William W. Forgey’s The Basic Essentials of Hypothermia (Merrillville, Ind.: ICS Books, 1991), 31.

  Details on hallucinations during hypothermia are from Evan Lloyd, Hypothermia and Cold Stress, page 140. Details on the mind separating from the body during extreme hypothermia are from Jack London, page 178, and Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (New York: Anchor Books, 1997), page 252.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Prairie Dawn

  Drs. Bangs, Paton, Hamlet, and Forgey explained the likely causes of the death
s of Omar Gibson, Jesse Beadel, and Frederick Milbier.

  My discussion of frostbite draws on the books cited above, along with interviews with these same doctors.

  The fact that rubbing frozen flesh with snow causes tissue damage comes from Hypothermia, Frostbite and Other Cold Injuries, page 90.

  Information on the history of inhalable anesthetics comes from Dr. Maurice Albin, Dr. Stanley Feldman, and Dr. Leona Laskin.

  John Jensen’s letter about the death of his wife and child was reprinted in a special edition of The Wessington Springs True Dakotan devoted to the blizzard, published on January 12, 1988, page 18.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sunday

  Nicholas Bond described to me the progress of vigorous cold fronts down through Texas and Mexico and out into the Gulf of Tehuantepec.

  “There are very marked topographical features…” is from Greely, American Weather, page 212.

  My account of the rescue of Etta Shattuck comes from Before Today: A History of Holt County, Nebraska, page 211. There is a markedly different account in the Nebraska State Journal of January 21, 1888, published in Lincoln. That paper reported that Etta was found by a Mr. Adams. As he was out shoveling snow off his hay pile, Adams got hold of a shoe, whereupon he asked, “Ettie, are you in there?” I chose the rescue by Daniel Murphy reported in Before Today since it is more fully detailed and because the details match up with other contemporary sources.

  Joan Killingsworth of Scribner, Nebraska, supplied family papers, stories and genealogies that I drew on in telling the story of her aunts, Eda and Matilda Westphalen. Ms. Killingsworth drove with me to the sites of the girls’ graves and helped me find the location of their home, their school, and the place where they died.