The Children's Blizzard

On January 12th, 1888, a sudden blizzard struck the Midwest, causing over 230 deaths, most of them children, due to the lack of warning and severe weather conditions. This episode, hosted by Andrew, delves into the horrors of the Schoolhouse Blizzard, describing the rapid and deadly onset of the storm, and detailing the harrowing survival stories and tragic losses of those caught in its path. The episode highlights the failures in weather forecasting at the time, which led to significant changes in the U.S. weather reporting system, ultimately forming the National Weather Service.

00:00 The Unexpected Blizzard of 1888
00:54 Life on the Prairie Before the Storm
01:34 The Calm Before the Storm
02:26 The Blizzard Strikes
04:41 Desperate Survival Stories
15:16 The Aftermath and Legacy
17:29 Conclusion and Reflections

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Transcript

 On January 12th, 1888, a blizzard smashed the Midwest with no warning. Given the blizzard caught many unprepared and away from home. As a result, over 230 people would die. Most of them were children. So what happened? I'm Andrew, and this is History's a disaster.

Tonight we are diving into the schoolhouse blizzard or the children's blizzard, as some call it, in late 1887 going into 88. The Midwest was having a hell of a time with terrible weather. They were getting hit with Sub-Zero temperatures and ice storms. It was a frozen hell on earth as opposed to the normal hell of it just being the Midwest.

This was rough prairie country. Think little House on the Prairie except much, much shittier after the Homestead Act of 1862, which allowed families to purchase 160 acres of land for a very small fee. Many immigrants moved to the area fairly quickly. And with this rapid migration, buildings went up quickly.

They had gaps in the walls, so they were very drafty and cold. The little one room schoolhouses were slept together with 10 roofs covered inside for installation. So not exactly high quality construction going on in the prairie. So on January 12th, when they got a break from the freezing cold, they were going to enjoy it.

A warm front traveled up from the Gulf Coast. The morning started out warm. It was a nice brisk, 40 degrees warmer than it had been in previous days. It was nice enough for the kids to forget their coats and gloves at home as they headed out to their one room schoolhouses. Their teachers and the local farmers enjoyed the break from the freeze, too, opting to go out in less layers than they normally would.

Many took the opportunity to go into town to get supplies or visit neighbors and just generally to be out in the nice weather. The farmers were able to let animals out of their barns and wander out to get hay from their fields by the afternoon. It was nice enough for some of the snow and ice to start melting away.

They thought and hoped this was the start of a January thaw and they'd get a week, maybe two of good weather, but due to there being a lack of warning thanks to the US Army Signal Corps, not issuing one and just the general lack of technology since it is the 18 hundreds, they were not aware of the major mass of arctic air with freezing winds and temperatures that was moving in.

It was coming quick, spanning 800 miles in 17 hours. It would hit Montana first in the early morning hours before blowing through the Dakota territories and reaching Nebraska by the afternoon. In the early hours of the afternoon, these two fronts collided and combined into one massive one, and by three 30 this massive and sudden blizzard came roaring through Nebraska with a bang.

Wind speeds picked up in excess of 60 miles per hour, pushing snow drifts higher than 15 feet in with it. The snow was blinding with the wind. It dropped visibility to zero. You could not see your hand in front of your face. Some areas of the Midwest would see temperature drops of 100 degrees, and when it hit, it changed everything in minutes.

Many people watched the storm front come in, but with the rapid weather changes, there was not a lot they could do. And the timing of this blizzard could not have been any worse. It was at a time when many kids would be leaving school with the speed the blizzard came in. It caught many kids and adults out in the cold.

I. Thousands of people were caught out in the blizzard across the Midwest, unprepared for the sudden change in temperature to try to help with the poor visibility. Many settlers would leave lit candles and window sills and stand in their doorways, yelling and banging on kettles to help guide any of those.

Unfortunate to be caught in the snow and nearby, and the smart ones. Would stay inside to go out and try to rescue someone was to tempt death.

In the days that followed the blizzard, many stories would come out about individuals and their desperate bid for survival. One teacher, Minnie Freeman, would become a local celebrity when she saved the lives of her 13 school children. She was a 19-year-old teacher in Mera Valley, Nebraska, having grown up in Nebraska.

She was familiar with storm patterns in the area. When she was outside with the kids, she recognized one storm pattern in the cloud and quickly got the kids inside. She hoped the storm would pass quickly, minutes after getting the kids inside, the winds rocked the side Roofed schoolhouse. Sideways flying.

Snow rattled the windows. The small schoolhouse had a stove with plenty of coal. However, the kids had very little warm weather clothes, not nearly enough to stay warm in the one room school. The wind smashed in the door, and many knew they had to go using a roll of twine. She tied herself and the kids together, and as she tied the last kids to each other, a large gust of wind tore the roof off and an instant the temperature dropped 20 degrees.

She quickly made the decision to try to make it to a farmhouse a mile away. She walked by this farmhouse every day, so she knew where to go. Which is a good thing 'cause visibility was near zero. She bundled the kids together to stay warm and stepped into the whiteout blizzard. She led the terrified kids swiftly through knee deep snow, hoping against hope to see the outline of the farmhouse quickly.

And finally when it did, she was able to get the kids inside to wait out the storm. The next morning, she was able to greet the worried parents with every one of the kids making it through the night. Other teachers would not be so lucky. In Plainview, Nebraska, Lois Royce got trapped with three of her kids in the schoolhouse.

By 3:00 PM they had run out of fuel for their stove. Fear of freezing to death made the decision to try to make it to Louis's boarding house. Less than 100 yards away in the zero visibility weather, they got turned around and lost the two boys, both nine years old and one 6-year-old. Little girl froze to death in the street.

Go would survive. Both her feet were so badly frostbit, they had to be amputated. Edit Schock of Seward County, Nebraska would not be as lucky as Lois. She went out that morning to get the paperwork signed so she could get her final paycheck. From the school district. On her way home, the storm hit. The man she was boarding with had stood in the doorway calling for her, but she never came.

She was nearby but not close enough to hear over the winds, nor could she see the house she knew was close. She planned on trying to find the fence around the house and follow it home. She found and followed the fence, but it kept going on and on, and she never found her way back. So she crawled under the fence into the open field beyond.

She could not find the house, but she did find a haystack using her. Nearly frozen and useless hands. She dug herself into the haystack. She became trapped in the hay as it compacted under the snow and froze. She would be trapped for nearly three days without food or water. She would eventually be rescued but would die of complications in surgery when they amputated her frostbitten legs and feet.

One school in the Dakota territories released the kids near the start of the blizzard. The men in the town would set up a line of sways to carry the children home safely. As the children got on and the procession started up, little 8-year-old, Walter Allen jumped off the sleigh to run back inside. He had to retrieve a little glass bottle he left behind.

It was one of his most prized possessions. He knew if. He left it behind. It would become frozen and break in the cold, but by the time he got back outside, this glaze had left and could not be seen in the snow. So he decided to try to walk home blinded by the snow in his freezing tears in mere moments.

His face was covered in snow. He collapsed in the snow and curled up when he could not go any further. When his parents saw he was missing a search party returned to the school to look for him, the adults could not locate him in the snow. However, Walter's little brother playing in the snow and acting like a dog tripped over his body.

He was unconscious but alive. They would get him home and warmed up and he would survive the blizzard. I. Teachers and students weren't the only ones having a hard go of it. Other settlers in the Midwest would become lost in the near whiteout conditions like Norwegian immigrant Cecilia Zen. She became worried when her husband nut got trapped in the blizzard.

40 steps from the front door. She got so lost and turned around. She froze to death under a sled, and these stories go out. On and on. There was an estimated 20,000 people overtaken and lost in the storm. Many of them were children sent home from school or out doing farm chores, but there was also farmers working in their fields or leading their cattle to water doctors making their rounds.

Pedalers salesmen, mail carriers, grocers. There are hundreds of firsthand accounts of the onset of the blizzard. The wind shift, the first wave of blinding snow that was as fine as dust. Hundreds more of narrow escapes houses or barns found by accident or pure dumb luck of horses or dogs that led their owners.

Back to the barn landmarks that suddenly appeared out of nowhere when the wind dropped for a second. Rare are the stories of rescues. People saved themselves or they weren't saved at all with very few exceptions. Once a body was in the snow, it stayed there.

By 6:00 PM Full darkness had settled in that night. It would be a long cold night for all of those trapped out on the prairie, and as it got darker outside, so too did the hope of anyone finding shelter and the temperature was still dropping. As the temperatures dropped, hypothermia started to set in for those trapped outside.

The freezing wind and blowing snow combined with wet clothes and the lack of food and shelter would lower the body temperature of anyone outside. And once the body's core temperature drops to around 95 degrees, the first mild stages of hypothermia set in the mind begins to dull. Those afflicted become more hostile to others around them.

Their thoughts turn to nothing but getting warm again, and everyone else is to blame for them being so cold by 93 degrees. Memory loss and amnesia kicks in. Thoughts become extremely clouded. You can't think straight. Your judgment is impaired. Stupid decisions are made. You're drunk on the cold at 91 degrees.

You no longer care about what happens. Speech is slurred and your body doesn't respond like it should. You can't move your arms or legs right anymore, so you stumble through the dark and the snow until you fall over, unable to continue, and 88 degrees you stop shivering from the cold, severe hypothermia.

Was now here. Your blood thickens as it slowly freezes your organs start to slow down. Your heart gets frail as it beats weaker and weaker, struggling to push your thickened blood through your body. The slower blood circulation robs you of much needed oxygen, and the metabolic cycle starts to break down.

Lactic and pyruvic acid build up with the loss of oxygen, which in turn causes your heart to beat slower, which causes more acid build up, bodily fluid gets moved around until you have to pee over and over again. Until dehydration sets in below 87 degrees. Your sanity goes. You no longer care or even know that you're cold.

Hallucinations and delusions settle into your oxygen starved brain. It creates its own reality. Often one of wish fulfillment, a desperate reality where everything is going to be okay. You're happy and relaxed. All is right in the world, and then you're warm. Incredibly warm. So warm. You strip off clothes as you feel like you're burning at 85 degrees.

The sensation and hallucinations fade. Now. You're just tired, you're exhausted. You just need to lay down and sleep just for a few minutes, and in those few minutes. Core body temperature continues to drop until you're frozen through In those few minutes, they never end.

And so it was for many of those trapped in the frozen wilderness. Some would survive longer than others, but without any shelter or heat. Most would be dead by, daybreak by Dawn. On Friday the 13th, the blizzard was finally over. The sun rose on an eerily silent day. Nothing moved outside. No noise could be heard.

Then people started to stir some who had survived. The long cold night began to rise only to take a few steps and fall over dead in the morning. The sudden movement and change in position caused massive drops in blood pressure leading to heart failure. As the day continued, people went out in search of missing loved ones.

The men would wander up and down, jamming poles and shovels into snow drifts looking for bodies. The wounded were carried off to doctors to be treated for frostbite and exposure. Many stories circulated rapidly of death and survival in the snow. Days and months would pass while searches continued for those still missing who had gotten lost in the blizzard.

For some, it would be months before they were found. By January 21st, they put the death toll at 235, but that number could be as high as 500 estimates varied due to a lack of proper reporting and also that it would take months to find the missing. Along with many more would die in the following weeks from pneumonia or infections caused by amputation the failure of the single courts to issue warnings in not only this blizzard, but another more deadly blizzard in March would eventually see them strict of weather forecasting responsibility.

This would be handed over to the Department of Agriculture, which would lead to the formation of the United States Weather Bureau. Which would become the National Weather Service in 1970. Along with this change, the Weather Bureau would focus more on better and more accurate ways of forecasting the weather, as well as increasing warnings of in increment weather.

And that was the children's blizzard, a sudden snowstorm that occurred with little to no warning due to the imprecise nature of weather forecasting at the time, along with the lack of means of communicating warnings on a broader scale. Thanks for listening, and if you enjoyed the show. Please consider leaving a rating or review on your app of choice, and you can reach out with comments or suggestions at histories, a disaster@gmail.com and you can follow the show on social media.

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