The book I have chosen to read is titled "The Children's Blizzard" by David Laskin which chronicles the January, 12 1888 blizzard that swept through the prairies of America. What was so devastating about this storm was that it was so unexpected. The day started out fairly mild with sunny skies and then all of the sudden everyone, especially children coming home from school that day were engulfed by the tragic storm that took the lives of hundreds, many of them children who lay frozen on the prairies. This book follows six different pioneer families and their children. The book also tells the tale of the disastrous meteorological predictions and the failure to warn those about the impending storm.
The Children’s Blizzard
DAVID LASKIN
New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Index, Sources. 307 Pages.
Reviewed By Danielle Meyer
David Laskin has written a thrilling and heart wrenching tale of one of the most detrimental and horrifying blizzards of the Midwest, the blizzard of January 12, 1888. Although this work of non-fiction tells the tale of life and loss it also provides a wonderful overview of the workings of meteorology and he explains in great detail the reasons for why such an abrupt and detrimental storm emerged on that unusually mild morning of January 12th. The book is divided into twelve chapters with the initial chapter’s first going into great detail about the lives of several families who were deeply affected by the blizzard. The middle chapters present the tales of those caught in the storm while the last chapters tell of the aftermath of the storm.
Drawing from the diaries, newspaper articles and interviews of the those families Laskin is able to provide the reader with a relationship to the numerous families throughout the book including the Benjamin Shattuck family who moved from Ohio to Nebraska where 160 acres were waiting for him to set up a new farmstead (Laskin, 37) and Peter and Freni Graber who moved to Dakota territory to start a new life for their large family (Laskin, 35). This was a very wonderful approach to the book as the reader was able to better connect to the “characters” and understand how each family coped with their losses or detriments.
A disastrous disturbance was building over the Alberta region of Canada and in turn a low pressure system would build to such capacity that the barometric pressure would drop exponentially and a cold wave would work its way down through the prairie states. Before this however, the weather would turn quite mild for the first time in weeks and this brought people out from their homes and give children an opportunity to return to school for the first time in weeks as well. This is one of the biggest reasons that the blizzard was termed “The Children’s Blizzard”, as the storm hit, hundreds of children were on their way home from school.
Laskin also describes the inner workings of the Army Signal Corps and their involvement in the meteorological forecasting that did not come without great controversy after the blizzard of 1888. At this time, weather reporting was done through the lines of the telegraph and a man by the name of William W. Payne who founded the Minnesota State Weather service noted before warnings were sent out that “This is an exceptionally long period for such extreme cold weather to prevail even in this climate (Laskin, 66). Thomas Mayhew Woodruff, first lieutenant of the United States Army in the Fifth Infantry was in charge of predicting such cold spells and weather disturbances. Woodruff knew that he could not take such predictions lightly and he also could not over predict as doing so could cause confusion or distrust in the weather service, which after January 12, 1888 was easier to do.
Adolphus Greely was appointed to the Saint Paul sector of the weather forecasting units and was also suspicious of the weather that had emerged from the systems making its way out of Canada. Laskin goes into great detail about both Greely and Woodruff and how their past military careers had brought them to the field of weather. Both men served proudly in their regiments and were thrust into the field of weather forecasting though both men took their jobs very seriously. On the evening before and the morning of the blizzard both men were unsure and nervous about the ensuing weather conditions that had overtaken the great plains and the thousands of settlers new and old who had made the wide open spaces their homes.
As the storm hit the plains on that fateful day, the Schweizers, Grotons and Allen families would send their children to school and the children were excited to go for the first time in weeks. The weather was so mild that morning that most children only wore thin shirts and pants and did not have hats, mittens or jackets which led to the demise of many children on that day. Laskin depicts the morning of each child with such detail that the reader could visualize very clearly the events of that morning. The descriptive details of the emerging storm are still imprinted in my memory and the dark gray cloud emerged across the sky as hundreds were pelted with the floury snow and ice crystals that stung like tiny blades in the 50mph plus winds that accompanied the 30 to 40 below zero temperatures that would sting the faces and cause severe frostbite in a matter of minutes.
As the storm approached its intensity was caused by an unusually low pressure system which allowed temperatures to drop so quickly that many would freeze to death within hours. The storm hit so quickly and with such force that school children and their teachers had no choice but to try and make their way home as there was not enough food or heat to keep them alive overnight. Laskins account of the paths that the children took that day is miraculous. Little Walter Allen making his way back from the drays that had rescued his family to rescue his precious perfume bottle and then losing his way and his strength in the storm. The five young boys that would be separated from their teacher Mr. Cotton were described in such detail that you could see the boys wandering the prairie through a powdery mix of snow and ice and then collapsing after their body temperatures fell to below 84 degrees which causes the brain to quit functioning properly (Laskin, 197).
Young school teachers were considered heroines following the storm because of their bravery in saving their school children while risking their own lives. Etta Shattuck was one such woman who after making sure the school children were safe made her way back to her boarding house only to lose her way and spend 78 hours in the partially dug out hay stack which saved her life (Laskin, 233). Such was the case expressed by Laskin as newspapers would get bored with reporting the death and find greater patronage when they announced different heroines that the blizzard produced. Funds would be set up and in turn many young women (no men were mentioned) were provided with the funds to cover doctor’s bills and future housing and schooling.
The blizzard did not come without controversy over the weather prediction services and soon Greely and Woodruff would be in a slew of controversy with other men from prediction centers over not only the anger in bad prediction and warnings but also over the corruption that was laced throughout the service. Soon after the blizzard the art of weather forecasting was shipped from the job of the military to the job of the division of Agriculture as it would make farmers happy, no mention of safety however (Laskin, 261). The blizzard of 1888 would change the face of weather forecasting forever.
This book was a wonderful collaboration of journals and articles that brought to life the somber stories of those families who lost children, fathers and mothers during the blizzard. The best parts of the book were the stories of those who were caught in the storm and their fight for survival. Wonderful excerpts were created that expressed what was happing not only to a child’s fingers or toes but also how the cold affected their organs and blood flow. Detailed accounts were given of how the young Graber boy did everything he could to save the younger boys around him or how the bodies of those who froze to death during the blizzard were found the next day. What may have taken away from the book were the excessive backgrounds of Greely and Woodruff as it distracted from the very people who were affected by the storm. However the chapter on the details of why and how the storm formed gave the reader an in depth idea of what made the storm so terrible that day.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is not only interested in history but also to anyone who is interested in how a destructive storm such as the one of January 12th forms and why. The accounts of the families and the current state of the families were also a wonderful touch in connecting the reader to the “characters” of the book. I found myself gasping numerous times at how the five young boys were found frozen to death and had to be thawed in front of their family on the floor of their small prairie home or how young Lena lost all hope and fell face down to die in the deep ravine near her home. This book is truly a wonderful account of how weather can affect not only crops and road conditions but also how unexpected hazards such as a blizzard can affect the lives of everyday people.
