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Sixty-four years ago today, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, we found ourselves digging out of the Great Thanksgiving Day Blizzard of 1950. Actually, although it was snowing quite hard on Thanksgiving, the blizzard didn’t really hit until Saturday, Nov. 25, when the Buckeyes lost to Michigan 9-3 in Columbus, on a playing field that had all the yard lines completely obliterated by the blinding snow. We watched the game on WEWS on our 13-inch (huge), round screen, black-and-white Zenith, which would continue to stay on deep into the night. Our family stayed up and watched Charlie Chan movies and weather reports. We realized we were in for a big one.
We felt sorry for the lone TV reporter, a young man with dark, wavy hair and heavy eyebrows that nearly met in the middle. Apparently, he was stuck alone at the studio, and we suspected he had set up the camera himself, because it never moved or changed focus. Whether his head tilted from side to side from fatigue or an affectation, we would never know, but he was mesmerizing in his often repeated weather reports. He must have gotten his weather information on the phone. I hope he got home safely.
Soon, the snow reached nearly three feet with drifting that created humongous mountains. The snow finally stopped Sunday, and all the able bodied were out there shoveling. My older sister took pictures with a cardboard throw away camera that promised to return perfect prints. All she had to do was mail it back to the manufacturer. We never heard from them again.
My little fox terrier would disappear and pop up from time to time as he darted through the snow. Our cat, with great dignity, would indicate her desire to go out for her constitutional, and would complete her task deep in the snow. Then, she would meow demandingly to be let back in to the warmth of our home.
One of my dad’s mechanics, who was stuck at the bus garage, got a big charter bus going. It had a high ground clearance. He made it all the way out to our house to pick up my dad so that he could use the transportation resources available to him at the bus garage to help the community in any way he could. The bus company had a husky Chevy wrecker with a power winch that could be dispatched to help the stranded. It was of invaluable service.
That same mechanic had obtained several identical snow shovels we don’t know how which had silvery magnesium scoops and blue-painted wooden handles with bale grips. They were great because of their lightness. They shed snow easily after we rubbed the scoops with paraffin.
We had no milk deliveries, grocery deliveries, garbage collection, bus service, or any other kind of service that required wheeled vehicles. As a 10th-grader at Harding High, I was more pleased than concerned when it was announced that school would be cancelled for a whole week.
My sister was engaged to a guy from Niles, as was her buddy, Carol, who lived down the street. Both guys walked all the way from Niles to be with their betrothed. They spent quite a bit of time thawing out in front of the fire.
Although these memories of the Great Thanksgiving Day Blizzard of 1950 don’t hold a candle (icicle?) to what our friends in Buffalo have been experiencing, it was an exciting and challenging time that we all, who were around back then, will hold forever in our hearts.
Postscript: A couple of years ago I was shoveling snow from my sidewalk, because it was too wet and heavy for my power snow thrower. My elderly neighbor, Milly, who has since passed, was out there shoveling, too. I was using that magnesium shovel that I still had from 1950. I looked over to see how she was doing and to see if she needed help. She was using a magnesium shovel with a blue-painted wooden handle and a bale grip.
I said, “Look, Milly, our shovels are identical. Where’d you get yours?” She replied, “Oh, I’ve had this shovel ever since that big snowstorm we had back in 1950.”
Amazing, huh?
Mumford, of Warren, is a community columnist. Email him at columns@tribtoday.com