The Children's Blizzard of 1888

An intense, horrible blizzard hit with violent force over the plains states and territories of the United States on January 12, 1888, at the same time that many children were leaving school for the day. Two hundred and thirty-five people died, and 213 of them were children, which is why the storm is referred to as the Children's Blizzard, Schoolhouse Blizzard, or Schoolchildren's Blizzard (not to be confused with the "Great Blizzard of 1888" which struck later).

Frank Leslie's Weekly, January 28, 1888 - Scenes and Incidents from the Recent Terrible Blizzard in Dakota. Public Domain.

Earlier in January, the affected area had received snow, followed by freezing temperatures. Oddly, the weather turned mild for many on the morning of January 12, with a southern wind melting ice. Children and adults alike left their coats at home when they went about their days, anticipating a warmer day. 

The arrival of the storm was sudden and shocking. Survivors described it as a wall of dark cloud descending from the northeast with a roar like a hurricane or train. The wind's furious blasts suffocated animals and whipped up the existing snow on the ground, crushing it and turning it into a crystallized powder, fine as flour, that seeped into every crevice it could find, including keyholes. The powdery snow stung skin, and also reduced visibility to a few steps. In some places, the temperature dropped a hundred degrees Fahrenheit in twenty-four hours.

The storm hit as many children were leaving school for the day, and many who had already been dismissed were caught in it. For those who were still in session when the storm hit, the majority were kept inside by teachers, but not all. A few well-intentioned teachers sent their students home where they thought they'd be safer, and others found they had no choice but to leave the schoolhouse. 

One such teacher was 19-year-old Minnie Freeman of Ord, Nebraska, who was forced to abandon the schoolhouse with her students when the roof blew off their sod schoolhouse. Legend says she tied her students together with rope, although one of the students dispute this. Regardless, they made it safely to her home a mile away. 

Minnie Mae Freeman Penney (1868-1943). From Find a Grave.

Lois Royce was from Plainview, Nebraska was not as fortunate. She and three students (two 9-year-old boys and a 6-year-old girl) stayed at the schoolhouse but had used up their fuel by three o'clock. Since Lois lived less than a hundred yards from the school, they decided to go there. Unfortunately, they couldn't see where they were going and they became lost. Only Lois survived, and her frostbitten feet had to be amputated.

One farmer, William Kampen of Nebraska, stumbled to a stranger's barn and kept warm by lying with the pigs. Meanwhile, his wife gave birth alone and stayed in bed with her baby to keep warm, since they had no more fuel.

The stories of loss are harrowing and tragic, but there are also stories of heroic compassion and survival. The parents of Great Plains, South Dakota, tied ropes to the house closest to the school and used it as a guide to rescue the children and their teacher. Daniel Freeman of Homestead, Nebraska, no relation to Minnie, offered food and a violin to feed and entertain the children stuck at the adjacent school. 

Other folks opened their homes to strangers, used their drays to transport children, and searched for the lost and missing.

Less than a foot of snow fell in some places, and other areas were buried, but it was the existing snow on the ground paired with the gale-force winds and bitter temperatures that caused terrible damage to life, livestock, and property.

Photographer and specific location unknown, 1888. Note the snow is not terribly deep, although in other places, the drifts were very high. Public Domain.

The tragedy gripped America's attention, and some of the teachers, like Minnie Freeman, were lauded as true heroines. 

***

Coming February 2020

The Blizzard Bride | Daughters of the Mayflower Book 11

A Blizzard Changes Everything...

Author Susanne Dietze is the bestselling, award-winning author of several romances. Learn more about her and her new release about the Children's Blizzard, The Blizzard Bride, on her website, www.susannedietze.com.

A NEW WOMAN EMERGES - INDEPENDENT WOMEN OF THE 1920s

ANNE GREENE here. I’m writing a book, working title, AGAINST ALL ODDS, about the 1920s. The research is so fascinating I’m sharing with my readers. I hope you enjoy learning more about that jazzy decade. 

A woman of 1920 would be surprised to know that she would be remembered as a new woman. Many changes would enter her life in the next ten years. Significant changes for women took place in politics, the home, the workplace, and in education. Some were the results of laws passed, many resulted from newly developed technologies, and all had to do with changing attitudes toward the place of women in society.  

When passed in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote. Surprisingly, some women didn’t want the vote. People believed women’s roles and men’s roles did not overlap. This idea of separate spheres held that women should concern themselves with home, children, and religion, while men took care of business and politics.

Though slow to use their newly won voting rights, by the end of the decade women influenced the political agenda of the federal government. They put more emphasis on social improvement, such as protective laws for child labor and prison reform.

Female high school students seldom expected to go to college. If they did, most women became teachers or nurses as these were considered suitable professions for women. Few women earned degrees during the 1920s. But times were changing, and each year more women earned college degrees.

Before WWI most women lived in rural areas without electricity. Imagine trying to keep food fresh without a refrigerator, ironing with an iron that had to be reheated constantly, cooking on a woodstove, going to an outside well for water, and visiting an outhouse instead of a bathroom.

The 1920s women found that electricity made housework easier, with electrically run vacuum cleaners, irons, and washing machines. Electricity meant that people could stay up later at night, because electric lights were more efficient than kerosene lamps and candles. Indoor plumbing brought water inside and introduced a new room to clean—the bathroom. 

In the 1920s only about 15 percent of white and 30 percent of black married women with wage-earning husbands held paying jobs. Most Americans believed that women should not work outside the home if their husbands held jobs. As a result, wives seldom worked at outside jobs. However, some married women in desperate need took jobs in textile mills.

By 1922 mills hired female floor workers. Cotton mills employed a few nurses, teachers, and social workers to staff social and educational programs. Black women worked as domestic and child-care workers. Public acceptance of wage-earning jobs for young unmarried women grew. No longer being limited to work as mill girls or domestics, women began to perform clerical work in offices and retail work in shops and department stores. Some young married women worked until they had children. Working for wages gave women independence, and by 1930 one in four women held a paying job.

Despite increasing opportunities in employment and education, and the expanding concept of a woman’s place, marriage remained the goal of most young women. Magazine articles and movies encouraged women to believe that their security and social status depended on a successful marriage. The majority worked only until they married.

Today the easily recognized image of the flapper symbolizes the 1920s for many people. The flapper—with her short skirts, short hair, noticeable makeup, and fun-loving attitude—represented a new freedom for women. The old restrictions on dress and behavior were overthrown.

Is this glamorous and rebellious image of the flapper a true representation of the 1920s woman? Not entirely. In order to be a flapper, a woman had to have enough money and free time to play the part. College girls, unmarried girls living at home, and independent office workers most frequently presented themselves as flappers. However, the average woman did wear the fashions made popular by flappers. As often happens, unconventional clothing integrated into fashion.

Flappers popularized slender, boyish fashions. Figures were flattened with undergarments. Hemlines, straight or uneven, gradually crept up, and waistlines dropped. High-fashion evening wear in tubular, sleeveless styles featured beading and fringe. Day dresses copied the evening lines. Short skirts were complemented by flesh-colored stockings worn with decorative shoes. Hair was cut close to the head and covered outdoors by the close-fitting cloche hat. Makeup became respectable. Between 1920 and 1930 women’s appearance changed completely.

Women’s lives changed. Society accepted that women could be independent and make choices for themselves in education, jobs, marital status, and careers. Women’s spheres broadened to include public as well as home life. The new woman was on her way.

Leave a comment on what you think was the best change for women in the 1920s for a chance to win an autographed copy of MARRIAGE BY ARRANGEMENT.

ANNE GREENE delights in writing about wounded heroes and gutsy heroines. Her second novel, a Scottish historical, Masquerade Marriage, won three prestigious book awards. The sequel Marriage By Arrangement released November, 2013.  A Texas Christmas Mystery also won awards. Anne’s highest hope is that her stories transport the reader to awesome new worlds and touch hearts to seek a deeper spiritual relationship with the Lord Jesus. Anne makes her home in McKinney, Texas. She loves to talk with her readers. Buy Anne’s books at http://www.Amazon.com. Talk with Anne on twitter at @TheAnneGreene. View Anne’s books, travel pictures and art work at http://www.AnneGreeneAuthor.com.

Learn more about Anne as well as get tips on writing award-winning books at http://www.anneswritingupdates.blogspot.com.

One-Room Schoolhouse

By Vickie McDonough

Rose Hill School in Oklahoma built in early 1900's

The one-room schoolhouse is as iconic a part of American history as the cowboy. Although there are still a few one-room schoolhouses left in America, mainly in small western communities and among the Amish, they are quickly becoming a thing of the past in preference to today’s larger modern schools with all manners of technology and conveniences. But 125 years ago, things were vastly different. 

Most small towns could only afford a one-room school building made from stone, wood, and sometimes, even sod. We often tend to think of these schoolhouses as being red, but in truth, most were white. Some had the luxury of a school bell, but many didn’t. Children generally wrote on slates, while the teacher used chalk to write on boards that had been painted black, hence the term “blackboard.” 

Pot belly stove

Teachers in one-room schools were often former students of the same school they taught in. During the winter months they would get to school early to get a fire started in a pot belly stove, so the building would be warm for the students’ arrival. Sometimes they would even prepare a hot, noon meal on top of the stove, usually soup or some kind of stew. 

A normal school day was 9 to 4, with 15-minute recesses in the morning and afternoon and an hour for lunch. They generally ran through eight grade, and teachers taught subjects such as grammar, ciphering (mathematics), penmanship, spelling, history, and geography. Older students had the responsibility of bringing in water and fetching coal or wood for the stove. According to their size and gender, younger students would be given responsibilities such as sweeping, cleaning the blackboard, or taking the erasers outside for dusting.

School students

Male teachers sometimes lived in a teacherage, which was often attached to the school or located nearby. He would be expected to help care for the school building in some cases. If their family didn’t live in the area, single female teachers, sometimes as young as fifteen, boarded with a local family, as social norms required they be supervised. Female teachers had to remain single, and be of excellent moral character.

Log Cabin style One-Room Schoolhouse

Some teachers made as little as $4 - $11 per month, but others earned as much as $25 per month. Many schools were only in session 3 - 4 months out of the year since children were needed to help with spring chores and fall harvesting, so the teacher had to find another job or live a full year on only 4 months salary. Although some women made teaching their career, a substantial number of women taught for only a year or two, then married and moved on to new challenges. This pattern, as well as the relatively low pay, led to a very high turnover among teachers.

Sod Schoolhouse

The picture at the beginning of this article of the white schoolhouse among the trees looks more like a church, but it is actually Rose Hill School, located in Oklahoma. They hold classes for visiting school children to give them a taste of life back in the 1800s. I hope to visit there one day. So, is there a one-room schoolhouse located near where you live? Did you or a relative of yours attend one?

Whispers on the Prairie, book 1 in the Pioneer Promises series, is a Romantic Time Recommended Read!

When Sarah Marshall’s wagon breaks down near a stage stop on the Santa Fe Trail, marriage proposals fly in faster than the incessant wind, but only one man interests Sarah—and he’s not proposing.

Ethan Harper’s well-ordered life is thrown into turmoil when an uppity city gal is stranded at his family’s stage stop. Now his two brothers and every unmarried male in the county are wooing Miss Priss. When one brother proposes, Ethan is in turmoil. Is it because she’s the wrong woman for his brother —or the right one for Ethan?

Vickie McDonough is an award-winning author of 26 books and novellas. Her novels include the fun and feisty Texas Boardinghouse Brides series and the 3rd & 6th books in the Texas Trails series. Her novel, Long Trail Home, won the Inspirational category of the 2012 Booksellers’ Best Awards. Coming July 1st: Whispers on the Prairie, the first book in an exciting new series set in 1870s Kansas. To learn more about Vickie, visit her website: www.vickiemcdonough.com