link to WGN story /2017/01/25/50-years-ago-tomorrow-snow-brought-chicago-to-a-standstill/
I was in school. First grade at Saint Zachary's in Des Plaines, Illinois. At some point they realized that they needed to send the children home. It must have been a massive undertaking -trying to reach all of the parents of hundreds of children. They could not reach my parents by phone,...no one was there to answer the phone.
A man drove up to the school looking for his daughter, who happened to have gone home with next door neighbor children in their parents car. Quick thinking nuns, looking at 5 or 6 little girls whose parents had not been contacted, recruited this man to take the group of little girls to their homes.
My house was closest, so I was the first. The man drove his station wagon to my house, by my direction. We lived in a rural area, off of Mount Prospect Road, near Howard Avenue. It was a farm of sorts, my father was a florist (which at that time meant that he grew flowers). So there was a large yard in front of the greenhouses, and our home, and a large portion of it was a wide, gravel driveway, which my brothers had kept plowed clear of snow.
The station wagon crawled slowly into the yard. More than likely the man honked the car horn, hoping someone would appear. I do not remember exactly how it played out,... it was dark inside, so it was apparent that no one was home,.... perhaps the man went into the garage and hollered, perhaps not.... but that was the way in. I am sure that the man wondered about our living space, but he did believe that it was where I needed to be. So, I had to convince him that the home to the north of us was my brother's house. I imagine that he was uncertain that a 6 year old child could have a brother old enough to have his own home. But he did not have to go back out to the road to get there, the driveways were plowed, and all he needed to do was drive along in front of the building to get to the house I was indicating.
By the time we made that short drive some one had noticed a strange car in the yard. My sister-in-law came out to the meet the car. She spoke with the man as I climbed out of the station wagon.
I remember little else of that exact day. I went into my brother's home, which was warm and cozy, and we probably kept an eye to the window as we waited for my parents to get home. I know that my parents were upset that the nuns put me in a car with a stranger, and a man, and allowed that man to drive away with little girls in the car. I believe that I did not understand why that would upset them, because I obeyed the nuns, and I had, after all, arrived in a safe place, in short order, unscathed. Nonetheless I am certain that phone calls were made to appropriate parties to register a complaint.
My parents, by the way, had been at the grocery store, stocking up on foodstuffs, who knew how long we might be snowbound! the snow was not stopping!
As I understand it a front stalled over the Gulf coast, and it sent or held wind and moisture over the continent toward the Great Lakes. It stalled for something like 27 hours, thus we had a record snowfall of 23 inches in one 29 hour period. A record that still stands today.
As I mentioned before, my brothers, John and Skip, kept the yard and driveways plowed. They had a front end loader scoop attached to a farm tractor, so the had the ability to deposit the snow wherever they wanted it. They even took some of that snow and made a private sledding hill just for me. Someone had a Flexible Flyer red saucer sled for me, and I had some fun with that. The hill of snow was nearly as high as the one-story roof of our house, and they carved a staircase into one side of the hill, for easy access. One of my nieces, 4 or 5 years older than I, was my companion. She lived next door. I am sure that I had the best of the sledding, being smaller and also less experienced.
This is one my best, most cherished memories of my childhood. Many thanks to my much older brothers for thinking of me and having fun making it fun for a little girl.
Other memories of the Blizzard of '67:
A delivery truck was abandoned near the end of our driveway.
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| this style of delivery truck |
My dad wondered if the driver had walked away or what. And when would someone come and remove that truck from the roadside.
There where three families living on our property, ours, my brothers, and the family of man who worked for my dad. That other family's son, George had a Pontiac car, and he volunteered to pick my nieces up from school and drive them home - perhaps a 2 mile trip from the high school. The way I remember their story was that, approaching the railroad tracks the road was unplowed, and supposedly George hit the gas and launched that car off the top of a snowdrift and across the railroad tracks, with the girls in the car, to get them home. A boastful young fellow exaggerating I am sure, but my oldest niece did give him a mild scolding for being a stunt driver with young ladies in the vehicle.
That is what I remember.
I survived the Blizzard of '67.
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