The "Long Winter" of 1880/81
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- Опубликовано: 23 фев 2021
- The winter of 1880/81, popularized by author Laura Ingalls Wilder’s 1940 novel “The Long Winter,” was variously described as “the hard winter,” “the black winter,” the “long winter,” the “starvation winter,” or the “snow winter.” Journalist J. Mark Powell wrote in January 2018: “Think you’ve seen severe winter weather? No matter how bad it is where you are, it can’t hold a candle to this, the Mother of All Bad Winters.” The History Guy remembers The Long Winter of 1880-1881.
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Script by THG
#ushistory #thehistoryguy #Longwinter
I remember reading about this when I read the Little House series. I find myself in awe and admiration of the people who survived this when there was no central heating or houses that weren’t as insulated as they are now. The pioneers were hardy people.
Nowadays such people are vilified in so many ways by more recent arrivals who know nothing and contribute even less . . .
I have always found The Long Winter to be a horror story stuck in the middle of a bunch of pleasant kid's books, which is far more terrifying than anything Hollywood ever conjured up. Death was right there beside them all winter and there was no way to escape. They simply had to keep twisting hay sticks and trying to swallow little bits of coarse bread, and keep watching Pa go out to haul hay hoping he would make it back before the next blizzard came. I have read eight of her books enough times to have them memorized, but this one I have only read a couple of times. It haunts me. All of my life, it has driven me to be sure I had food in the house early in the fall, and a way to heat the house as best I could, even though I don't live anywhere near the Dakotas. My own experience with southern Kentucky in '78 was enough to drive it home that really bad winters can hit elsewhere as well, as Texas and Arkansas learned this winter.
Just FYI, I thought I heard you say that Eliza Jane was Laura's aunt. She was not. She was Laura's sister in law. She was Rose Wilder Lane's aunt.
This is written on August 7th 2023. I like the fact that Laurel ingalls Wilder did not sugarcoat the hard winter in her book. Too many people these days have no concept of what it was like to live hand-to-mouth when they couldn't get anything through to you. The only situation I could think of worse is the Donner party and if anybody knows that story you know what they ended up having to do to survive. I won't mention here because You Tube will probably pull my comment.
When your house is being carried down the river for a long enough period that you've got time to build a raft to leave it, you've had a rough time.
What do you mean, "rough"?! They had enough time to build a raft in order to save themselves! That's fantastic!
@@karenl6908 Perspective.
And you have built a fine tight house.
MacGyver's early descendants.
@@felmlee1876
The only reason the house went down was because 3 of the five watertight compartments flooded and power to the pumps failed, shields were down to 12% and a Romulan ship just dropped out of warp. Whoops, I went off the rails there lol.
Everybody’s Grandparents: “SEE?? UPHILL BOTH WAYS!”
When visiting my home town with our children I proved to them that I really did walk uphill both ways. My path to school took me down into a ravine and up out of it each walk to and from school. There is no way around that ravine. Sometimes grandparents are correct in their memories!
Jim Talbott humor is always appreciated.
"up hill both ways... " hehehe, possible if it kept snowing and snowing and snowing and snowing.
see these spams everywhere claiming to have hacked followed with someone else's confirmation. don't feed the internet trolls.
@@TheRozylass me too, same with my dad, his dad. Like wow. We live on a river valley, g-pa. You're so funny.
When my children were small we stayed in bed all day and read Laura Ingalls book The Long Winter. We couldn’t stop till we got to the end. That was almost 50 years ago. Now you have given me the The Rest of the Story. Thank you!
Invite them over and do it again!
There’s a lady that read all the little house books on RUclips! I sometimes listen to them at night when I have a quiet moment . The channel is “ Reading with Beverly Volfie “ ; she reads lots of different books in addition to all the Little house books
Here is more of the rest of the story. From a documentary about Laura Ingalls. During that long, hard winter, a family of three with a young infant son, boarded with them, and did absolutely nothing to help. They all came to the brink of starvation suffering from malnutrition. Laura Ingalls, well, hated them to the point that she completely left them out of her stories, and instead wrote the story of THE LONG WINTER the way it should’ve been and was for the Ingalls family, because everyone of them did daily pitch in to help. But the Boarding family did absolutely nothing to help.
@@marialamb6781 I think I read that it was the Boasts from Silver Lake that boarded with them during the long winter. If it was the Boasts; things got better between them because they were still friends in First Four Years. But maybe it wasn’t the Boasts.
Listen to Bev Volfie read the Little House books. Amazing.
This morning my wife said " you know, he is a good story teller". I have been listening to you for so long that I realized that you had joined a select list of my favorite orators. You have a different style from these gentlemen but you are all equally enthralling. Vin Scully the Dodgers incredible broadcaster and the unforgettable Paul Harvey. I want to Thank You for your efforts, I do so enjoy them.
I'd add Garrison Keeler to the list even though his stories were mostly fictional.
I wish I was in the same sentence with Vin. High Praise indeed.
I remember a winter as a boy on a farm in Iowa when the snow covered the entire house. My father had to exit through a window, dig out the front door and pass the bucket of snow to my mother to melt for drinking water as the well couldn't be found until later. We lost all the chickens and pigs due to the deep snow. This must have been in the late 1940's.
I remember that winter too. My dad took me to my grandmothers house and waded through snow that was up to his waist. After the storm ended the drifts piled against the house were as high as the second story window. Southwestern MN
That must have been the Blizzard of 1948 and 1949 which lasted for almost two straight months starting on January 2 1949.
Ok boomer
@billzzzz need some cash for kool-aid?
Irrespective of the difficulties the blizzard created, your story is still a wonderful "I remember when" story.
I live in Vermont and whenever I start to feel sorry for myself or tired of hauling firewood into the house, I pull out Laura's book, and boy does that knock the self-pity right out of you. And her books were sanitized for children. Yikes!
Not in chronologic order: Her sister Cary was starved so badly it took years for her to recover. He sister Mary went blind after the family suffered from, I believe, spinal encephalitis (not scarlet fever). They lived in an underground dugout one winter. Locusts, Almonzo borrowed heavily on crops that failed. And left out of the books, Pa and some neighbors lynched a family of serial killers living nearby.
Amazing that the books are meant for children.
@@Foolish188 well, Grimm's Fairy Tales -- life has been harsh - and teaching kids young is key to survival.
@@Foolish188 The lynching story (the Bender family) is not widely believed. Mrs. Wilder inherited some of her storytelling ability from her father.
@@Foolish188 WTF, lynched a family of serial killers???
@@horsepanther They must have been running out if cereal .
When I was little there were people alive who had lived through the blizzards of '80 and '88. They all had harrowing tales to tell.
Do tell! :)
Mrs. Wilder's was pretty darn harrowing too.
My dad always used to talk about the BLIZZARD OF '76, in Massachusetts
I miss the people who grew up before broadcast advertising made everybody crazy. The ones I knew were confident of the fact that they were right where God wanted them to be and feared nothing except TB.
@@nonyadamnbusiness9887 I remember those times well and, on the whole, they weren't all that great. It's fun to remember riding bikes, unlocked doors, safer streets, neighbors who knew you, etc. But beneath all that there was also a lot of social rot and decay that brave people had to attack and root out "in order to make a more perfect union, establish justice..." etc. I would love to return to parts of that world but, on the whole, much prefer where we are now. Wonder what the future holds. Invicta.
We had a blizzard in 1976...we lived on a farm (in 2 cheap mobile homes) in a sparsely populated area. My folks were keen on preparing for the worst, so we didn't need anything, but locals used snowmobiles to check on families and make sure they were okay. As a kid, I thought that was the coolest job ever.
That is a cool job!!!
My family lived in Indiana during that time and we were snowed in.❤
I read the Long Winter every year, it’s tradition ! It always reminds me to “be grateful for all I have, and I remember I’m lucky to have it” , remembering what Ma told Laura when there was very little wheat in the bag.
I still have the set of books that my Mom got me for Christmas in the 70’s. Each book is marked with an .85 cent price tag. Love Garth Williams illustrations in the books. It is said he did researched / visited each sight before he took on the task . I recommend everyone read the original books by Laura , so great for kids and adults alike
I had all the books when my sons were small. I have re read them regularly. Four years ago I gave them to my grandaughter in law, who is American. I missed them so much that I bought another set!
The Alpena wreck is still present on the shore of Lake Michigan: a house I cleaned as a job in my teens has its second story constructed partially from pieces of the wreck.
Michigan sure has a lot of history. Amazing what this state has to offer
COOOOOOOL!!! WHERE WE USED TO LIVE THERE WAS A RIVERBOAT CAPTAIN WHO DECIDED TO RETIRE - HE BEACHED HIS RIVERBOAT (ABOUT 1864), TORE IT APART, AND BUILT HIS HOUSE FROM THE WOOD (SOME MATERIALS HE HAD TO BUY, BUT HIS HOUSE WAS BUILT MAINLY FROM THE BOAT) - I ACTUALLY WALKED THROUGH THAT HOME A TIME OR TWO, AS IT LAY ABANDONED - IT HAS NOW BEEN TORN DOWN - SAD THING TO LOSE A PART OF HISTORY LIKE THAT!!! I LIKED YOUR POST - THUMBS UP!!!
The one hundred year storm, it returned to Michigan in 1978, 36 inches over night. My school bus could drive under the snow arch created by drifting. I wonder what 2070s will bring.
@@jehovahuponyou Any reason why the caps lock was left on?
@@jehovahuponyou yeah now I'm curious... why do all your comments have caps.
I live in rural South Australia. This kind of weather is as far from my understanding as String theory. Though i can cook an egg on my car
@John Kyle It was -13 a week ago(also Texas) and 80 yesterday.
@John Kyle
In Kansas we were below 0°F Monday last week. This week 65°+ both Monday and Tuesday. It's crazy.
Summer here obviously temps up to about 120f where I live.
@John Kyle Central part of Nebraska had some -30's readings, so I imagine those Dakotans were seeing readings of 40-50 below zero. Our saving grace here was only light breezes. I had bought a water heater for the birdbath just before the storm so the birds and squirrels would have water. My wife was afraid it was to hot because the water was steaming so bad. I had to explain that there was better than a 50 degree difference in the temps.
Middle Minnesota here; finally nice this week but we spent a good 2 weeks with wind chill below zero degrees F (-18*C). Lowest air temp (not wind chill) on my truck's thermometer was -27*F (-32*C) with a wind chill well below -40* to -50* (f or c doesn't matter)
It was 25* warmer in my freezer in the house.
I grew up in the interior of Alaska, so extreme winter weather was normal but record snow- falls were not. I have talked to a couple of dog mushers whom participated in the diphtheria “ Serum” run to Nome in 1925, it was quite the ordeal transporting the serum over 600 miles( 5+ days) by staged dog teams! Severe winter weather either in the 1800s or today is no small matter. Thanks THG!!
Similar situation happened in the Chicago area on January 1st 1979. I remember it vividly, it started to rain the night of the 31st. and then the temps dropped quickly. The rain turned into an ice storm turning all roads into skating rinks before it turned to snow. Most people on the roads had to abandon their vehicles due to the ice. Then the snow started around 3am and did not stop for two days and 33'" of snow plus winds which also caused these massive snow drifts around homes. It was crazy! My uncle had just given us his old snowblower he bought in 67' and this baby was a monster. 36" opening, 6hp motor, self propelled, even had chains on the wheels! This thing could easily handle the snow and ice chunks with ease. I figured I could make some money with this baby and I did, a local townhome HOA hired me and my brother to clear the sidewalks. I may have only been 11 years old but we made over $1,200 for two days work (12 hour days). It was hard but for an 11 year old $600 was big bucks.
Whenever I think my life is tough, I reread my favorite Laura Ingalls Wilder Book: THE LONG WINTER. Eliza Jane Wilder's description of the coffee grinder making flour for bread, and twisting the hay into little sticks to burn for fuel exactly comes from Laura's historical book. We know very little of "tough." Tu, 03/16/2021
This would make a great counterpart to 1816: the Year without a Summer. Also, I couldn't listen to this without seeing Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert! Great job
Yesss! The little house music is playing in my head. Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo 😂
Read the real books.
*Met the wonderful Michael Landon on Malaba Beach in 1986*
That year without a summer was crazy. Frost every June and July morning in Alabama and Louisiana, wide spread starving: no crops. Volcanic ash blotted sun and heat globally that year. Mt Tambora in Indonesia.
@@moonbear5929 good advice! I read the books first, and every time I watched the show, I wanted to throw things. At least Dean Butler (Almanzo) is working to help preserve the Wilder family farm in Malone, NY.
"People worked together" , this was key to survival back then. Not so much now.
Maybe stimulus checks weren't invented yet. All our problems can now be fixed with government spending.
@@duybear4023 That's part of the problem but only one of many now.
Hope can spring from hardship.
It still is. People working together can sort out problems faster than 'government assistance' which can take months.
Not so sure. When someone's rented house burns down here, there are lots of people donating needed requested items quickly, from furniture to toys. Offers a day or two later are turned down, no, thanks, I've got everything now.
Just finished reading the Little House series to my daughter. We went over a lot of details about weather, pioneering and farming.
It is an awesome series! A great series for children and adults alike.
@@phillipstoltzfus3014 My favorite Christmas present memory was when I was 7 and my godmother gave the boxed set. I couldn’t believe that all of those books were just for me! When my niece was born, I was already planning to do the same for her, which I did. Luckily, she is just as much a bookaholic as me.
Love those books, I reread them every two or three years.
@@kathyastrom1315 That is awesome!
little house is a libertarian colonial eulogy written by an anti-government racist. did you go over those details also?
Eliza Jane Wilder was briefly Laura's teacher and there was no love lost between them! Eliza was Almanzo's older sister. "The Long Winter" is my favorite of all the books!
They were sisters in law but not her aunt
Miss Wilder was overly harsh towards Laura and her younger sister Carrie while favoring Laura's nemesis Nellie Oleson (until the whole "Lazy Lousy Liza Jane" incident 😁) according to the book.
The books were also fictionalized, and I'm sure many experiences were compiled, re-arranged, or assigned to different characters. Eliza, for instance, doesn't show up until after the winter, thus not understanding (and no one seems to explain to her, in the book) that Carrie is still disabled from the partial starvation she had suffered.
The saddest part of Laura Ingalls Wilder's book was when her Pa's hands had frozen so much that he couldn't play his fiddle anymore. He sounded defeated, as if it was the first time he'd realized that him and his family could actually starve to death. It's a harrowing book.
That was indeed sad. I like to reread the series every once in a while; it seems many readers do this and our perspective changes as we get older or go through our own hard situations or tragedy. I felt awful about the fiddle because the music would have brought comfort and even boosted them when their morale was so low. And I felt their happiness and relief when, just as they felt they couldn't survive any more winter, the Chinook wind blew.
That Families also had to rely on a coffee grinder to make floor for bread. I think there was 6 to feed, for the winter.
@@andynieuwenhuis7833 Actually there were two more adults and their baby living with them. I recommend reading Pioneer Girl by Pamela Smith Hill to get an authentic account of the Ingalls' ordeal during that winter.
It's a fictional account. Her autobiography gives a very different story.
Sure, but Pa would be scarfing down pancakes and pork with Almonzo and Roy while his wife and girls were starving. Pa Ingalls was really kind of a douchebag when you read between the lines. Not even close to the TV series portrayal.
Thanks again ‘History Guy’. Another superb telling of history worth remembering!😊
People back then could accept that "times can be tough". We're not so good at that these days.
People have become spoiled. We have it easier than almost anyone else in world history.
I stand utterly surprised this channel hasn't been taken down to prevent ppl learning from History.
Right!?
people would be up in arms if they did take it down he has a million followers that love his history lessons.
Dang snowflakes!
I can’t think of anything in this video that they would need to suppress.
@@MustangsTrainsMowers just history itself if you’re a member of the far left 🤷🏻♂️
Your timing is perfect with this story. Even here in Houston we had a week of 20 degree temperatures that we were not prepared for. Our infrastructure is hardened against HEAT, not cold. I am happy that we had, what is normally an attractive nuisance, a fireplace. We had to boil water for a week and over 1/4 of a MILLION people need plumbers.All our citrus trees are dead. The lone fig tree survived. Your comment about neighbors helping neighbors rang very true.
Yeah, it looks like my orange tree died but my little grapefruit tree and hibiscus are in large pots so I wheeled those into my insulated garage so I was able to save them.
I live in DFW and we broke a 3-day record from 1899. I have a digital, outdoor thermometer that sits in the window that stopped working at 9 degrees. I live in an old neighborhood (built in 1960's) and our house is the only one on the street without a fireplace. :( A pastor from a previous church I went to (in a different city) put up Anchorage and Juneau, Alaska's temperatures and we were _below_ them. I ended up driving from Dallas to Fort Worth because we had no power for two days and weren't expected to get it back for another day or two. My parents happen to live in a newer neighborhood that's on the same grid as a hospital, so my family stayed there.
My cousin lives outside of Austin, Texas and she was without electricity for 4 days and without water for one week. Even when the water came back on, she had to boil it for 2 more weeks.
@@janethartwig774 That’s much worse than us. I think we had to boil for a week. It wasn’t a burden for us. Not only do we have a large family so large cooking pots (I do a lot of canning) but we regularly boil water and boil our face masks for 20 minutes. The hard part we’re the days with no electricity. We have an all electric house. After a couple of days a friend with a gas stove lent us her propane gas camp stove.
Only 20°? Where I live we got down to -20° that week. My pipes thawed out at 22°.
Sounds like the farmers were caught with their plants down.
The crass ability of some folk to grasp the wrong end of the stick is amazing.
The point was they were caught with them still *up*
And you *really* don't want to be caught with it up at the wrong time.
The farmers had just recently established towns in one summer, expecting it to be a normal winter where they could rely on the trains for food and supplies. Weren't expecting the severe winter that actually occurred which stopped the trains. The farmers hadn't been there for a full year yet to be able to grow crops.
HA!
Some people would miss a joke if it were right in front of them as a play on words. I, for one, thought it was funny. :)
That was cold... 👉👉
Now days people get upset when their Internet goes down.
And there's an HALF INCH of snow on the ground and call in to work.
in the Indianapolis area if the weather forecast calls for two or three inches of snow, people act like the world is coming to an end. everybody rushes to the store to buy bread, milk and eggs. and of course when you look at TV there is always a long list of school closings.
@@danielthoman7324 they should can some food for such occurances.
@@graceamerican3558 and everyone has 4wd.
we need it to go down nationwide as well as TV and cell phones for a good 4 months with a nice long hard winter maybe the soft people will understand true hard times.
Thank you for having this discussion. I remember reading Laura Ingalls Wilders account of this long winter. I learned a lot about how everyone helped everyone and they pulled through.
Read "The long Winter" by Laura Ingalls Wilder - you'll FEEL what it was like to endure.
Awesome storytelling, her books will last through the ages.
I was trapped at school in Niagara in the Blizzard of 1977. I remember the second to last bus leaving, and then I saw the children walking back to the school. They looked like grey ghosts coming out of a grey-white darkness. My bus would never come. This was a Friday afternoon and 2000 children were trapped. Most would make it home by Sunday. I live far from the school so I was the last kid left at my school and needed to be boarded at a teacher's home who lived near the school. I didn't make it home until Monday afternoon. I may have been the last kid to make it home. The snow drifts cover buses and nearly buried houses.
So, I've been in a real blizzard. The blizzard of '77 was deadly. Actually, I've was in the Army in Meaford Ontario and it snow every day. Lake effect blizzards were common. Even when it was sunny it would snow. One night the winds were so fierce, and the snow so harsh, it hurt your face walking into it, so you had to walk backward from your room to the mess hall.
And if you ever want to experience blizzards at any time, go to Newfoundland they've had so many, they are the norm.
Oh, just one more note about my adventure during those four days in 1977. Not only did I live through an historic natural disaster, while I was at school, during the evenings we watched the historic mini-series "Roots". It had a profound affect on my soul. Later that weekend when I made it to the nearby teachers' home, I was treated my first experience with the digital world. I got to play the first computer game console, "PONG." When my parents came to get me that afternoon, I didn't want to go home because I was having too much fun playing video games.
I remember more about those four days than I do the last four days I just lived. I still remember that cold, hard, school room floor and crying. I hated school. I was Asperger's and ADHD back in the day when they only had one word for me, BAD!! My principal hated me, and I hated her and I was trapped in the place I hated most. School.
Now, in my best Marlon Brando voice, "The horror, the horror."
You really had a hard time. I think diagnosis was a good idea for you. It's so hard when you hate school, and you had good reason. I hope your life is better now!
That last paragraph broke my heart ...
I grew up in Nova Scotia and like Newfoundland we got some horror storm. That’s why I live in LA now ... NO MORE SNOW , EVER. I drove around yesterday in a tank top with the top down on my car.
That might be the most boring story ever told.
@@ianholmquist8492 No, no, no! I have many, many, many more. There was the times I had detention where I had to stand with my nose against the wall. I used to make patterns in the blocks and paint into animals etc to pass the time. Writing lines was lots of fun too. I was Bart Simpson before Bart Simpson. In grade five they couldn't handle me so they put me in the kitchen. That was boring until I realized I could sneak though a door that connected the kitchen to the stage. I would try and sneak into the gym classes and not be noticed. That was neat until the fire.
There's more. One time a kid bit me and drew blood... you want gore maybe!!!
I love the little house series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.
Fascinating! One of the better THG stories!
We pampered modern folk can probably not even imagine how hard it would be to live for...months?...when the trains can't get through to bring supplies. No interstate highways? No big tractor-trailers delivering truckloads to the various Walmarts in town? Then, the snow *finally* begins to melt...but wait...here come the floods! Thank you, Jesus! Holy cow, I would not have survived. It's a miracle that anyone did.
I grew up in Michigan and have witnessed some very substantial snow storms, but none like this. This was a sheer whopper!
I read her book every winter to feel good about living in a warm home with good access.
I too have the tradition of reading The Long Winter every winter as well!
I really hope you're able to do alright from this channel because you truly do provide a priceless service to mankind. Thank you for being a popularizer of history and serving it in a format the masses of today will accept
If you havent read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books with your kids you have missed out. kids need to know how hard life can be and how good they have it these days and what it means to be self sufficient like Lauras family was
My mom had every piece of work Laura ever wrote. I grew up listening to her read them and we would always watch the show together. I was and in many ways still am so fascinated with the life they lived in those days.
I disagree. I have not missed out on anything. I read plenty of books to my kids who lost their mother at ages 10 and 11, and the last thing they need to be told is how hard life can be. I know there are plenty of malnourished kids whose families are victims of injustice that equally don't need such a lesson. The implication that all children are cosseted, spoiled, or entitled misses the make by quite a ways. I'm sure Wlder's parents wanted a better life for her and her siblings and their children, and did not wish their hardships upon everyone ad infinitum. Guilt is not a helpful tool, nor are rose tinted glasses. Equity & well being are. Peace.
@@colinellicott9737 don't worry. Hard times are coming.
And the real winter was even worse because the Ingalls family had a husband and wife and baby staying with them, and the adults were not particularly useful human beings.
If you can define "self sufficient" as Pa Wilders going in to town and stealing seed grain at gunpoint from Laura's future husband's store to feed the clan. Or am I not correctly remembering the part that was in the books but not included in the sappy and unrealistic TV version of the written story?
One can only imagine the exhaustion. I live in Pennsylvania, but we had terrible winter storms like this in the 19th century. Newspaper accounts from a small local town, Boyertown, PA, describe mobilizing all of the men and boys in the town and the local farms just to dig out and clear roads and train tracks. Life came to a complete stop as gangs of locals spent days digging. If anything good, as HG points out, there was sense of community as food was collected from larders and cellars in all of the houses. The ladies of town labored to support the men who were doing the outside work. It was a team effort, and there didn't seem to be a lot of misbehavior, shirking, or dissent.
Incidentally, Boyertown suffered a devastating tragedy, the Rhodes Opera House fire, some years later after the turn of the century. Whole families in town were killed, there was a sensational court case afterward, and the event caused the government to pass many building safety codes that we still have today. This would be an excellent THG video for later on.
Familiar with the Rhodes Opera House fire, a reporter from a local station did a wonderful feature about it some years.
"Times can be tough, but good times will come again." Unless you are killed, that is.
If the times are though enough, being killed could easily be considered better.
The winter was so bad, everyone got killed immediately, but then had to suffer through being killed again. Some got killed a half-dozen times. Old Bill Stickers himself was said to have been killed seventy-three times in one week. The hardship of it was so bad, few survived.
This guys show really got me through tough times. Was able to escape into history. Thank you!!
I enjoyed this episode more than most & I always enjoy them. My family, to be specific, my Great Grandparents are mentioned in Laura Ingells the long winter. They were the Wilmarth's who owned the Wilmarth Grocery. In fact, my father was born in 1921 & his mother died in 1922. He was bounced around for a while, but ended up being raised by his grandmother, Margaret Wilmarth, who was the wife of George Wilmarth who owned the grocery. George enlisted in the 57th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry in 1861 & reenlisted 3 times serving for the entirety of the Civil War, before settling in De Smet after getting married & buying the store. I'm currently trying to find more information on his unit. Again, thank you very much, my dad is gone now, but this episode reminded me of him & I loved it!
Yeah....think I'm gonna stop complaining about winter... Most Americans today would fall apart from losing internet and having to shovel out their cars. These people went through sheer hell for months with no hope for "FEMA" aid or National Guard anything, and they pulled it together, even with horrific deaths and near starvation.
THIS, is history worth being remembered. In the context of the winter storm here in Texas it’s especially poignant. Excellent work!
You never cease to amaze me with the depth of your search for history. My family roots in the US were set in Yankton SD when Johann and his wife and five sons arrived in 1837 from Bavaria. To think they survived such a winter amazes me.
We only had a taste of it in 1978 in Ohio for ten days. If you were caught on the roads, you'd expect to be towed and fined if not murdered by ppl who didn't want you clogging the road. You couldn't see your hand in front of your face, let alone see through a windshield. We had heat though and food in the kitchen. I moved to Maine 30 years later. Up there they bellyached every other day that they're in a blizzard. In 10 years up there, the worst I ever saw was a hard snow. No blizzard.
I remember the 78 blizzard. As a native Clevelander and Catholic school boy we were estatic to be off school for at least a week : )
78 in Central Kansas was terrible. Even the snow plows got stuck.
@@TheProtocol48 I went to the local public school, but my friend went to the catholic school. We planned to go sled riding because both schools were canceled, but the parish priest rounded up all the good little catholic boys to shovel out his drive way and the nunery's driveway. Of course that automatically got him into heaven. Because us public school boys were labeled "Heathens", we aren't allowed in there.
@David Cudlip. There is always at least one with an axe to grind and here you are.
@@sharpright6887 My axe is pretty sharp, thank you very much. And there you are.
The quote I will never forget. "Winter is coming"
Timothy Hines, Winter would be easier to tolerate if we had dragons that could melt the snow when and where we directed them to.
I heard that countless times on the farm. My dad had lived through the wildly fluctuating weather on the 1930's and his parents and grandparents lived through similar weather in the 1890s and into the 1900s. "Always be ready for winter by November 1st" was the motto. I ignored that one time and got caught in a blizzard on Nov.8th. Never blew off winter preparation again!
@@goodun2974 No, then you get the flooding, an unintended consequence of dragons.
I didn’t realize until now just how exceptional the long hard winter was-nor that it was related to the flooding that wiped out Vermillion, SD (which was subsequently rebuilt atop the bluff overlooking the Missouri River floodplain).
Now it's a lovely, college town.
@@janisbentzen4503 I used to live there. It has its charms.
Vermillion is a lovely name, and home to quite a museum dedicated to musical instruments.
Ok l
"Spring has come..."
I cannot describe how profound that sounds, after being through such long period of hardship. 😥
off topic, but reminds me of Shakespeare " Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this sun of York"
"Times can be tough, but good times will come again" ... wise words and optimism of an earlier age. Many thanks Mr History Guy for sharing these uplifting sentiments.
I grew up on the prairie and watched the crazy weather in all seasons. Never has a storm analysis been read with such urgency as we heard at 4:05. Well done!
I absolutely love the history of the American pioneers. How the human spirit overcame incredible hardships and came together in times of crisis.
The Native Americans of the area had been dealing with such hardships for thousands of years, and without the technology the pioneers had.
@@heronimousbrapson863 yeah, and humans survived the ice age too.
The problem is exactly farming and technology failing, and unable to sustain the population dependent on it.
My Norwegian side landed in Dakota Territory in 1870. We don't have any written accounts or details of their lives. I was able to glean some info from the few surviving local newspapers from the period. Like a reported band of 400 Indian warriors suddenly showing up in the area, which caused quite a stir. It was a hunting party. Horse kicks were a leading cause of death.
Digging through records for family genealogy gets sobering seeing so much death, many of which are children. Even into the 1890s the homesteaders usually had to bury their own dead, after nursing them in sickness or old age.
Often wonder if I would've had the same fortitude to continue the struggle. This research has certainly given me a ton of respect for the pioneers.
Compare the youth of then to the delicate youth of today...both physically and mentally. Thankfully both my 20-something sons are smart and mentally and physically tough, and would have actually outperformed the youth of the 1800’s, but I am embarrassed of most of the socialist-minded youth of today.
@@hertzair1186 What has "socialism" (whatever that means) got to do with it? Socialism was originally a working class ideology, one embraced by industrial workers doing hard physical labor in the 19th and early 20th century. Hardly people living a "soft" life.
I did not do great in high school history class. Not for the fact that I didn't like it or it was boring, I just had a teacher who catered to the school board and I didn't want to play sports. So I was automatically on the"down curve" even if my test scores said otherwise. All bs aside, you make my love of history come alive again. I love your channel.
The 'low' was centered over NW Iowa, SE South Dakota and SW Minnesota, right where I live. Local cemeteries have headstones with lots of 1880/81 deaths. I guess I wondered but never looked into it. It's unimaginable how they survived that Winter and Spring without the infrastructure we have today.
My family also grew up in that area... Holstein, IA
They were hearty and resourceful, not as dependent and spoiled as many of us are today. Just think what folks would do if the stores and restaurants ran out of food today.
A reminder of the old saying , we will carry out the work, God and Weather Permitting.
If the Lord wills, and the river don't rise.
In the south we say, "God willing and the creek don't rise" :)
Or good lord willing and the crick don't rise
I remember reading 'The Long Winter on a 80 degree July day and shivering.
My dad grew up in Yankton SD as a kid we would go there on vacation in the van all the way from California. He said he moved to California because he never wanted to shovel snow again.
My Great Grandfather homesteaded in ND in 1879 and lived in a sod hut. Tuff Scandinavian ancestry is why I'm still here.
While most winters in the Upper Midwest are challenging in terms of wind, snow, and low temperatures, every now and then nature does a "Hold my beer" and outdoes itself. Over the years I have had several elderly people tell me about the equally severe winter of 1935-36 (which oddly enough was followed by the excessively hot, dry summer of 1936). People relate stories of having to tunnel under the snow drifts just to reach their barns, or walking on crusted snow and entering their home through a second floor window. Then there was the Armistice Day blizzard of 1940, which set it's own records.
I remember the "old timers" talking about that one. They travelled directly to and from town by horse and bobsled. All the fences and other barriers were under the snow cover, and didn't interfere with their travel. I believe that storm came between Christmas and new years. The country people who had cars never drove them that year till May. It was fun listening to their stories. Much like The History Guy's stories, but maybe not always as factual.
@@ronfullerton3162 l
Ron, the Armistice day blizzard was Nov. 12, 1940. Many hunters in Minnesota were caught unaware & froze to death !
@@billnaber2656 I just remembered a good one for that winter. My mother and father were married new years day, and Dad's folks had come by car to Mom's folks home for the wedding. After it was over, Dad's folks left for home hopeful to get there before the storm got too bad. They went about a half a mile and got stuck, and walked back. The men were unable to pull out the car with a team of horses, so someone else took them home a different route. They were unable to retrieve their car until early May. Their car was on one of the many roads that remained blocked all winter. Grandpa and Grandma still had a team and bobsled, so we're not without transportation.
I cannot remember if it was the winter before or after that one, but they had an inch of freezing rain fall in December that didn't melt for several months. When I was young, many of the barns in our area had "ice creepers" hanging on pegs or nails on the walls that the people had worn that winter and we're keeping "just in case".
I have previously heard of the "Snow Winter", but I thank the History Guy for reminding me. I shall henceforth stop bitching about the continual snow storms of February 2021.
I just got power back after it being out for a week and a half. Three ice storms in a row smacked us pretty hard here in eastern Kentucky. This story reminds me that I'm pretty lucky.
Don't forget the "Little Ice Age," which some experts assign a time span from about 1300 to about 1850. Most agree that is lasted from the 16th to the 19th centuries.
So, the "Little Ice Age," the "Long Winter;" Who do you think is responsible for those "global warming" events?
Man thinks they have power that they do not have. As for me, I'm certain that the Earth is completely unaware of the seven billion pieces of dust blowing about its surface. The Earth does what it does. Solar flares do what they do. We have no control over those things. So, my motto is . . . lay in a large supply of hot chocolate! LOL
Early on in the video you mentioned Grant Co, NE SD. I lived S of there in Codington Co. Parts if not all of Grant county lies in the Coteau Hills. Beautiful rolling hills in the summer and, from a distance, beautiful in the winter unless you want to drive through it after a blizzard. I was once up there talking to the sheriff. During the conversation he happened to say, "This is God's country" Upon being asked why he said it he replied, "Because no one else wants to live here!"
Just watched your video again. Again thanks.
I was in Iowa as a small boy during the blizzard in the late 1940's. As a young teenager, I was with the US Marines in a blizzard in the Sierra Nevada. If you have food and keep warm, a blizzard is no big deal. It is terrible if cold and without food. My adult friends who survived the Battle of the Bulge told me unforgettable stories.
The long winter sounds like my first marriage.
Ouch..!!!
🤣
... says the man with the photo of his cat.
@@meanmrmatt 🤣
@@meanmrmatt - He wasn't exaggerating then, was he?
The origin story of “You think this is bad? Why, when I was a kid the winters were so bad, the trains were buried over the tops of the engine smoke stacks! And I had to walk to school in those drifts, uphill, both ways, carrying my 3 siblings the entire way!”
With nothing to eat, and no shoes!
Aw, humor! Making the best of the worst! I have read books where the author's had compiled humorous one liners to stories told by the old timers during desperate times. As the Readers Digest section is named, "Humor is the best medicine".
“And we didn’t have food. We ate dirt! And we were grateful!”
@@redram5150 "That's right! Some people only had rocks to eat! We were grateful!"
I had to eat part of my younger sister but she survived and didn't seem any worse for wear.
This storm occurs at the tail end of a 500 year period called "the Little Ice Age".
Which is why some people think "global warming" is simply a long recovery from that cold spell.
@@wyominghome4857 Exactly!
Except now we have more than 7 Billion people all trying to out consume their neighbors. Tell me that can't make things worse.
Good observation!
Dude, we're STILL in the middle of an Ice Age.
My great Aunt Eighty was the eighth child and since the family had run out of names to name her, she was named 'Eighty'. She was born during the winter of 1880/81 too. Great video!
Oh, they ran out of names, did they? Hey, go nuts and crack open a Bible. Plenty of names in there!
@@maryerb6062 They probably would have as they were very fundamental Christians, except the family tradition at that time was to reuse family names.
Excellent. Would love to see a video about the Blizzard of 1899. Dallas hit its all time low of -8 degrees. That is significantly worse than what Texas just went through.
It was literally-13 with windchill last week.
@@donovanchilton5817 Too bad the wind chill concept wasn't developed until the 1930s. I can only imagine how low it must have been during the 1899 storm.
@@skenzyme81 Probably well into the -30s. Can't even imagine.
This reminded me of one of the great storms of our modern era. The “White Death” of 1977. The entire Niagara peninsula was covered as if by an avalanche. Houses completely buried. There are pictures of people walking at the level of street signs and of Police delivering medicines by snowmobile.
I remember that. That was an insane winter. Lake Erie froze over before Christmas. Fortunately we never lost power, but we did get quite a bit of snow. I remember drifts blocking the garage and the doors of the house.
The white death of 1977
I remember that year. I was 7 years old, and living North of Pittsburgh. It set precedent for what I expected winter, and snow levels, to be like for many years - but I never saw that amount of snow again.
I lived through the winter of 1977 as well. Here in SW Ohio the Ohio River froze solid after a record low of -25 Our power stayed on but we had no heat and my hands got chapped and we had to wear outdoor gear inside just to stay warm.
My Dad drove Grader in the Summer, and Snow Plow in the Winter for a township in Wisconsin. 1 Man 26 square miles took care of the roads. I was just a little Kid, and loved to ride with him as he busted through big snowdrifts. There were 5 of us kids, and we took turns. We mostly went along to keep him awake, but it was so much fun. Memories I will never forget! ❄️
I remember my father telling me about the winters of the late 1970s. Only way to get through town in Rockford was using snow mobiles or huge 4 wheel-drive trucks with chains on the tires. He had to shovel his roof off several times due to area roof collapses.
Later my parents moved to Davenport, IA where ironically the winters were more tame, although still very cold. Christmas of 1984 had a HIGH of -9.
Eventually my parents split and my father moved to south-central Texas where he enjoys the weather and telling me about it.
Great video! Kudos!
When people talk about the “good ole days...”
Growing up I had a number of relatives who were born in the 1800's. Heard a lot of stories about "the old days", but not much about the "good old days". Thinking back now, I believe a lot of the old days stories were prompted by "problems" of the younger people. I think a portion of the "good old days" were a state of bliss from not having instant communications saturating our lives 24/7.
@@jameshickok2349 , " The good old days, are gone forever/ that's why they're good, because they're gone...." from a song by Loudon Wainwright the IIIrd.
My grandfather wanted no part of the good old days but I do believe many things were better.
I remember the Blizzard of 78 here in Ohio, where we had 100 mile per hour winds up in Cleveland Ohio and 75 mile per hour winds down in Columbus Ohio.
My dad always mentions it. lol Southern IN here.
That winter is why I ended up being raised in Florida. :-)
I was living in southeast Iowa and was driving a bulk L-P gas truck during both the winters of 1977-78 and 1978-79. The first wasn't a nice winter, but the second was far worse. Winter started Thanksgiving day of 1978 and never stopped till later March. My son was born at home, the ambulance couldn't even get to us before he arrived. Great fun! If another ever catches up with me again I don't care. I am retired and will just stay in the house.
In the 1970" an ICE AGE was coming...
That was the narrative, and only the "experts" that went with the narrative got were
considered credible
I remember that, we were not allowed to go outside alone. for fear of not being able to make it back. The barn was only 100 yards away.
The winter of '49 was very wicked to. Thanks for this
I have to say I have truly enjoyed dozens of your presentations ! Its a joy to listen to someone who speaks well, articulates wonderfully and your enthusiasm for history is contagious to me and a great many others ! Thank you !
SO similar to the historic flooding in Honduras in November, 2020...2 cat 4/5 hurricanes in 2 weeks, LATE in the season, destroyed EVERYTHING & cut off communities for over 3 months. Extreme erosion along with numerous landslides, lost bridges, etc. Changed the landscape. Love the ending... people risked their lives, fed their neighbors and there was HOPE!
The blizzard reminds me of the one that hit just a few years ago in early October. Tens of thousands of cows died because they didn't have their full winter coat yet and the storm blew in fast and dropped a ton of snow. You always have to be prepared.
So sorry to hear that.
@Johnny White , climate *instability*. The result of the planet trying to process and dissipate excess heating.
New England got hit by a surprise snowstorm in October 2011 when many of the trees had not yet shed their leaf load. The trees accumulated far more heavy wet snow than they would have with bare limbs. Leafy suburbs lost so many trees that it looked as if a bomb had hit them. Cars were crushed, house roofs were crushed, roads were impassable; millions of people were without power and heat, and the outages lasted 4 to 7 days for most people.
Reminds me of a time in indiana. Really hot summer, so hot that a cornfield began popping right on the stalks. There was a cow pasture right next to it. You know cows aren’t very smart, and they saw all that popcorn falling and thought it was snowing. You know those cows stood right there and froze to death?
@@goodun2974 indeed, I call it global climate instability as well. The climate has been rather stable for the last 10,000 years but that can change quickly. The more heat you add, the more unstable it gets.
So pleased to see this section of history covered, being a Laura Ingalls Wilder fan. (Eliza Jane was Laura's sister-in-law. She was an older sister of Almanzo, Laura's husband.)
The Long Winter is one of my favorite books of all time. Well at least out of my 52 years of reading. Good video. Cheers from North Carolina
And events like this are why today we spend so much on radars, weather stations and space based weather assets like the GEOS satellites. So that people know what is brewing in the sky ahead of time.
on a side note that could be an interesting video on its own, the National Weather Service.
David Kearns, the beginnings of the National Weather Service were detailed in the excellent book "Sudden Sea", about the New England Hurricane of 1938 which actually rearranged parts of the coastline, and lifted trains off their tracks, depositing them a half mile farther inland. Weather forecasting as a science was so new that the mid-level bureaucrats didn't believe the scientists and forecasters and refused to issue public warnings, until it was too late.
BTW, when I was just a baby in 1959, my parents bought a cottage on Long Island Sound that had been built in 1939 from scavenged lumber that had floated ashore after the hurricane of '38. There wasn't a level or plumb surface in the entire place, everything was a little warped and twisted. I know this because my brother and I and my dad gutted the interior around 1971, installed new windows and paneling, and fixed it up to be rustic but comfy. Dad sold it around 1980, and us kids never forgave him for it.
Yup I live in Tornado alley and the sweep of those radars brings me great comfort. Now they have reached a point where they can predict outbreaks three days ahead. Plenty of time to plan.
Unless the commander-in-chief takes out his Sharpie and revises the storm path...
@@kesmarn 🤣
Yes they warn the people. Then the people can wait till the last minute or even later to do their panic buying.
The History Guy, Eliza Jane was Laura's sister in law. 😔
RIGHT! It upset me so much couldn't focus after hearing that! Their relationship never really healed. Puh, they were only related by marriage!
I caught that too!! Wish I could finish the video but there are far too many ads.
She also had an aunt named Eliza, and another named Jane. They were both Caroline's sisters, so that may be where his confusion came in.
@@hickoryrootfarmstead2700 Use the RUclips Ad Blocker. I never have to watch ads!!
Thank you!
When I know more than the documentary I'm watching, I don't really see the point in watching at all.
My favorite Laura Ingalls Wilder book.
Thank you! What a winter! My mom read Ingall's books to us, in addition to my personally reading them several times. Until now I had a distorted view of winters in that area, as also of the midwest and northeast in general. This changes my opinion of the northeastern parts of the US, a little...
For sure the death tolls were likelyquite a bit higher than reported. I think Natives would not have been included much. Wonder how the Natives faired?
The same year Great Britain also experienced extreme temperatures.
Heard of a story were a guy's grandfather and granduncle had been caught in a Dakota blizzard as children, year unknown. They got lost so they just pulled a blanket(s?) over themselves and fell asleep on the buckboard. When they awoke in the morning, they found themselves in the barn. They were saved by the ho rse'(s?) sense...
Well, that ending was just what I needed right about now. I think I'll take that to heart.
My Ex-Wife read the Wilder books to our Daughter and the Long Winter was quite a story.
A fictionalized work, but apparently largely accurate in its description of the storm.
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel As someone from minnesota, this was just a proper Minnesota winter :3 also thank you for the upload! :D
@@brendenhickman4198 Agreed, I'm from Northern Michigan. While it might be business as usual for us up in the North the South is just not prepared for such conditions. Every three years we much include in our budget funds for new snow tires (nothing as satisfying as driving on a fresh set of snow tires when your out on the road before the plow trucks).
@@TheHistoryGuyChannel Wilders telling taught me an enormous amount about human survival.
True Grit!:-| 🖖
@@brendenhickman4198 Sure fella, sure. 🙄
I grew up a few miles from the Laura Ingles homestead. I still live in SW MN. This was great to listen too as I'm familiar with all the towns you mentioned. Winters can still be long but I can't imagine what the old timers went through. Nowadays we have such better infrastructure in place with large machinery that can move snow. They can usually have the main highways opened up in 24 hours.
I remember the Blizzard of '78!
In Oregon, we just survived an ice storm of particular ferocity. We were without power, water or transportation for 10 days. Your video put things in perspective.
Yep. I have a Facebook friend living there: Oz D du Soleil. Luckily, he was able to stay with a friend. In times like this, its hard to avoid contact even knowing COVID might be lying in wait in a host's home. What can we do?
The year 1816 was the year without a summer. There was frost nearly every month in the upper Midwest.
Thank you Mt Tambora
I asked Siri the other day when winter will end and she said March 2022 😰 not 2021
@@ElinWinblad That is funny, or scary and that depends on which is right.
THG has a video about that one too. Very well done.
@@b_uppy Having erupted the year before.
Just watched the long, hard winter of 1949 documentary. The hardships were almost unbelievable. Native Americans got a brief mention probably because they were isolated and some were only reached by April! Homes had no insulation then. Snow blew through any openings;even keyholes! Can't imagine surviving in a canvas teepee! President Truman finally sent in the military to rescue the residents and livestock in that vast area. Once the winter passed, the job of rebuilding and cleanup began. We must count our blessings and be grateful to God for not being tested like this. 🙌 Tysm for this wonderful channel! Keeps things in perspective.
Been there, done that. I recall at least three times our family had to dig our house out of well over twenty foot snow drifts that completely covered the front half of many homes along the street. The street looked like a snowy canyon, because of the massive drifts. Everyone just called it "lake effect," due to our proximity to Lake Michigan. I got a small amount of satisfaction from all of the digging/shoveling and that was my sisters shoveling right along side me, which had never happened, prior to that first blizzard, in '66(?); it was always me and my Dad doing the shoveling and mostly to get him to work. I enjoyed it so much that my folks asked why I was smiling/grinning, to which I responded, "I'm happy to see them [my sisters] shoveling snow and not watching me from the livingroom window, for a change."
I think Eliza Jane was Laura’s teacher, then her sister-in-law. She is described in “Farmer Boy” by Laura as eventually being one of Almonzo’s favorite siblings.
When their daughter Rose had maxed out the available schooling in their home in Mansfield, MO, Laura and Almanzo sent her to Eliza Jane in Louisiana for the last two years of high school, so they were close enough to trust their daughter to her, regardless of Laura’s initial issues with her.
Yes, she was. I was hoping to find a comment about that high in the list, and by golly, THG's viewers did not disappoint. Nice to see a guy who knows LIW's oeuvre so well. I can't even get my husband to read *Farmer Boy* but I may be doing something wrong. What aspects of the books grab your attention most?
@@haplessasshole9615 Farmer Boy is not one of my favorites but I read it twice nonetheless.
This is the most comprehensive report I have seen about it. The Plains were indeed a tough place to live.
@@haplessasshole9615
It talks about a resourceful family who had a lot figured out. I admired the family.
Experienced my one and only blizzard of 2006 in Denver. Was driving an armored truck for Loomis when it hit.
You can't eat money. 🙂
@@janisbentzen4503 🤣 No you can't. Not good for the digestive system. Took 3 hours to get back to the terminal.
That makes 2 of us. I was in Denver on business the day it hit. The deicing machine hit my plane shortly before takeoff. I was lucky to get out a few hours later to return home.
@@ccreel64 Yes I can imagine having to have the plane clear before takeoff.
Colorado native of over 4 decades here-- that 2006-2007 winter stands out in my mind as the worst winter of my life here, even worse than the great Blizzard of 1982 or the bad October blizzard of 1997. That six weeks in a row we were hit with bad snow storms each weekend was crazy for Denver, especially in December-January when March and April are our typical big snow months. My hatred of snow grew from surviving that year, but unfortunately I've yet to be able to move south to a warmer state like I long to do. I shudder at the thought of enduring the winter of 1880-81 in the northern Plains!
Thank you very much sir...you make every subject interesting. I've learn not to skip one episode.
I love Laura Ingalls Wilder book "The Long Winter". I read it everytime we have a blizzard.
And 150 years later we have weather forecasting.
People still did not get ready.
Right??!!! Go to the grocery store early, but a shovel, firewood, full up your gas tank, check your tire pressure, flashlights, batteries, extra water and food if power goes out, extra blankets, tent, MREs are pretty good and you don't need heat to heat than up:) Better yet, but certain items off season when they're on sale!! Tent, sleeping bags, etc:)
@@pinkrose5796 The real problem here is many have not had a paycheck or have had a limited check for a long time.
These are the people that are in trouble and the ones we need to help.
@@shawnr771 Your point of view does make sense.
I would hope that everyone can be thinking ahead and be prepared to the best of their budget and abilities.
I think preparedness is a long term habit, not a last minute $1000 rampage through a local store when weather hits.
@@endutubecensorship Me also.
I am just saying that many of the people who were severely affected by this storm did not have the financial means to do that.
Some did, some did not.
There are 1000s of homeless who winter on the streets of Austin, San Antonio and Houston.
There are many extremely low income residents that were hungry because of lack of adequate food prior to the storm.
They had no ability to stock up.
There are many residents who are still only partially working because of the pandemic.
People who had the means should have done exactly that.
Riddle me this?
Fled Cancun has a wife who is a Wall Street Banker.
How come there house does not have a generator?
@@shawnr771 Absolutely those are, as you said, the vulnerable. There is unfortunately no one answer to the problem but help for those people is needed.
Answer to the riddle:
Large amounts of money and the lifestyle that goes with it create epic levels of complacency. Lack of "normal people" problems allows the inability to foresee future problems.
That's my take anyway
I live in N. Iowa. We can get so much stuff it's piled on the curb so high you cant see anyone coming at the intersections. We tie rags onto our radio antennas so you can be seen. Or we used to. Nowadays most cars have built-in antennas. Its kinda funny to look over and see a seemingly disembodied rag coming. lol
My husband and I enjoyed this about the long winter.
I remember reading about it also in one of the"Little House On The Prairie" book's.
I've always been a fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her family and loved the show.There was actually a show one time that was about a serious blizzard I remember well watching.
Thank you very much for sharing such enjoyable history like this.
We've been watching you now for about three years.
God bless.
Having read The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder to my daughter 20+ years ago now, I'm grateful that although I can remember a winter with an October blizzard (1997) and a March blizzard (1998), we had plenty of breaks in between with no deprivation and few wants going unmet. Certainly, I have never twisted hay or grass to make fuel for a fire as mentioned both in your video and in the book, but it must be hell on your cold fingers!
Very good as usual.
I feel really old... " When I was a kid in winter 1973 & 1974... I still can not do fractions because we missed so much school due to blizzards and snow fall"
Oral history of Miss Dae duBois circa 2021
Hilarious!😂
Thank you for this piece of history. My Great Grandfather arrived from Germany and by 1876 was a farmer in Dodge County, WI. He and his family survived this season.
My great-grandfather was building houses in Milwaukee in 1880. I didn't know about windows blowing in. I expect he got some work out of that. I can concur that the winter wind off Lake Michigan is simply vicious.
@@erynlasgalen1949 most winds blow toward the lake, %95 of the time, at least where I live.
@@travelinman790 I live about 25 miles out to the west, and indeed, the prevailing winds are from the southwest. The way all our trees lean reflects that. But that other small percentage of the time, boy howdy! I know we're in for odd weather when the wind come from the east. When I say the wind off the lake in the winter is vicious, I'm recalling to memory an office Christmas party held at the Milwaukee Yacht Club. The feeling of braving that parking lot in evening clothes and then getting into a two-seater Fiat Spyder convertible with a heater best described as feeble is something you never forget. We lost a mature black walnut tree to a blast from the east in a summer storm a few years ago.
For every generation, it's always "the worst it's ever been!!!" It's really not, and everything will be just fine. Thanks History Guy.
And that's where detailed knowledge of history is valuable. It puts our current circumstances into perspective. No, its been a LOT worse many many times over.
hOW dArE YoU !
Except when climate change eventually catches up to us.
Sure it's been worse before... but that doesn't mean it's not *pretty flippin' bad right now.*
@@EU_Red_Fox Drink the Koolaid.. Those in power will fuck us all over long before that. PS do more research specifically to the distant past, the sun, and human behavior and society.