David Laskin's meticulously researched novel of the Dakota/Nebraska blizzard of 1888 is a heart-wrenching yet beautiful work of literature. He painfully describes the struggles of early settlers from Norway, Sweden and German Russia as they left their homes and countries behind for the promises of easy and fertile farming in the Great Plains of the United States, along with the monetary rewards for their labors. These emigrants found life here not to be anything like the U.S. railroads had ensured, for it was their brochures that lured people across the seas. Land was abundant and free, but many settlers still struggled through harsh seasons. Laskin follows several families from the beginning of their sojourn to the harsh reality of their destination.
Laskin's portrayal of the Signal Corps, which served as the weather forecasting entity of the time is very reminiscent of Erik Larsen's phenomenal Isaac's Storm. The Signal Corps at the time of the blizzard of 1888 and the Galveston hurricane of 1900 (Larsen's work) was rife with politics, drama and bureaucracy. Regulations had to be followed to the letter. Words like "cold front" and "hurricane" were only to be used under strict circumstances or forbidden entirely. The men of the Signal Corps, who took daily readings of temperature, barometric pressure and wind speed, were often arrogant to the point of delusional. So confident were they in their abilities to predict the weather that they felt the weather phenomenon had ceased to be a mystery. The main observer in The Children's Blizzard does not or refuses to recognize the clear and concise data that is available to him that a massive and dangerous blizzard is descending from Canada. Just like the Signal Corps in Galveston that fateful September in 1900 who considered the Cuban weather observers to be far less knowledgeable than them and actually tried to suppress information from Cuba that an enormous hurricane was heading for the Texas Gulf Coast.
What makes The Children's Blizzard much more tragic, even though a more deadly blizzard struck New York City a few years later, was the fact that so many of the Dakota/Nebraska victims were children. The storm hit on an unusually warm day in mid-January just as school was let out for the day. Scores of children were caught unaware on the open plains. Some were lucky and found shelter and safety. So many were not and froze to death.
Laskin interviewed survivors' descendants and scoured hundreds of historical records, newspaper accounts and genealogical charts to piece together an hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute recreation of the unfortunate settlers as the ferocious storm hit, changing their lives forever. He tells the stories of teachers trying to save students, frantic parents wandering out in the storm to find children and siblings trying to protect each other as the blizzard became so violent that survivors said that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.
It is heart-breaking to read the accounts of men and women who lost children after thinking they were safe at school only to find their frozen bodies the next day. Laskin pulls no punches in describing parents' grief in the days following the disaster.
Fortunately the Great Plains have not known a tragedy like this since weather forecasting models can more accurately predict weather patterns and warn citizens ahead of time. Modern technology has also advanced such that severely frost bitten or frozen people may be resuscitated. Had such conveniences had been realized then, the death toll would certainly have been lower.
Laskin's acknowledgements and sources, which are cited at the end of the book, are nearly as exciting as the story itself. The resources he relied upon to reproduce such intricate tales seems almost insurmountable. But in The Children's Blizzard, Larsen weaves a story that feels like a suspense novel but tugs hard at the heartstrings.
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previously published on ezinearticles.com)
